I Speak A Grand Total of 1.5 Languages

Being a receptive bilingual is a struggle.

Have you ever felt like someone was talking about you, then caught them in the act?

I’m able to do that in another language, the Filipino national language Tagalog, but my comebacks will sadly be in English.

There is no bigger brain block than that of a receptive bilingual kid. Being able to understand a language but not speak it has led to so much frustration for me.

It’s the mental equivalent of gazing at a transparent wall, seeing a bunch of people laughing and conversing on the other side, but being unable to do anything except bang your fists against it helplessly.

I am a Chinese-Filipino who grew up in Hong Kong, then moved to Canada as a teenager. My cultural identity is already a hodgepodge of racial confusion with a hefty dose of Westernization dumped in.

English is the only language I am fluent in. Despite having grown up abroad, I went to a school that penalized the speaking of other languages besides English. They drilled that English superiority into us early.

My parents speak Tagalog at home and I took lessons in the Philippines one summer. Those lessons unlocked a vault of some sort in my brain, and I could finally make sense of conversations around me.

Too bad it isn’t actually that helpful in the Philippines, a country where hundreds of languages spoken. My mom is fluent in two additional languages besides Tagalog, and I had a massive headache trying to understand her relatives.

Any receptive bilingual kid knows the weight of disappointment from family relatives. I always had to say, “I only understand Tagalog, I don’t speak it.”

“Intindihan ko lang, po.” I only understand — the one phrase I rehearsed over and over.

Over and over, I would see the look of disappointment fill any of my relatives’ eyes, a click of their tongue. They would tell me to practice, to commit to learning the language. It’s hard to commit when your pronunciation is constantly made fun of though.

I hate this state of in-betweenness. By all accounts, I should be bilingual, or trilingual even. My tongue shouldn’t be this bumbling muscle in my mouth, trying to stumble over words that make perfect sense in my brain.

This inability to speak multiple languages always contributed to that sense of alienation I felt in Asia. Despite looking like everyone around me, I talked like a foreigner. Even when I visit Hong Kong or the Philippines now, I feel like a tourist, despite having been there multiple times.

Who would’ve guessed that the words coming out of your mouth would be heavily associated with the blood flowing through your veins?

I feel most at home in Canada, where everyone around me speaks English and looks different from one another. I don’t think I’ll ever feel fully comfortable in my Chinese-Filipino identity. It is a part of who I am, but so is my upbringing in an international school with a Canadian curriculum.

My receptive bilingualism is like a skin that I can’t shed. It’s there, it’s present. It’s a reminder that I have something tethering me to my background, however loose of a thread it may be.

I guess I can take consolation in the fact that people can’t talk shit about me in Tagalog. I’ll know.

Another one about my cultural upbringing:

Everywheres and Nowheres

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