I've been reflecting a lot lately...About my past and the present...How I grew up...How I'm different now...
I was born and raised in Harrisonburg, Virginia--the south as dictated by the Mason-Dixon line. We're really in the mid-atlantic region but we were all brought up with southern values by our family, friends, neighbors, and teachers. When you're that close to a melting pot like Washington, D.C. your heritage is of great value. Everyone from home knows exactly where their bloodline originates and is proud of it! In keeping with tradition, my parents raised my brother, sister, and I with their cultures, MY culture. My dad is half Laotian and half Thai. My mom is a Vietnamese who was born in Laos. Mom also has a twinge of French blood from colonial history.
As a part of being aware of our culture our parents would speak to us in their respective languages. My dad would speak to me in Lao, my mom would speak to me in Vietnamese, and we would watch movies in Thai. I used to be so proficient with my languages! Knowing 4 languages fluently isn't really as difficult as it sounds, except when you lose practice!!! Once I got to a certain age I became embarrassed about my American accent. It just sounded awful when I spoke my parents' languages. I started replying to my parents in English and as their English skills improved, they began using a mixture of Lao/Viet/Thai/English (often in the same sentence).
While I was in middle and high school, I didn't connect with any of the Asian kids in our community, so I lost practice there when I stopped talking to them. Afterward, I went to university 10 hours away from home in a predominantly Caucasian area. The only time I was able to practice was when I took a job as a hostess at a Thai restaurant. Eventually I lost nearly all of my speaking skills and only retained oral comprehension of my parents' languages. This is what made me take French in the first place. I was missing something...A challenge of sorts. I took 4 years of French in high school and got a French minor in college. Now I'm living in France with a French family and enjoying life with a French boyfriend.
Though my French skills are quickly rising, I still feel like something is missing. And after a lot of self-reflection, I'm sure it's the cultural pieces of me. I've decided to tap back into my heritage and re-learn all of the languages I grew up with. I started with Vietnamese because that's the language I'm least savvy with. I was going over all of the basics of the Vietnamese language today and as I began to recall everything, I became emotional. I had stopped talking to my Vietnamese grandmother on the phone because I couldn't think of how to reply in her language. When I think about it now, it's just so stupid of me. All I knew how to say was "Hi bà ngoại. Khỏe không?" --> 'Hi grandma. Are you well?' It was worse with my dad's mom,"mae thoux" even though I'm quite proficient in Lao. It was just my accent holding me back.
I'm making it a point to go over my lessons for at least an hour for each language, everyday. Hopefully I'll be able to visit my bà ngoại and my mae thoux and have full conversations with them by the end of the year...Wish me luck! They're my last surviving grandparents...
Yep. That's my bà ngoại getting ready to down a beer on her birthday with my aunt, uncle, and cousin. I knew I came from a line of champs ;-) Though I'm not going to have 22 children like her, lol.
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