Learning Languages

I have always had this internal conflict of learning languages. I am half Laotian and half Chinese-Vietnamese. Growing up, my parents would speak to each other in English. Plus I grew up in a multi ethnic neighborhood. Mostly hispanic, cambodian and vietnamese. I am second generation Vietnam War refugees. So I grew up with mostly other ethnicities from Southeast Asia. 

Before I started grade school, I remember speaking my parents' languages pretty fluently no problem. But when I started grade school, I had to learn English and the way my mind was, little by little, parents' languages slowly disappeared from my mind. I still practiced it but as a child, I wanted to integrate with the whole American culture and wanted to be with the "cool kids". I was considered slow and dumb, so I had to take speech class from kindergarten to second grade to really learn how to speak english clearly. And I had to repeat first grade. Technically, the first year of first grade, was called Transitional First Grade and it was even written that on my class picture. In due time, because of my shyness, (and other kids bullying me, didn't help my self-esteem at all) I refused to say anything in any other language thats not English because I didn't want to sound dumb. It was really hard for me as a child. There were some bullies who really bullied me every single day before the bus picked us up at the bus stop and during recess and after school, after the bus dropped us off. There was a period of time, I was all alone, I had nobody to help me and I cried and cried till I made myself walk home alone after all the kids walked home. There was other periods of time that a couple of my cousins and their families moved into my neighborhood and they noticed the bullies who bullied me and they helped me fight them off me. I was really grateful of them. Even though my cousins did that, I was a really sad kid with low self-esteem. I tried to be happier. My cousins helped me a lot by being there for me. They were the brothers and sisters that I never had. 

Side Story

I am an only child. My parents married, had me and divorced when I was a baby. I never saw my parents embrace each other or anything of the sort. I always saw them fighting. I also grew up poor. I lived with my mom and she quit working when she was pregnant with me. Throughout my childhood, my mom lived off of child support, welfare, and food stamps. My mom was ok with that lifestyle. She would take me clothes shopping once a year before school year starts. Christmas and birthdays was lonely and it was usually me and my mom and she would usually give me one present. If she notices that my dad would buy me a present, then she wouldn't buy me anything. 

Nobody usually knows where Laos is. So whenever people ask me what am I, I usually say that I am half Thai since Laos is next to Thailand and the cultures and languages is really similar. My mom was born and raised in Vietnam and she has a Vietnamese name. I dont even know how many generations my mom's family has been living in Vietnam but she is of Chinese descent from the Hong Kong area. Culturally I can say that I am part Chinese-Vietnamese. A lot of the things my mom raised me, she cooked a lot different things that are Viet and Chinese dishes and she showed me a couple of stuff that are both viet and Chinese too - rituals/ ideas. The Chinese language that my mom spoke is Cantonese, the main language of Hong Kong. That was the one that she spoke most to me so its my "mother tongue" even though I don't really know how to speak it fluently. As an adult, I know baby words of both Laotian and Cantonese and some basic conversational phrases but I am just too shy to speak any language fluently because I feel or sound dumb. Plus my dad says I am F***ing stupid repeatedly throughout my childhood. I don't know why he did that. One of my cousins says its tough love and I need to learn to grow with tough skin. I think every person has different personalities and different perceptions that makes them deal with certain situations differently. My father's saying that to me, didn't help with my self-esteem issues at all.

Starting seventh grade, I took spanish classes onward. I learned spanish for 6 years. It was handy when I was living in Los Angeles, taking the public transportation all over the city. There were areas where all there was are hispanics and I needed to know something (most likely what time does the bus come or where the public bathrooms were lol). But I still didn't like to speak spanish fluently because I was too shy and most hispanics spoke spanish too fast for me to converse with. Plus I always had good close friends who were spanish speaking my whole life and every one in a while, i would practice some spanish with them.

Present Day

I am basically playing catch up. Now that I am an adult, I have learned to appreciate the asian culture. I am still battling self-esteem issues but I am more confident overall. I am some what more comfortable with myself in my own skin. I am a bible student and study the bible daily and meditate on what I read. 

I have been blessed to be a Jehovah's witness and to be part of the world wide organization which the main goal is to preach to others about the bible, Jehovah God and his heavenly kingdom. Part of preaching is learning foreign languages.  I feel like Jehovah God has answered my prayers regarding this. I have had the privilege of being out in the ministry with the vietnamese congregation from Wichita, KS and going to meetings at the chinese congregational meetings.  Even though, I still dont know how to converse well with others, the tones are like home to me. I would say I know more laotian words and phrases because I am around my Laotian family more but I don't really practice it much. I am learning mandarin, cantonese, vietnamese, and some thai. 

Something exciting just recently happened. I was blessed to be present at the beginning of the language class for vietnamese in kansas city.  It started 3 weeks ago and already this week, we're learning theocratic terminology.  And then one of my friends from the Chinese congregation told me that they're gonna start a language class too for chinese. I couldn't believe it!  I have been asking the friends from chinese about an available  language class for a long time and there was never an answer. Prayer can really go a long way! And then so many people say a person should do one language and focus on only one. Can i really do one language or 2? I wish i can be 100% of something but i am mixed. I feel the need to learn more than 1 language,  not just to converse with family when I travel but for the ministry.  No matter where I go, I need to think about what I set out to do when I got baptized. To tell others about what Jehovah God can do to save mankind and what it will mean for us personally. I love being a Jehovah's witness.                                                                                                      

June 2015

November 2015