Of Being A Half-Banana

According to Deepak, I am a half-banana. God, I don't know what that means (thoughts of a memorable orientation day seeps through my mind) I retort by calling him a coconut, so tit for tat. With that in mind, many people don't know that I can speak, write and read not-so-fluent-ly Chinese. What suprises them more is that I studied Chinese until Secondary 4 and if you can count with the fingers on your hands, that is a very, very long time. They claim I speak English like someone who doesn't know how to speak Chinese (if that was even possible)

The best (or worst) part is that when I start spouting Mandarin, I sound worse compared to my counterparts who have not studied it as long as I did. People say I have an accent. My former teacher said I sound like an ang moh (translation: Caucasian, meaning: your Chinese sucks) I guess thats what you get for speaking English all the time. I blame globalisation.

My parents have officially given up on me and my lack of speaking Chinese. They got rid of the Nanyang Siang Pao in my house because no one save themselves reads it and replaced it with the Star ( a solution which I am confortable with, as I don't need a dictionary beside me) Now, conversations at home is a rojak of English and Chinese. If I can't find any words in Chinese to fit particular conversation, I will start speaking in English. Even my uncles and aunts have gotten into the hype and treat me like some foreigner. They will speak to their other nephews and nieces in Mandarin and turn to me and speak in English. Sigh.

And to think that all I wanted was to impress cute Chinese chicks.