| name | value |
| location | Melbourne |
| date | 2019-09-29 |
One day I accidentally sat amongst a group of writers (no big names, just young struggling people). They told me that they love writing because it’s such comfort to their souls. I didn’t fully understand, but I resonated with them by thinking how I’ve been hiding myself in the world of maths. Then recently, I was convinced to try and write about some unpleasant stuff to defend myself. So I sat there, suddenly with fourteen hundred words typed, feeling a great relief starting to replace the pressure I’ve lived with for months.
People aren’t lying when they say, writing is comforting and soothing. Especially online writing. From my personal experiences, it’s much more efficient and effective than making an appointment then waiting for a couple of weeks to talk to a stranger.
I’ve used writing as a therapy. Seriously. Though I’ve only done it in my first language, never in English. The reason is simple, but probably very foreign to you: I feel naive and powerless when I write in English. A sense of incompetence. It’s like a game you’ve watched for many years but you never played in. You know all the rules and have seen people win and lose, and you’ve even seen people using unexpected tricks that overturn a game. You become an expert observer this way, but once you are thrown into the arena, you are then the most basic player and the best you could do is not to stumble, never mind winning a game. You always stumble though — it’s inevitable. When it comes to one’s native language, it’s then quite the opposite. You probably haven’t even learnt the rules properly, but you were born into the game, you don’t even play it, you reign it. Everything comes as a muscle memory, and you know exactly what to do in any situation. You effortlessly exhibit your sophistication and complexion as a human being. That’s why writing my social media posts in Chinese has been a therapy for me. It makes me feel good.
So why do I have to now start writing in English? The reason is again simple, but again maybe still very foreign to many native English speakers. I write in my first language whenever it’s convenient, but there are occasions where it’s never convenient. Living in an English speaking country, things happen to me ‘in English’, by which I mean, people talk to me in English, and I respond in English, I think in English, and I cope with things in an English (more like a white cultured) way. In all those cases, I feel the need to also find an English cure — the same therapy, but in a different language that’s more aligned with what I want to talk about. Besides, you only read English.
When I was in high school, I was favoured by my literature teacher because she liked my writing and was particularly satisfied with how much I read. She even told other students to borrow my notebook to appreciate my little pieces of weekly writing. I didn’t know people actually cared until one day I had a dramatic broken friendship with my deskmate. I was in a boarding school, so everything happened in front of everyone. That was the first time of my only twice of dramas in breaking up with a “friend”. I was pretty angry at the time, when there even involved broken glass and fallen desks and chairs, and shouting and crying out loud. Fortunately, and surprisingly now in hindsight, no one disliked me more than they already did after what happened — mind you we were actual juveniles back then. It should be more natural for them to resent someone. Not only no one disliked me more, but I was even told that I was liked more for my forthrightness to break the pretended harmony and tell someone to fuck off. Two girls, who I’ve barely talked to for the two and a half years we were in the same class, approached me, with my journal in one’s hand. I didn’t even realise that they borrowed my journal until I saw four feet coming closer followed by the floral printed cover of my journal when I looked up even more (I collapsed and was indulging myself in staying like that on the floor). They hugged me, which was not a completely usual thing to do in my culture, but seen as a bit of ‘western’, that our generation might have learnt from pop culture. They told me how much they always liked me, but thought I was too cool to care about whether they liked me or not (it was true; I didn’t care, but only because I always assumed everyone hates me so I really don’t have that much energy to care). They told me that they figured after the classroom drama, that it could probably be a point in my life where I might be vulnerable and cared to know I was still very much liked.
I was genuinely flattered, and wholeheartedly grateful. The point I want to make here though, is not about how some people liked me, but how much writing has meant to me. It’s been one of the very few things I am good at (back then I was bad at maths). I’m hoping you could understand now why it has destroyed me when I moved here, being forced to speak a language I have no skills for. It’s not just some racism cliche. To me it feels like losing a limb.
No, I want you to understand and be my friend not because I can’t bear anymore the solitude every new immigrant has to bear. In fact I am quite used to that. I told you I’m used to people hating me. In fact, I never even expected to imagine having a friend who’s not Chinese. Given how much having my language means to me, I would never imagined me being myself speaking any language other than Chinese.
With you something is different. Many times when we were having our late night chat after banging our heads against the wall for hours with those obscure maths theorems and proofs, I forgot that I was not speaking my mother tongue. Our conversations were just conversations. Regardless how incompetent I am at speaking and thinking in English, regardless how much I wish I could master the language you speak as to fully express myself to you, I completely forget about language. How is this possible? I lost all my limbs but I’m still walking with you, picking flowers along the way.