Family

I just had the most ridiculous conversation. I was chatting with one of those China Chinese people, and I was asked why I didn't speak in Mandarin. The next question was whether I could speak Chinese at all. I assured her that I could speak Chinese, but nowhere near as fluently as English. This being the case, in addition to my being in the middle of New England, I quite naturally used English almost exclusively, even in my conversations with Chinese speakers. In fact, I saw no reason to deliberately switch languages when I am in an English-speaking country, since while the party I am speaking to may not possess perfect English language skills, my Chinese language skills are not perfect either, and so by default due to everyone else around us being unable to understand Chinese, any conversations should be held in English. Voila, a Pareto improvement. Don't you like that old fellow? Always useful in an argument.

Anyway, so she replies that it is a failing of mine that I do not speak perfect Chinese. In fact, I should make the utmost effort to ensure that my Chinese is up to the mark before making any attempt to perfect my English or any other foreign language.

My reply was that I saw no reason for prioritising Chinese over any other language. In fact, I personally feel that while it is useful to be able to speak and understand Chinese, it would be no less useful to have a grasp of French or German.

But it is the language of my ancestors, my dear China girl cries. I have a responsibility to know the language and to know it well. Every Chinese person should be able to speak Chinese well, for we should take pride in what our ancestors have achieved.

I ended the conversation here, for I was weary of it, but I would like to note that this is an utterly ridiculous argument. To start with, I have great doubts over how many of my ancestors spoke Mandarin. I do not know if Mandarin was spoken on Hainan, but in Canton, Caozhou and wherever else it is that my ancestors hailed from, I am fairly certain that a good number of them had no Mandarin skills. In fact, both my grandmothers do not speak it. So by that criteria alone, I have no ancestral obligation to speak Mandarin. If anything, I should be learning more Teochew and Hainanese and whatever else is relevant.

Also consider that it is highly unlikely that the Mandarin of today is anything like the language spoken by those who did speak its precursor. Simply observe the written language. I certainly could not read the Chinese characters of a mere thousand years ago. While the spoken word does not parallel the written exactly, it is nevertheless an indication of how much a language can change in a fairly short period of time. English is less than a millennium in age, yet the conventions are now considered to be inflexible and absolute in some quarters. Chances are that even if no other dialects are to be found in the ancestral bloodline of a person, after tracing the line back a hundred generations or so, any conversation would be impossible, simply because the language is nothing alike. Am I to attempt to discover what changes have occurred in the language since its inception and deconstruct the current lingo in order to speak as my ancestors did? It is as ridiculous as it sounds.

Taking the idea further, one must realise that tracing things back far enough, we all share an ancestor. Should then all the peoples of the world make a concerted effort to discover the primeval language spoken by that savage common ancestor and use it? We would be reduced to grunting and gesticulating a great deal, I suspect. The human race was once nothing more than a collection of animals, do not forget. In fact, we still are. It would be foolish to take inordinae pride in any accomplishments of a culture or nation.

Allow me to explain. If I were to look at the first Chinese astronaut and proclaim that I felt pride swell in my chest because he has accomplished something for my race, then I am saying the exact same thing as taking pride in a dog learning to perform tricks. I am not related to this astronaut by any way except by a ancestor many generations above me. Why should I take any personal pride in him and his accomplishments? The dog is also related to me by a common ancestor, albeit many more generations up than the one I share with the astronaut. It is only a matter of numbers that separates my feeling pride when a Chinese man accomplishes the extraordinary, and feeling the same pride when some animal manages something equally beyond its usual capabilities. It is the deluded who takes pride in the Chinese culture, or the English tradition, or the achievements of the human race. I have little more identification with any other Chinese person than I do with a fly. It is all a matter of numbers of generations to trace back. Simply because it is beyond conception or memory means nothing. To use those as excuses is to admit one's own limitations as a thinking being. How can we marvel at the discrimination between human races decades past if we apply the exact same standards to the larger race we find ourselves in?

Therein lies my impassivity to prejudice and discrimination. I have no problem with my own possession of it, or with being the object of it, for it is simply impossible to eliminate. We naturally discriminate against most of the larger family of life on earth, for it is near impossible to find sympathy for the housefly, or the earthworm, or the oak tree, or the bacteria on our skins. And if we cannot apply the same rules to all the members of this massive extended family we find ourselves in, why should we take care to apply them to any single group in particular?