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Writing this essay made me think a lot more about the different cultures that I am in. My goal for this essay was to prove that language is important to every culture, and when a language is lost, its true culture would be lost too. I am proud about the parts where I explained how a language can be translated and understand in a different language, but it would not have the same feels or express the same kind of emotions. I am also proud of the example that I had given. I need to work on my grammar, and make the transitions smoother.

Language is a very important aspect of a culture, or rather, a core piece of a culture. When you stop speaking the true language of a culture, you actually lose touch with that culture.

When talking about language and culture, we have to talk about what is the true language and the true culture. I am a Chinese American Immigrant. When it comes down to culture, here’s a lot that we need to talk about. The second you heard that I am a Chinese American Immigrant, you probably think that my very first language is Mandarin or Cantonese, right? That is not the case for me. In China, Cantonese is also called 粤语 (Yue language), it’s mainly spoken in 广东(Guangdong/Canton). That is not where I am from. I am from 福州 (Fuzhou), another port city, where we speak 福州话(Fuzhounese).

Like Anzaldua Gloria once stated in “How to tame a wild tongue”, “So if you really want to hurt me, talk badly about my language.” (pg 59), language is a very important aspect of a culture.

Fuzhounese is my true native tones, it’s the first language that I had ever learnt. When I am speaking Fuzhounese, I am speaking my true, native tongues. The tones my parents growing up speaking, my grandparents, and their grandparents growing up speaking. The tone that have an ancient aroma to it. The tone that tells an ancient tale passing down from generation to generation. The tone of home and warmth.

In Fuzhou, specifically, many younger generations are immigrating to other countries, while Sichuanese are migrating to Fuzhou. What’s left of Fuzhou are mostly elderly, Sichuanese migrant worker, and those waiting to immigrate. With the Sichuanese migrants taking over Fuzhou, younger generations immigrating elsewhere, students being taught only Mandarin in Chinese school…… mostly only the older generation actually knows how to speak Fuzhounese. Many younger generation of Fuzhounese speaks Mandarin, or English if they live in the US, barely speaking much Fuzhounese at all, and they only even know couple words, just to communicate with their grandparents. My older brother is one of them.

Then there’s Mandarin. In China, everything in school are taught with Mandarin. But there’s more than just Mandarin or the well known Cantonese in China.

There are 56 known ethnic groups in China, with Han being the majority. Each ethnic group have their own language, some even speaks more than one language. But many of them are disappearing with the younger generations learning only Mandarin In school and other factors. Besides those, there are numerous dialects in China, they are disappearing too.

Mandarin is good and bad at same time. It unites 56 cultures together with a common language, and allow people from different regions of the country to communicate with each other. Yet at the same time, it is destroying the traditional cultures, and replacing them with whatever the Communist party wants.

Point is, if you cannot understand and speak a language, how could you understand the ancient literacies that had been passed down from that culture in the true way, whether it’s written down or passed down orally. And if you cannot speak it, how could you pass it down to someone else? Now you may say, “They could just translate it into another language that they understand.”

No. Maybe it can be translated and understand in a different language, but it would not have the same feels or express the same kind of emotion, as every culture are different. The feel and the emotion expressed could paint a picture that varies greatly as the language and culture differs.

For example, “一箫一剑走江湖，千古情仇酒一壶。”. 江湖 translates to “rivers and lakes”, but it’s actually the Wuxia/Kungfu world. What picture did you saw when you look at it?

This line of poem means “Live in the 江湖 world with a Xiao flute and a sword, loves and hates of thousand years of the ancient time all down with a pot of wine.”

When I look at “一箫一剑走江湖，千古情仇酒一壶。”, I see a picture of someone standing on the tip of a mountain, playing a sad yet relaxing song with the 箫 (Xiao flute), a sword is crossed diagonally on the back. The long hair which they never cut, and their long, flowy clothes, flows as the wind blows at it. The picture have a slight green tint to it. Then I see a picture of someone drink with a tiny cup, pouring 酒 (wine/liquor/sake) from one of those long necked vase. And eventually, start dumping liquid from a ceramic jar. The person is sitting on a bench, right in front of a square table brown with age and tales. One of their leg is up on the bench, with an arm resting on the knee of that leg, and the other dumping liquid into their mouth. This time, the picture have a slight brownish tint. Both are sad, yet seem carefree and beautiful in their own ways.

That is my true culture. Not the stereotypical Chinese with a long braid, who are actually 满族 (Manchu, one of the ethnic groups, who ruled China during Qing dynasty, when China actually opened up to the western world.), nor do I speak Cantonese. My culture is the Fuzhounese and Han culture. And now the American culture too.

But when it’s translated into another language, in this case English, there’s really not much emotion to it. “Live in the 江湖 (Wuxia/Kungfu) world with a Xiao flute and a sword, loves and hate of thousand years of the ancient time all down with a pot of wine.” Firstable, people would not know what exactly Wuxia/Kung Fu world would looks like, to actually understand it, it would take years. They probably would not know what Xiao flutes are either. They probably would also be really confused about what I mean by “loves and hate of thousand years of the ancient time”. But there’s really not a better way to explain “千古情仇”, there’s way more than just the meaning of each character or word. Each and every single of the characters have a different emotion, which you could not feel, unless that you understand that language well.

When a language is lost, the feels and the emotions that specific language express would be lost too, and people can no longer feel the true spirit of that language or the culture.

More infos:

Fuzhounese uses the same characters as Mandarin, but Fuzhounese words sometimes uses different character as Mandarin, and Fuzhounese have a different prounciation as Mandarin. For example, 眼睛 means eyes in Mandarin, and 目珠 means eyes in Fuzhounese.

After I did some research, I found that Fuzhounese is actually a combination of 古汉语, ancient Han language, and 古越语, ancient Yue language. 古越语 Ancient Yue language was spoken in Bai Yue 百越, which is mostly now a day Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan, Guizhou, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, and such.

Fuzhou also have a very similar culture compare to Taiwan. There’s only one strait between Fuzhou and Taiwan, it’s said that Fuzhou and Taiwan are one piece of land that was separate into two.

Fuzhou is famous for things like boat making, tea. 福州三宝 (three treasure of Fuzhou) are 油纸伞(oil paper umbrella), 角梳 (horn comb), 脱胎漆器 (a kind of China/ceramic, one of the three treasures of Chinese traditional crafts.)

Fuzhou is also called 榕城 (City of Ficus trees).

Intro:

This essay helped me develop as a writer because I challenged myself to writing in third person about my struggle with understanding math. The point of my essay was to prove that literature isn't just a bunch of words in english class. It is a group of individuals that strive to communicate and learn. I did that with math. Math was a language, a group that did not want me because I did not correspond with it. I am proud of the descriptive language I used. At first I needed help with my use of quotes and context, but thanks to my peer reviews I grew as a better writer.

But I was paying attention to you

Mackenzie stares deeply at the walls of bright fluorescent yellow room, as she questions her purpose of presence and wonders why she can't seem to work like anyone else in her classroom. The question, “Why am I struggling with math?” bobbles around her her 4th grade mind everyday. She watches the teacher scribbles on the board,  what appears to Mackenzie as Latin, as she listens the sound of pencils scratching notebooks. She questions why her hand isn’t moving as swiftly as the other students as her eyes linger across her paper. She questions herself again wondering why her brain is not processing the board almost like a machine no longer functioning. She thinks to herself how it feels as  the gears of the  machine that is her brain suddenly stop and and grows into darkness, gets colder, and fills with cobwebs. There is nothing now, she cannot see absolutely nothing.

The proud teacher, ready to cause trouble strolls over to her. “Mackenzie, why aren't you solving the problem?” She stares at her teacher blankly, collecting herself before she then asked for help.  “I don't know how to start. Can you help me?” She explains as her teacher gives her a freezing look as all the other children in the classroom turn around and stares at her. All eyes are on her as the teacher complains about Mackenzie’s “ignorance”. “I just explained how do to do it a minute ago, weren't you paying attention?” As , Mackenzie sinks in her chair, the teacher put his hands on his hips with disgust  She sits in silence as she listens to the beating in her heart, deeper and deeper. Not knowing that she not one but two learning disabilities, one including Autism. Language should be about embracing individuality. If not culture and personal connections between people wouldn't exist.

People commonly think math consist of only equations and numbers on a piece of paper. However for Mackenzie, it is a whole other universe in her mind. Math is a language in itself that can be used to create a clique for people to isolate themselves from those who aren't fluent. Math is a form of literacy; it is a form of communication that does not include words it. Literacy does not need to consist of words, it is a umbrella of many languages. Literacy is a community that educates people and allows them to speak to each other them.  Mackenzie did not speak the tongue of Math, but she scrapped and dragged herself to the death to understand it. In a short story titled, “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, the text states, “And I think, how could you tame a wild tongue, train it to be quiet, how do you bridle and saddle it? How do you make it lie down?” Mackenzie was forced into silence when she completed her work incorrectly. How to tame a wild tongue gives an argument and proves a point that people will try to silence you based on “incorrect” language. Everyone is different in many ways, including how we speak. We need to come to an understanding as to why it should not be seen as a problem.

Feeling out of place Mackenzie became distant from other students, she was tired of being made fun of. They would treat Mackenzie as an idiot for not understanding the things they did.They rejected her and she didn't know how to deal with it, rejection for a 10 year old was hard for her to overcome. She was singled out from groups that she was forced to sit in front of everyday in class. Mackenzie was being neglected and she began to believe that she will never be good enough. With no friends, Mackenzie felt herself slipping, in the form of grades and happiness. While thinking that she had no future in mind, everything turned into a great emptiness of dark depression. Her family tried to help with doctor visits only leading to prescriptions of  antidepressants  which didn't give any effect to the hatred for herself that continuously swirled her mind.  She began to felt alone after she felt as though she was thrown under the bus by the only person she looked up to.  Everyone around Mackenzie spoke the language of math, except for her. It bobbled in her mind “why would no one help me.” She is reaching for a lifeline that slips right through her fingers, acting like a ghost. But wait, she is a ghost. An invisible existence that is fighting for life again but there's nothing to grab onto. She holds on but her will is slipping. It isn't broken but will break. She needs help quick, before she gives up on understand math, before she realizes that she will learn the language of math!

How to Tame a Wild Tongue claims that language is not understood if you weren't fitting in with the environment.“Chicanas who grew up speaking chicano spanish have internalized the belief that we speak poor spanish.” If your childhood was not spent at Chicano, then you speak poor spanish.” Since Mackenzie spent some of her life not retaining math, she continued to struggle time and time again.

Before the last string in Mackenzie's will to learn wilters, a 5th grade teacher, pulls her arm out of a black dimension and rushes her through a colorful world of understanding. Mackenzie is learning math, later she is capable of speaking that language. And guess what, it's her language now too. She learns math in her own way, and sometimes, that's how life works. You do you boo. She made personal connections with others by solving math equations together. That created friendships, then later she was in a whole culture of students that used to be like her as well.

If you achieve the right answers and people understand how you communicate then you are alright! Language “Words are emptied of their concreteness and become a hollow, alienated, and alienating verbosity.” says author Paolo Freire. You can speak the language any way you choose. Some people speak slang, it is understood. Mackenzie math is like a slang that even some people are inspired by;they use slang too. She went from a flightless bird to a flying bird with the rest of the flock.

Society is not accepting of those who struggle. If you are weak you stand out, and get tossed aside. Mackenzie went through a lot of struggle in order to become the women she is today speaking in the tongue of math.Literacy should be embraced, and yourself. Our society should help the weak instead of pushing them away. You never know how amazing a person can be until they learn. Embrace your individuality.

All my life, I’d been told not to fight. Not to hit, kick, punch, pinch, bite. Not to wrestle, not to box. Playing football, I was instructed to tap people on both shoulders. That’s how the game worked. A polite word: “Excuse me, sir.” “I apologize, but I can’t let you carry the ball any further.” That was the literacy of my life. I used my words, and not my fists. A bonafide zen master: Champion of my own emotions.

Yet, in that moment, I wondered how I’d hit that point, standing on the beach, my feet carved up, bleeding into the sand. The smell of sweat, sea, and a tinge of iron. A packing sensation in my chest every so often, as one of his fists would connect. Or my arm. My stomach. Everything moving a little too quickly, as we ran around each other. My jaw bruised, my cheeks cut from the inside. I was alive.

Was I a failure? A manic mass of testosterone? With these questions running around my head, we walked back towards the street, our breath ragged, cigarettes hanging from our lips. The strangest serenity set over me, and very suddenly, I realized that I’d been lied to all my life; that maybe there was a place for fighting.

How do I define literacy? I define literacy as the way we interact with one another, and it’s shrinking. We’ve become accustomed to the ways that those in charge have restricted our interactions, and told us the way we should behave. We’ve conceded to the ways that people tell us to interact, and, like fighting, the ways that many consider to be unhealthy, and uncultured.

Literacy has become uniform, as we coddle ourselves from reality. Many people speak about individuality, but expect all people to think the same things. We have no room for opinion anymore, and, in the words of Mike Rose, “The more completely they accept the passive role imposed on them, the more they tend simply to adapt to the world as it is.” If a large enough majority decides that, “the pen is mightier than the sword,” then it must be true, for the powers-that-be have spoken!

I’d say ‘the sword’ has always spoken louder to me. Whether it’s a fist to the face, or an arm around my neck, a bear hug or a soft touch, the ambiguity of physicality leaves so much room for meaning. Yet, for reasons of safety and what we consider to be uniform comfort, we’ve choked it. We’ve organized competition to reduce the number of casualties. Soccer, tennis, baseball. Even football, where we strap six inch layers of padding to ourselves before we charge at each other head-first. Or, even worse, when we stick flags to ourselves. All you have to do is run. All you have to do is carry a ball.

Many people in Horsham Clinic were there for what people had labeled as 'unreasonable aggression,' which usually translated to getting into a fight. Almost as if fighting was an illness that could be cured with a strict regimen of xanax and adderall.

We learn complacency. We learn to read, and write, and do basic math. We learn to sit down and shut up. Mike Rose, in his article, I Just Want to be Average, illustrates the unwritten rules of being human in the 21st century.

“the teacher teaches and the students are taught;

the teacher knows everything and the students know nothing;

the teacher disciplines and the students are disciplined;

the teacher chooses and enforces his choice, and the students comply;

the teacher chooses the program content, and the students adapt to it;

the teacher is the Subject of the learning process, while the pupils are mere objects.”

I know nothing. I’ve been disciplined. I’ve complied. I’ve been an object. Everyone lives in an illusion of freedom, in blissful ignorance of the uniform grip that we’ve placed on one another, a grip that, as Mike Rose says, is "necrophilic; nourished by a love of death, not life.” We don't value one another's existence, we value the uniformity and compliance. Things I would say are akin to the death of a person.

Introduction:

My challenge for writing this piece was fitting in all of my ideas within the word limit. I am one who sometimes can add “fluff” to my writing, tying in background information that doesn’t contribute to the larger concepts discussed in my writing. For this essay in particular, I made sure to keep my ideas structured and start with my overview theme of Ireland and how our accents are seen as differences and not accepted in each other’s culture. Accents can make us feel disconnected from one another, yet it is the theme of the piece to realize we are all the same underneath and our cultural backgrounds make the world a more special place we can all come to appreciate.

The steering wheels are flipped, the sun never shines, there are sheep down every road, and their accents are strange. I grew up with a father who has a Northern Irish accent that when people recognize their eyes light up. They gasp and say: “Oh my gosh, you’re Irish? Is that accent real?!”. I smile back, boasting how I’m ⅞ Irish and I’ve been to Ireland over 8 times. I was different from everyone else. I had a special cultural connection that was all mine.

When I visited Ireland this past summer, I was one of the “American cousins”. One night, my family had a barbeque as a reunion for my dad to see all of his childhood friends. Other teenagers came in and out, always excited to meet me. “This is Emily”, my cousin would tell them. “Hi, it’s nice to meet you”, I would reply politely. As soon as the words fell off of my lips, they would crash against the floor and shatter into a million pieces leaving me covered in the word “American”. A hot, tingly feeling would reach my skin, turning my cheeks the color of a bright pink bubblegum. I remember constantly being asked to say the phrase “how now brown cow”. With my Philadelphia tongue, it rolled off sharp and quick. The Irish kids would laugh, or even  tell me it was adorable, like I was a two year old who had just recited the A-B-C’s for the first time. I felt like a child, being pushed to a level of inferiority as soon as I opened my mouth.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved Ireland and meeting all of the new people. I fit right in; that is, until I uttered a single sound. By the end of the trip I had gained a little draw in my tone emulating the native speech. I don’t know if this was from exposure to the dialect that it naturally shifted, or if it was my brain subconsciously forcing my tongue to contort until it began to ease into the rhythm of the Irish slang. I was called out for being different. Sure, I was different. I am different. I was raised in a completely contrasting environment. I was already in a foreign society, but being made fully aware of me not fitting in was like being the black sheep in a herd of white. Something that was accepted and normal in my own culture when thrown into a new world made me stand out. Irish culture is one where everyone wants to fit in. The girls had the same shirt from TopShop in varying pastel shades, with the same tight, black high waisted jeans and dirty Adidas sneakers. They all wore thick cat-winged eyeliner and straightened their hair. I wore similar clothes, enough to make me one of the crowd until I would speak. It was all about the tone of my voice that made me a target of cultural shaming.

I was not alone on my expedition of sticking out in a way society deemed as negative. Gloria Anzaldua showcased this idea perfectly in her work of How to Tame a Wild Tongue. She grew up speaking a different language, one that was even varied with the Spanish culture. Even inside of her own community of Spanish speakers, she was outcast. Once she went to college, it wasn’t enough to prove that she was smart enough to be there to be like everyone else. Instead, she had to change who she was to blend in. “At Pan American University,” she writes,  “I, and all the other Chicano students were required to take two speech classes. Their purpose: to get rid of our accents.”  The college wanted her to change who she was and make her conform to what their standards were of normal and beneficial.

In the modern world, differences are not being accepted. We pick and choose how we allow people to be, especially when it comes to culture and language. Being an outsider as an American in Ireland is a small scale example of global societies feeling the need to point out differences and make them appear as flaws. English and Spanish are taking over the world, destroying smaller languages and populations in its wake. Ancient languages are dying, because the majority speaks English and it’s seen as common and what is expected of everyone to know. We must change this perception and realize that our differences are what make the world such a special place. Travelling to Ireland taught me about a new culture and I got to have new experiences that help shape who I am today. In the end, it isn’t even about the accents, what words you say, or how you talk. It’s about what it says about us, and how we are all individuals who can learn from one another and our individual ideas of literacy.