Growing up I only really spoke English, many of the kids I knew spoke at least two languages which were Cantonese or mandarin. Even though I went to a predominantly Chinese school and was taught a little bit in preschool it never really stuck with me because I had trouble speaking English as a kid.

I would walk into the lunchroom I would hear the chatter of other students speaking Cantonese as I would try and find a seat to sit at and would think to myself what if they are saying bad things about me and I don’t know? Over time I started to understand what the words meant because when my grandma would be watching me and my siblings we would there was a huge language barrier so since I understood the most I was relied on to translate whenever she would ask us anything.

I did have two older brothers who are half but I consider full who would be there and help with the talking because I was also a pretty shy kid and didn’t really like to talk a lot so it came out in my favor sometimes. Whenever I would go out with my mom and we would run into my mom’s friends they would come up to me speaking Cantonese and my mom would tell them “oh she can understand you but she can’t speak the words”.

It kinda felt like I was a letdown just not being able to hold a simple conversation with someone because I would see the way their face changed and I could tell it was not a good one. especially when it came to the Chinese new year which is a huge tradition for Chinese people. People celebrate a 2week long event by going around to different family members and giving out red envelopes filled with cash and other goodies as respect your expected to speak in Cantonese in order to get your red envelope as a kid.

A common phrase that would be used when you received the money was “Kung Hei fat choy” which means happy new year in Cantonese. I was always excited to walk around during that time and see the dragons dancing, which to this day is a dream for me to do but I’m always scared that I won’t fit in even though it’s my own culture. Not being able to speak Chinese really pulled a toll on me because as I got older my grandma got older which meant she was gonna pass away soon. I still couldn’t speak the language so I never got to say goodbye or even try to talk to her about her day or how she was feeling because I kept thinking that I wasn’t good at the language thinking she would not be able to understand me.

Now that I’m older I wanna learn the language so that one day I can teach my children, and they can then carry it onto their children. I wouldn’t want it to become a dead language, because it already is starting to, since it’s not one of the more spoken ones in mainland china. I tend to realize that as I get older people are always learning new languages even if they don’t come to from those places, for example, this one YouTuber Xiaomi who speaks multiple languages from many different places always loves to immerse himself in the culture whether that’s food or music, Or even on popular holidays, it is always great to see the reaction of people who speak the language because it shocks the local community. and shows that they have some sort of appreciation towards the culture and language. Growing up walking through Chinatown I would always smell the stinky fish that I