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Mangling Mandarin on my Taiwan trip, getting in touch with my Chinese identity
A week of broken Mandarin, accidental Cantonese, and listening to Taiyu brought the writer closer to her racial identity.
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A street in Taipei. The writer found that during her Taiwan trip, she surprisingly blurted out phrases in Cantonese when she was struggling to say precisely what she wanted in Mandarin.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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After a week of broken Mandarin, “talking like a chicken to a duck”, and accidental Cantonese in Taiwan, I felt more in touch with my Chinese identity than I have for years in Singapore, where my Singaporean identity eclipses the racial one.
I also realised I was wrong to stupidly feel, by turns, shy and superior when my friend bravely soldiered on in Mandarin, accidentally saying “dou nao” or bean brain when she meant to say “tou nao” – brain or, literally, head brain.
