Just Try

            The sounds of screaming, people talking over each other and what sounds like an argument brewing, but it isn’t an argument. It’s just our family speaking a dialect of Chinese.  Every night we eat dinner together, me, my mom, dad, Anne, Andrew, and my older sister. If someone is ever running late, and will be eating dinner with us, we’ll always wait for them. But for me, dinner is just eating. That’s because I can’t understand what they’re saying. We speak a dialect of Chinese that even my parents are unsure of what it is in English, so we just call it Ningbonese, coming from the region, Ningbo, that is closest to the island where my parents grew up. But I was never pressured to learn the language, so I became insecure to speak, knowing that I couldn’t form complete sentences and talk to my parents without stuttering and forgetting the right words.

            One day, I wasn’t in a good mood, so I left the dinner table early and went to my room. But shortly after, mom came in and said “tza nong maina fa wo? nong fu-sha-da tza wo, nong ho try. Ha nong fa try to learn nong maina way wo.” Why don’t you ever speak? If you don’t know how to say it, you can try. If you don’t try to learn, you won’t talk. As she was talking, I thought about the trip that my parents and older sister had planned, a trip to China for a month, they’ll be leaving on September 22. At that moment, I felt that I had to do something where I won’t be insecure anymore of not being able to understand and speak my native language, so that I can finally communicate to my grandparents, who know so little English. So, the next day, I started learning by numbers from 1 to 10. “ ie, nee, se, su, oung, la, che, ba, ju, zhou”. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. I’m not sure how you’re supposed to spell it, but for me to try to memorize the words, I try to spell it how it sounds. 

            Every day for a week, someone would say a number and I would have to repeat it in Chinese. It took me a while to have it memorized and known, but eventually I did. After that, I felt more comfortable and actually went with my dad to go grocery shopping. I always avoided it because I would never know what he’s saying and I would just stand there silent and looking at the produce. But I was determined to learn, and on the drive, I asked “tza wo taw-pwo” How do you say money. “nong kichi gas, su su que ju ga ju”. You see the gas price, 4.99. “Dollar nong wo que, 10 cents wo ga ya 1 cent wo fung”. Dollar, you say que, 10 cents you say ga and one cent you say fung. So now whenever I go to the grocery store, I look at the price and say it in my head repeatedly. When he’s looking at the price of veggies, I would tell him the price out loud so I can practice but also because his eyes aren’t the best. In the car, I would always hear one of dad’s favorite songs playing, and it’s a chinese song that I could never understand, but I like the music, and listening to it, I hope that one day I can finally understand the lyrics to one of dad’s favorite songs (Song). Every day I slowly learned new words and phrases, where now I can start having some conversations with my family. I glowed every time my parents would understand what I said and would compliment how much better I’ve gotten to speaking. I practiced, practiced, and practiced, so I can finally speak ningbonese, so I don’t feel insecure whenever I want to speak, and so I can finally learn and be a part of where my parents are from. 

            I was proud to finally be able to speak and understand what my parents are talking about, some of the time. But when I started speaking to my grandparents, who spoke very little English, making it harder for me to speak with them, I was able to fully make a conversation with them. When I started talking, I couldn’t stop smiling and lightly laughing.

I was amazed at how much farther I had gone, from speaking broken Chinese, to making full sentences and speaking with my grandparents. 

            Even now, at the moment I’m writing this, my parents and my older sister are gone from the house for about 32 days and 7,438 miles away. That means I’m with my grandparents and put to the test on how far I’ve really gone. It will require both time and patience because I will also have to learn from them, as they slowly learned English from us.  Through learning from numbers to phrases, I feel more confident in my speaking skills, knowing that if I continue learning, I can converse fully in our dialect.