I elected French to be studied under the Diploma of Modern Languages at The University of Melbourne, which ran concurrently with my Arts/Law degree and decided to do Mandarin as my Arts major. The aptitude test that decides which stream one studies was mainly based on how many characters one was able to read. As someone who had spent a considerable amount of her time studying characters, I was deemed able enough to go into Background Speakers: Level 1, Semester 2. They didn’t test my conversational skills or grammar. I just knew isolated words. So I took up Chinese Studies subjects during first semester, which I do not at all regret, nonetheless, when semester 2 came around, I really felt I was thrown in the deep end. I was so far behind. The coup de grace was when one of my fellow students told me he was glad I was in the class because it meant he wasn’t the worst person anymore. I ended up passing the two subjects of First Year Mandarin. The results, however, paled in comparison to my other marks in terms of the effort-grade ratio. I decided to change my major to something I was at least good at, English Language. One of my Chinese professors tried to talk me out of quitting. When I told her my story about being put into the wrong stream she told me she was terribly sorry, with all sincerity. She knew how hard I worked and how hard I struggled to keep up. I was fighting the urge to cry. Suddenly, I was that nine year old girl cowering from the shame of not knowing her own language.

In hindsight, I don’t think I’d have the level of English I have if I had been brought up in a Chinese-speaking household. Simply because both my parents, studied English as a foreign language, and therefore could instill in me, an innate understanding of Standard English grammar – a rarity for my generation in Australia, and something I do hold dear. I’ve come to terms with the fact that there will be some parts of me that will be eternally more English than Chinese, but I now I also know that it is a balance that is never too late to try to rectify, even if it is just by a little bit.