Speaking Chinese

I’ve been speak­ing pure Chinese for almost an entire week straight. Certain mus­cles in my tongue that I did­n’t know exist­ed are tired. People tell me they’re sur­prised at how good my Chinese is — not just in terms of pro­nun­ci­a­tion, but vocab­u­lary as well — and won­der how it’s pos­si­ble with­out any means of prac­tice. I can’t explain this myself, aside from a con­stant inter­est in learn­ing new terms, and a love of Chinese movies (although this is more of a love of Hong Kong, and Chinese movies are my sen­ti­men­tal way of revis­it­ing it). There are also some Chinese terms that have no English equiv­a­lent, and peo­ple are always shocked when I know them.

Somehow, I can switch between the lan­guages quick­ly when I’m here. I even catch myself count­ing in Chinese now, which they say is what reveals your moth­er tongue.

Our Own People

It’s been a relaxed exis­tence here. Aside from spend­ing time with my grand­ma when she’s awake, mak­ing sure she eats through­out the day, and the occa­sion­al vis­it to the hos­pi­tal, there’s no set sched­ule for any­thing. I’ve only been to this house a hand­ful of times in my life, but I feel remark­ably com­fort­able. There’s no for­mal need to sit at the din­ner table until every­one is fin­ished eat­ing. There’s no oblig­a­tion to talk to some­one. No one feels the need to enter­tain me. I can nap when I want. I can raid one of the three fridges when I wake up at night and can’t fall asleep. I can walk around in my paja­mas all day. I can dis­ap­pear for hours to write. Like we’re actu­al­ly fam­i­ly, even though I bare­ly see these peo­ple.

My grand­ma tells me feel at home because we’re “our own peo­ple” as it’s said in Chinese. Even though I always under­stood the expres­sion, I’ve nev­er real­ly felt it until now.

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Hong Kong Humidity

Difference in Hong Kong and Ottawa weather

One of the notable dif­fer­ences here is the humid­i­ty. The pages of my book are begin­ning to wrin­kle. Towels don’t dry when they’re hung on a line. Even though it’s 20°C out­side, it feels more like 15°C because it’s so damp. Humidity is some­thing that Hong Kong is known for, as it’s sur­round­ed by water and filled with tall build­ings. It makes me won­der how peo­ple deal with mold in their hous­es.

Ironically, it “rained” two days in a row, but the rain was so weak that I had to ask oth­ers if they felt the droplets. Very dif­fer­ent from Ottawa, where rain­fall goes beyond obvi­ous, and can last for days on end.

Being Strong For My Grandmother

The can­cer has spread to her bones and sev­er­al major organs now. We asked the doc­tor not to tell her, but we can’t do any­thing against his moral oblig­a­tion to inform the patient. Either way, she does­n’t know how seri­ous it is, whether it’s from shock and denial, or mem­o­ry loss.

But she’s awake, and aware, and feel­ing no pain, which is good enough for me. The most we can do now is to try to make the rest of her life as enjoy­able as pos­si­ble.

She thinks she’s going to be fine. Keeps telling me that she’ll take me to a near­by park when she’s bet­ter. As much as it hurts me to know this won’t be pos­si­ble any­more, it’s reliev­ing to know she’s so obliv­i­ous. We don’t let our­selves cry around her, for fear that she may real­ize how bad it is.

Her face is more sal­low, her fin­gers and legs ema­ci­at­ed, but she still has her thick, black hair1. Aside from a dis­tend­ed stom­ach, it’s hard to tell that she has such a grim prog­no­sis.

But by far the hard­est part is hav­ing to cod­dle her like a child to take her med­ica­tion. Telling her she’s a good girl if she swal­lows her pills and reward­ing her with ice-cream. That we’re only strict because we care about her. It tears me in half when she gives such a painful look of dis­taste with every pill we hand her, 18 a day.

She used to be so strong. Now we have to be strong for her.

  1. “I used to have even more”, she tells me. [↩]