Bilinguality at a Young Age and How It Shapes Who We Are as People
What are we without words? What are we, without language—our connection to ourselves and to those around us? Would we, perhaps, succumb to our natural instincts, and return to our most primal and therefore isolated forms? Our ancestors created languages in an attempt to be able to bridge the gap between person to person, so we could bind together. Be a collective. So, we wouldn’t feel so alone in this vast world, despite the fact that, perchance, we are. Though stripped of everything else, we would still have language to be able to comfort ourselves in our misery. For, what is self-pity, if not done with flowery vocab?
I was born in Wuhan, China, and I lived there until almost the age of five. I spent a large portion of my early childhood hanging around in malls, breakfast stalls, and along the Yangtze River. Every day, I’d witness the hustle and bustle of the big city as the world went by all around me. I led a relatively serene life: attending kindergarten, enjoying my grandma’s cooking, playing with friends, and occasionally watching a movie then having dinner at a nearby mall. At that time, Mandarin Chinese was the only language I knew. My family spoke it, my friends and teachers… I even spoke it to myself. It was the foundation of the narrow world little me perceived as “home”. It was the mother tongue that nurtured me and took me into its arms during my very first stages of life. When my young soul was developing its very first intuitions and sparks of personality, it was present to guide me through all the challenges and hardships that came with it.
However, that bubble of comfort soon popped. My parents and I moved to Orange County, California in the summer of 2015. It was incomprehensible to me that other worlds and other languages existed outside of the amenities of my home country and my mother tongue.
And this place was so different from anything I’d ever known. The people looked different, they spoke a completely different language, and the workings of society were different. Nothing was quite the same as before. And most crucially, I did not speak the language. Back then, English did not come to me naturally the way it does now. Much to my surprise, however, I was able to get accustomed to it quicker than expected. Although, this journey of language mastery was not without its own struggles. I had an obsession with pronouncing every single word in my new language perfectly. It comes from the desire to belong, and to be accepted by the native speakers who I interacted with every day. So, they could detect, just from the sound of my voice, how much I craved to be fluent like them. I still reminisce about the time when I could not pronounce the word “squirrel”, and instead, tried to say the word “square”, warping it to sound as similar as possible. On early morning walks in the park with my mother, I would gaze attentively into the trees and try spotting one or two. Even now, I can vividly recall the rustling of foliage as the small creatures scampered from one branch to another, causing a few dried leaves to fall in the process. Then I would repeat it, that word, and repeat it, and repeat it again until it sounded like a native to my own, foreign ears.
Though, even now, throughout my many years of proficiency in the English language, there always seems to be something missing. There was simply a lack of connection between the two of us. Something deeper than surface level understanding and comprehension. To me, although I love both for what they are, Chinese has always felt more like a lukewarm cup of tea made by a mother’s careful hands after a long day. But English, has always felt distant, in a way.
During that period of learning, especially, I felt extremely tied to the Chinese language. It felt like the only solace I had in this place where I knew nothing, and I had no one. You see, many Chinese American children have either lost, or never even acquired the ability to speak Mandarin. And I’ve always wondered, what would it be like if I’d lost it too? I can’t begin to fathom the idea of only being able to speak English. Would I even be the same person? Would I still be seen the same way by my relatives? What about when I was visiting China and needed to communicate with someone, but had no way to do so due to my broken Chinese? Because I admit that I am indeed not as fluent as I was and could be. I motivate myself to still try. I continue to push myself to get better, and I strive to speak, read, and write in it. Even when it feels like I’ve drowned in an overwhelming ocean of American English, Chinese feels like a lone lighthouse guiding me back to my place in the world. It is my unity with my language that ties me down and hones me when I’m lost in a trance. We’ve been through so much together. There is no one I can thank more for aiding me though this treacherous sea that is life. And so, I would like to offer it my eternal gratitude, for its unity with me even when I may have tried to stray away. Its beauty is something that simply cannot be fully understood and appreciated by those who do not commit to learning it. 我想感谢我的母语，中文：谢谢您给予我幼小心灵的呵护。Thank you for always being there for me, keeping me grounded to my culture, my values, and everything in between.