am often amazed by the fact that I can overhear people’s private conversations in public places. I still can't believe that I can actually understand what is being said on some of the mobile phone conversations I inevitably catch while being out in public. So why should this be so significant as to warrant it being brought up here and now? Admittedly, this should be a potentially embarrassing situation for all parties involved, but it happens so often that no one ever thinks about it. Wouldn’t it be better if people discussed private matters in public using a secret language that only they would understand amongst themselves? I once had that faculty. It does not exist anymore.

n Taiwan of the 1970s, the native Taiwanese language-- mother tongue of over 70% of the population-- was discouraged from being used in public by the authoritarian Nationalist Chinese regime led by the Kuomintang. Needless to say, the Taiwanese language was not taught in schools, and everyone was coerced, to some extent, to speak the language of the mainland Chinese elite who ran the show in Taiwan. Even as a child of kindergarten age, I felt the pressure to speak only Mandarin Chinese in the presence of other people. I would only speak Chinese in public, and Taiwanese remained a private language only spoken in private and among family members. Although most of the people on the island were in the same boat as I am, a native Taiwanese, many (including me) felt ashamed to use our native tongue. People in power spoke only Chinese, so we should speak only Chinese as well. Outside our homes, we would not even admit to being able to speak or understand Taiwanese. Perhaps we wanted to pass as members of the elite mainlanders. We did not want to be perceived as plebian. What did we know? I was only 6.

By the time I was in second grade, I was living in southern California as a member of a nuclear family of 4. I did not speak English well, and I naturally spoke Taiwanese with my parents, with a good dose of Mandarin Chinese thrown in for good measure, perhaps as a natural result of years of being acclimated, indoctrination, and internalised self-hatred for being native Taiwanese. (In fact, even though my parents to this day remain fierce native Taiwanese partisans, they still did not want us to lose faculty of the Chinese language usage while living in America. While it may have been the language of our oppressors, my parents nonetheless sent my sister and me to a Chinese language school in the summer so that we would continue learning it.) In public, I struggled with English initially for a few years. However, for the first, albeit brief, time in my life, Taiwanese was the primary language of communication at home as well as in public. Self-consciousness had not set in yet, and I did not care that we spoke a language that no one else understood. Taiwanese was our secret, private channel of communication reserved for family members only. I may have even felt that we were special.

(The concept of having a private language used only at home for private matters was actually nothing new for the Taiwanese people. They always had been forced to speak a foreign tongue for public discourse. Before the arrival of the Nationalist Chinese from mainland China in 1949, after being defeated by the Communists who subsequently formed the People’s Republic, the Taiwanese populace used Japanese in public and in schools, and reserved Taiwanese at home. Taiwan was part of the pre-war Japanese empire, so they essentially exchanged one foreign conqueror for another when the Kuomintang took over Taiwan. After the Nationalists took over, many Taiwanese retained Japanese as a linguistic recourse for instances when they needed to discuss matters they wanted to keep private from their kids or from their current Chinese rulers.)

While we held on to our native language as a family, we also pragmatically did want to possess the command of the English language as fast as possible. In fact, we sincerely wanted to become real Americans, and there was definitely a formalised, deliberate, and methodical approach to realise that goal. There was an hour after dinner where we would all practice speaking the new language of English amongst ourselves, while we were doing and helping each other with homework. Even my mother had homework, as she was going to evening classes at the local high school to study English. To put us in the proper frame of mind of being a true American family, we would also only prepare and consume American foods. My mother would collect then seemingly bizarre recipes from magazines such as Woman’s Day and Family Circle. We would eat now exotic dishes like fish sticks, Shake-and-Bake chicken, meatloaf, spaghetti with sauce made with Lawry seasoning packets, green salad with “Italian” dressing, and ground beef “tacos” with ready-made shells. Compared to Taiwanese and Chinese food, it was atrocious, but we were so determined. As much as we tried at playing Americans, we still used Taiwanese to communicate amongst ourselves most of the time.

However, all that quickly ended as my faculty with English improved. Like any primary school pupil, I just wanted to fit in and be like all the other kids, and that meant that I while I was in public, I had to jettison the use of Taiwanese and use only English. I did not care that strangers can overhear and understand our private matters; I just wanted them to know that we're Americans. Once again, just like back in Taiwan, I believe there was an unacknowledged undercurrent of shame and internalised self-hatred for being Taiwanese, as I rushed headlong to become credible English-speaking American. My slow but steady drift away from my parents had also begun. What did I know? I was only 8.

Like most teenagers, I just wanted to be cool—to belong; to get along; and to basically conform more than ever. I did not want to be seen in public with my parents at all. This sentiment was exacerbated by the fact that their accented English embarrassed me. I wanted to crawl into a hole and die whenever my friends or classmates see me in public with my parents. Earlier conscientious efforts at Americanisation notwithstanding, my parents represented Taiwan for me. I wanted complete, unadulterated Americanisation, and I wanted no part of Taiwan. By the time I was in junior high, what little spoken discourse conducted with my parents was mostly in English. By this time, we had lost our secret, private language. We had lost something much more as well. I did not care. When we were in public, it was all in English. What did I know? I was only 13.

ow I am deep in middle age, and my parents are as far away from me physically as they are emotionally. I speak to them rarely in public or in private. Even though I’ve lost the sense of shame for the culture that I was originally born into, I do not have anyone with whom to speak our secret language.

16 July 2010