The narrator of the video speaks Mandarin, almost a very formal ‘tv voice’ Mandarin, which I understand (I was forced to learn Mandarin through the suppression of southern Chinese languages). I know it well but I resent it for its language imperialism.

The language spoken in the rest of the video, in the background especially among the poor people: that’s my ‘native’ language. I sound exactly like those guys. Even the way I speak Mandarin sounds exactly like those guys. I was made to feel like not sounding like a northern Chinese person meant I was bad at being Chinese, but actually I simply only connect deeply with this one specific pocket of that place.

I was very close to my grandparents who were born in Swatow. They raised me and lived with us. According to the Vietnamese Chinese aunties of San Francisco, I sound like someone who is from there. I sound like their moms too apparently.

Not having the means to express this self is weird for me. It feels like I learned to suppress that self, because I was made to suppress that language. I really want to undo that someday (and finally go).