Monday, August 02, 2004
are you chinese?
i had a mortifying cab experience this morning."Xiao qie, yao chi na li? cabbie uncle
"er...chi amoy street"
"amoy street na li?" cabbie
" amoy street er....next to telok ayer street..."
" ni shi hua ren mah? ni de hua yu hao xiang bu yi yang oh..." cabbie
he then went on and on about how competent and impressive some japanese and caucasians are in mandarin and yet i'm chinese and not able to converse without breaking into english again. the rude man proceeded to snigger after his annoying lecture on yellow people who can't speak proficient mandarin.
instead of being annoyed at the sodding rude ass driver, i felt embarrassment pouring out of my yellow skin. an american born chinese can certainly be excused for his non-fluency but a singaporean chinese like me doesn't have a valid excuse does she?
or is it cos i grew up in a non-chinese speaking household? my dad speaks mandarin like a white man. my mom speaks mainly cantonese. and my grand folks rattle off in cantonese and hokkien. so where's the mandarin? or does it really matter how accurate we articulate our words as long as the listener grasps the gist?
what does being chinese mean? Am i being defined as "Hi. I'm yellow and i speak kick ass mandarin."
bee wrote this at 6:48 PM
2peekaboos
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At 10:26 AM,
said...
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>what does being chinese mean?
depends on whom you are comparing yourself with. so, you'll be more chinese than an ABC, and less compare to the cabbie. but i see you as a perfect chinese who eat wanton noodles. see?
museting
bee said...
tony tony...i eat tim sum with chopsticks and therefore i'm chinese.
