Have I ever felt I have to protect my parents sometime in my life to defend them? Usually, it would be my parents that will be watching my back and constantly carefully monitor me to protect me from unnecessary harm, although occasionally they would want me to deal with problems myself to gain independence. Anyway, I can only say there are indeed some occasion where my parents were insulted or at least discriminated for their skin color and English ability when we went traveling in the state. I can totally understand Leong’s feeling. Trained with a second language at an early age, my parents are usually dependent on me when we went to foreign countries. Most of the time, I simply wished to stand on the side and let my parents struggling to do all the talking due to my shyness. I would often be scolded at for my impassiveness toward helping them when they struggle to communicate and understand some words, ranging from buying a Big Mac in Macdonald to reading a menu in a restaurant. Although our family was never been insulted with the word chink before, just simply the word “Chinese” pisses our family off. Many times when I tried to explain some terms for my parents in Chinese, the casher would suddenly whisper “Ha, Chinese” followed by some laughter or staring as if we were inferior. Although he did not say anything else, just the word referring us as Chinese offended me. For me, I hated to be labeled the same as the people whom we have serious conflict with due to complicated political reason. Perhaps the word Chinese is innocuous, however it’s the way people use it in context and say it with sarcasm that makes me feel uncomfortable.
Mandarin endearment親愛的~~ (dear one)
小可愛 (little cute one)
哈尼~ ( honey)
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