Before going to Taiwan | 回台灣之前

Family and language

I fly out to Taiwan on Saturday and I can hardly contain my excitement. Italy has been a wonderful experience, full of unexpected places and people, but it was only a detour on my way to Formosa.

I fill my final days thinking about family and language. Family because the one I’ve been staying with is not my own, though they’ve welcomed me in like they are. Language because the one I’ve been listening to is also not mine, and though I’ve grown accustomed to its melody and understand the song, I still have trouble singing along most of the time. Soon I will be surrounded by family and language that is mine

I leave pieces of my family in my language. I try writing about other things, but the life they buried in me seems to leak onto the pages no matter how hard I try. Their stories drip and their lessons leak like a broken faucet. I scatter pieces and pieces of their stories into pots and pans and clay and words; English words, which they didn’t need to start using until they were the age that I am now. I drop their old watches and jewelry, and stain their old clothes. I write in a language my parents will never fully understand, not the way I want them to at least. When I leave breadcrumbs on the page, I’m not sure they even notice.

It’s funny that I write so much about family but never in their own language. English and Mandarin; I have a hard time conflating the two in my head. Switching from the jumping tones of one to the flowing hissing consonants of the other used to give me whiplash, so it had always been Mandarin in the house and English outside. In America, I reserve Mandarin almost exclusively for use with my family, but when I dream, the floodgates come down and Mandarin and English mix together to form a concoction that more closely resembles what I really am. I am not Mandarin at home and English outside like I have decided in my head—I am both. It’s seems silly to keep them separate when I think about it like that.

My reasoning for going to Taiwan is to see family, but also it is for the language. The tongue that is my mother and father’s does not roll off mine the way it did when I was three years old. Though I have been studying more diligently for the past year, I am still mostly illiterate, and my vocabulary fails me at times. I hope that in Taiwan, I can iron out the creases in my mother tongue, so maybe I can one day wear it without shame of the wrinkles I had created from casting it aside. Maybe one day, using their language, I will write page after page about my family. But the day where I fill entire pages with Mandarin is still far, far away, so for now I will just let it spill out slowly.

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爸爸， 媽媽:

不過幾天， 我就會在台灣了。 已經開始興奮了。

老實說，我回台灣的理由是有點自私的。當然想去找親戚，但我主要是為了我的未來。我想把自己的中文練強一點。我怕我現在不做，再來就不會有這個機會了。

你們可能會覺得我想太多了。我同意。

我的確有儘量想少一點。但對我並不是那麼的簡單。

我開始寫作的原因就是為了想少一點。我想把頭腦的內容寫下來，就可能不會再想那麽多了。剛開始寫的時候，是寫個我自己。但後來發現我正在寫的時候，也是寫給你們。有時候跟你們討論我最近在想的事，我不太會準確的表達我心裡的感情。所以我就從遠一點慢慢寫，給你們慢慢的唸。但是我都用英文寫，有時候你們也看不太懂。

你們還記不記得我和姊姊小時候的樣子。我記得蠻清楚的。那時候，你們都站在我們的身邊，牽者我們的手。你們說的話，我們都聽得懂，炒的菜，我們都會吃。

突然有一天，我和姊姊就不想再牽手了。我們長大的時候，你們就讓我們跑。你們放手的時候，我就開始跑了。 跑跑跑，跑了好遠。為了休息一下我才停下來。結果看我身邊的時候，發現你們不站在那里了，而不在後邊。發現我跑去另外一條路。現在我說的話，你們可能聽不到。我炒的菜，你們可能也吃不習慣。現在我走的一條路，就跟你們不一樣。

我相信你們站在另外一邊已經很愉快能看到我。 看著你們的眼神就知道你們很愉快，很驕傲。但我不是故意跑了那麽遠。

我相信剛到台灣的時候會不容易，但我的目標不是追求容易的一條路。我希望我回台灣的時候，就會發現怎麼炮回你們的身邊。因為現在，我就有點想再牽著你們的手。

需要開始打包了，我們五月再見吧。

賀禮