Today I went out to lunch with my mother. She complained that she seldom hear me talk. I think it’s true. I have been quite the quiet one in the family, seldom expressing how I feel to anyone. Closed off, as one might say.
And I wonder why that is. Things that I share with my close friends, I never with my family. Shouldn’t family come first? Why does it feel like I’m a stranger at home?
Hmmm. I’ve come up with a few possible reasons to explain this phenomenon…
1. Language.
My family speaks Mandarin at home and my parents are not very fluent in English. However since Day 1 of my primary school education, I have been trained to speak in English in school, and never in our mother tongue. I guess my brain is wired to English mode whenever I talk to my schoolmates/friends. Spending so much time in school, my brain is tuned to the English channel all the time that it is hard to switch back to Chinese mode. For some strange reason, I think my brain is trained to emote in English, and I can’t seem to find the right way to translate that to Mandarin in order to communicate with my parents. And so I didn’t bother, and over time it gets worse, I think.
2. Siblings.
How about my brothers? They grew up under the same education system, why are they so different from me? Actually I have no idea either. Among my 2 brothers, my elder one is the more talkative one. His Chinese language skills is also better I guess, because he has always been interested in things like 3 Kingdoms, Taiwanese dramas, and Asian entertainment. He also has a habit of complaining to my parents about work when he comes home every day. In some ways I think my younger brother is more similar to me – more introverted. Come to think of it, I don’t really remember hearing him speak to his friends, except online. Anyway, among the 3 of us, there is always this little childish sibling rivalry thing, so we don’t really talk to each other about things. I wonder when we will finally outgrow that.
3. They get the last word.
Every time I tried to express an opinion, my parents (especially my father) would have something to counter that opinion, even though I think they don’t initially think the opposite. And they do it in an aggressive way too. I think we never learned to agree to disagree peacefully and respectfully, so I just stopped arguing because I know I can’t ever win (perhaps also due to my lack of eloquence in Mandarin). I mean, they are my parents, we have to respect their opinions, which means to shut up, no talking back… right? Now that I’ve grown older and can form my own opinions, I start to find logical faults in their arguments. But I still have difficulty countering them because of this “respecting your elders” thing.
4. My thoughts are, apparently, dangerous.
The other day my mother asked me how my job interview went. I told her that the office was located at some dull, dreary industrial area, and that it would be nice to have a roof-top garden there. And then I started telling her about my fantasy of opening a roof-top garden restaurant at such an area, that it would be a cool business idea. My mother apparently saw a red flag and immediately shot down my idea, asking me not to entertain any such thoughts, and just get a proper stable job related to my degree.
So you can imagine, after these, how can I bear to tell my parents of my dream of flying off to some faraway land to learn to grow a rooftop farm? To be able to bike everywhere safely in a city? To learn the independent way of life? To follow my bliss, so to speak? I can imagine their reactions already. And it ain’t pretty. I don’t think I’m ready to face that.
But as of now, how can I attempt to rectify this problem then? I think I will start by telling them my theories of why I don’t speak, as I have explained above.
