There are times when you’ll encounter people who are up for a chat and will talk away. But you don’t want to talk and want to avoid them.
You might wonder: how do you stop talking to someone without being rude? How do you end a conversation politely, especially if the other person won’t stop talking?
Sometimes you’re in the middle of something and talking isn’t ideal. Perhaps you’re avoiding the person talking to you altogether. Or you’re not in the mood for talking and it’s just bad timing.
The recent rise in Asian hate crimes is alarming. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, many Asian communities are facing a lot more racist attacks and discrimination, fearing for their safety.
Asian-American health workers have been spat on and accused of spreading the ‘Chinese virus’ in the US. Six Asian women were killed in the Atlanta spa shootings this year. In New York, an elderly Asian woman was kicked on the streets as bystanders watched on.
Such harassment has also been felt here in Australia. 8 out of 10 Asian Australians reported facing discrimination during the pandemic. Chinese Australians experienced verbal and physical assaults going about their day.
It is common for Eastern and Western cultures to communicate differently in everyday settings.
Between these two cultures, there are different patterns in speech, languages used, articulation techniques and emotional cues expressed.
At times stereotypical Eastern societies and Western societies express themselves in conflicting ways. Sometimes this can make doing business or socialising together challenging.
Not all of us can speak our mother tongue. Just because we look a certain way doesn’t mean we speak or write a certain language.
The dialect Cantonese runs in my Chinese-Malaysian family. My parents, great-grandparents, uncles, aunts and extended family speak it fluently (and Mandarin too). While I have no trouble listening and understanding a conversation in Cantonese, the language doesn’t come easy to me when I speak it.
The languages we speak, and wish to speak, are a reflection of who we are | Weekly Photo Challenge: Wish.
Defining mother tongue can be tricky as I’ve blogged about here. It can be what we call our native language. Or family language. It could even be our second language. For this post, let’s refer to it as the language from the motherland – the lands where our family are from, the languages our ancestors spoke throughout centuries.
When we are home, the language we speak may come naturally to us. Or not. Depending on who we’re talking to at home, we may switch between speaking multiple languages and that can either be easy, or a bit of an effort.
I was born in Australia, and English is the main language of instruction in this country. It is my first language and that was what I spoke to my teachers and classmates at school. But behind closed doors back then and up until today, I speak a mixture of English, broken English and broken Cantonese; Cantonese is my Chinese-Malaysian parents’ first language.
Behind each door can be one or many languages spoken.
It can be tricky defining “first language” and “mother tongue”. In general, the terms refer to the language(s) we speak at home, and/or the languages spoken by family. As there are more diverse families around and we get opportunities to live in different places, it’s becoming more common for many of us to speak more than one language at home.
Talking about language is confusing. Mother tongue, first language, native language and so on, we all define these phrases differently. And each of these definitions aren’t wrong at all since each phrase holds different meanings for each of us.
The other weekend I thought about this as I walked through the shopping centre near my place. Walking briskly, I passed by the stall selling organic beauty products, passed right in front of a middle-aged-looking Caucasian female stall attendant.
Languages help us get along with one another. Including body language | Weekly Photo Challenge: Afloat.
“Ni hao!” she exclaimed. I slowed my walking speed. What? She’s assuming I understand Chinese. Assuming that Mandarin is my mother tongue, which isn’t. It’s Cantonese. No, wait. My family speak Chinese too…so it’s also my mother tongue…
Mabel Kwong 