Elizabeth Tai | 戴秀铃 🇲🇾
I never really felt comfortable with my identity as a Chinese person because I can't read Chinese, don't speak the languages fluently or even have the same culture as most Chinese people. It took me a while to have a sense of humor about it - these days I embrace being called a tropical fruit 😁
#Malaysia #Chinese #Culture #Substack
https://open.substack.com/pub/elizabethtai/p/hello-from-a-banana
Elizabeth Tai | 戴秀铃 🇲🇾
@veer66 not really haha. Cos i can still speak Mandarin and Hokkien despite being labelled a banana. This label applies to people who are not Chinese educated so no matter how fluent i get i will still be a banana to some Chinese people 😄
veer66
@liztai During WWII, people in Thailand were forced to abandon their mother tougues and cultures. If you were Thai, you would be an ideal citizen.
Elizabeth Tai | 戴秀铃 🇲🇾
@mcmullin wow how rude of them. They are jerks!!
Banana means differently in Malaysia, however, tho it makes me wonder what they call mixed race couples now 😅
David McMullin
@liztai
Years ago I (Irish-American) was on vacation with my wife (Chinese-American) in Southern California, and we walked holding hands past a gaggle of Asian-American teenagers. Someone said, “I’m a banana! My spoon is too big!” and they all laughed. I didn’t get what it meant until later. My wife’s parents are from China, she’s fully bilingual in Mandarin and English, and even my Mandarin is probably more than those kids know. But she was with me, so: banana. It still annoys me.
Yohan Yukiya Seseㆍ사요한・謝雪矢
Yey! I thought I was the only one brave enough to admit it. 😂 When you say you're part Chinese and they discover you can't speak any Chinese, you get a "fake Chinese" reaction. Like, "I only stated facts".
On my mother side, were Chinese, "Sese", which originated directly from "Xié" (xié4), from Guangdong (not the Spanish/African Sesé). My mom wanted me to study in a Chinese school in Elementary but I want to be in another school. (Though when I learned of my roots later in High School, I wish I had studied in a Chinese school. I also would have been classmates with Sandara Park for the Chinese subject, even though I'm her senior by 2 years.)
I have cousins who can speak multiple Chinese languages, and my younger brother as well.
Yohan Yukiya Seseㆍ사요한・謝雪矢
@liztai If I may share and add. When one of my cousins studied in China and tried to find the family of our ancestor there, he noticed there was a discrimination. I can't remember what word they used to call him, but it's close to "traitor".
They were friendly at first, but once they learned he's a descendant of a Chinese who migrated, poof, discrimination. They "hate" overseas Chinese.
It's possible he wasn't able to find any information because the mainlanders intentionally did not share any information.
This was in the late 90s and early 2000s. Hopefully it changed already, we're descendants, we were born overseas Chinese. 🤷🏽♂️
Elizabeth Tai | 戴秀铃 🇲🇾
@youronlyone Like we had any choice in the migration 🤣 My ancestors came to Malaya when the Manchurians took over and the Ming dynasty fell. Ask them la why they left, not me 🤣🤣🤣
Yohan Yukiya Seseㆍ사요한・謝雪矢
@liztai Exactly! Hahaha. It was their choice, not the descendants!
They should at least be happy we're tracing back our roots. ^_^
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