I can’t speak Mandarin.

I like to imagine my ancestors like that one scene from Mulan.

When I succeed, I picture them high fiving and cheering. When I mess things up (as I often do), they bury their faces in their hands and wait for me to dig myself out of whatever hole I’ve found my way into. Maybe I have a great-great grand uncle Steve who fancies himself as a comedian and adds commentary. “He gets that from your side of the family!” he’d say to one of my great-great-great grandparents, as I try to talk to a cute girl and spectacularly fail. Thanks, Steve.

I’ve been quite lucky lately and I’m sure my ancestors are proud of me, but deep down I feel like they were the happiest when I was younger. Not only was I the cutest goddamn baby you’ve ever seen, but I also spoke Mandarin like a champ. I used to be semi-fluent in Mandarin (or as fluent as a 7-year old can be) but stopped speaking it after my first day of kindergarten. This happens to a lot of second-generation children who grow up in white areas - they go to school speaking multiple languages, and then once they realize that no one else in their class speaks _______ they go full english. My parents made the utterly unexplainable decision to settle in Hershey, PA and so little 7-year-old me came home after my first day of school refusing to speak Mandarin. And the rest is history.*

One of my good friends and old roommates, a large man from Ohio, speaks better Mandarin than me. One day we were talking about the most recent Chinese-born NBA player to break my heart and he paused and sheepishly told me I was pronouncing “Qi” wrong.

I have never felt more shame.

GREAT-GREAT GRAND UNCLE STEVE, I’M SORRY.

I want to find a Mandarin tutor. My Mandarin teacher can’t be anything other than Asian, though. I’m sorry. I’m not proud of it. I have too much pride and am lowkey racist.** I’ve accepted white sushi chefs but this is where I have to draw the line. There is something heartbreakingly ironic about the idea of a white person teaching me a language that I willingly gave up in order to fit in with the white people I grew up around. I don’t think I am strong enough or mature enough to handle that. Life is a journey and I promise I’m working on my pre-conceived notions everyday. I just ain’t there yet though.

More often than not nowadays, I’m too white for asian people and I’m too yellow for white people. I’m not complaining - my favorite part about this weird racial purgatory I live in is watching how people react when I don’t fit into any of their checkboxes. I’m not learning Mandarin for them.

I want to have a conversation with my grandmother before she passes. Luckily, she’s only 95 so I still have about 40 years to learn,*** but I don’t want to leave anything to chance. The last time I saw her in Taiwan, she spoke to me for 30 minutes straight. She was so excited to see me. I couldn’t understand a word she was saying, and it broke my heart. I lie awake at night thinking about that shit like every other week. Enough is enough. Maybe if I write about it on the internet, I’ll actually stick to my word and learn Mandarin. And maybe I’ll finally get those ancestors in my head to be really happy again. I’m talking like “old-chinamen fist-pumping” happy. You up for it, Steve?

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*Please don’t take this as an angry rant… No one is to blame for this phenomenon, it’s just a sad, far-too-common occurrence for minorities.
**This is a joke, but also don’t come after me. We’re all a little bit racist, but if you’re aware of your bad tendencies and constantly work on them then all’s good in my book homie.
***The only species that outlives Asian women on this planet are great tortoises.