If I were a child / I Wish I Could Learn...

Blog Prompt: If you could be child for one day, how old would you be and what would you do?

If I could be a child, I would be around 5 years old. I remember being the center of attention and loving my family so much. I didn't seem to have any worries or concerns because I was well cared for and loved. I was also very spoiled (so they tell me!) and I never wanted for anything. I would go on vacation with my parents and my 2 sisters because we very rarely got to do that. My dad worked 6 days a week in a Chinese restaurant and so we never went away except one week a year for a vacation. We usually drove to SC (from NY) to visit my aunt. I loved being with my family!

Blog Prompt: I wish I could learn..... because.....

I wish I could learn Cantonese before my dad dies. I am the only one who can not speak Chinese in my family. My parents and my sisters, who were 10 and 12 years older than me, all spoke Cantonese. When I started kindegarden, the teachers told my parents that my broken English was unacceptable and that they needed to stop speaking Chinese to me. Of course my parents trusted these educated people and so I'm the only one who can't speak Chinese. Whenever we visited relatives as I grew up, they laughed at me for not knowing what they said. I always had to have everything translated to me. It was bad enough that I was the only Chinese student in school which made me different and a target for bullying but then to be made fun of when I was with relatives was really hard for me. This caused me to resent being Chinese and I tried to be as American as I could. Now that I'm older and wiser, I embrace my uniqueness. I have more confidence and self esteem than I did growing up and I would like to find my roots. In 2000 I went to China for the first time to see the country where my father and sisters were born. It was a really wonderful feeling for me because for the first time in my life, I wasn't different! Now I want to learn the language of my father before he dies so we could have a conversation in it like I never did as a child.