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Words (1993)

"The limits of your language are the limits of your world". This was the message so boldly proclaimed in a banner across the front of Miss Grefkins’ seventh grade English classroom. As a new student at Marina Junior High School, the impression that those words left upon me must have been enormous, for I still remember them vividly some thirty years later. The letters were actually cut out from construction paper, orange in color and stood about eight inches high. Very intimidating. They were reminders of something that my parents had drilled into me since early childhood. Although born in the United States, I did not speak English until I was around five years old. That came more out of necessity than anything else because I had started kindergarten in the American school system. In 1954, there was not the cultural sensitivity that we take so much for granted and expect today. Mainstreaming culturally diverse or physically or emotionally "challenged" students was not yet in vogue. The process of assimilation was the mandate. Dick and Jane, Spot and the white picket fence around single swelling homes was a reality that we should all aspire to.

My parents spoke only Chinese, Cantonese dialect. A dialect that was provincial to Hong Kong. It was not the official language of China. T was not even used predominately in Taiwan, or Formosa as it was called then. Yet the limits of their world was not confined to that continent across the ocean. They were immigrants that settled in the land of Gum Sahn, the "gold mountains" of California. They lived in the metropolis of San Francisco, first in Chinatown, then in the Western Addition part of the city where I grew up amongst the predominantly black population. There was, however, no white picket fence around our house. It was actually a flat, or a duplex if you’re from the suburb. Our single family dwelling housed my mother and father, my mother’s older brother, George, my paternal uncle and aunt, Eugene And Shau Jing, my great uncle, Shek, my three brothers and myself. We had a dog named Ricky, not Spot, and my brothers’ names and mine were far from being Dick and Jane.

My oldest brother’s name is Selwyn. I came along a year later and was dubbed Galen. Two years later, Kerwin, and then finally, Bertwin. All the names except my own are composed of two syllables with second one being "wyn" or "win". There was a method to this eccentric nomenclature. In the traditional Chinese family framework, there is the dubious but functional extension of the familial ties that include a network of "uncles", "aunts" , and assorted "cousins". These components may or may not be related by blood but are extended the same courtesies and respect as if they were. For example, a close make friend of my parents would be endowed with the title of "uncle" and our expected treatment of this elder would be as if he were one of the family.

Keeping track of the "real" family can be a confusing endeavor. There are three part to each proper Chinese name. The surname, which is always presented first in formal introductions is the key element. My surname is pronounced "luhr", or Louis in its anglicized form. This is not unlike the western concept of clans. My mother, born a Wong, will always be a Wong, even though she married into the Luhr family. The second part of the name is the primary identifier. This is comparable to "Joe" or "Mary". In my case, the name is pronounced "Gien". The third part, the "wyn" part, is a generational indicator. In other words, all of my blood cousins that were born in my generation would also have the "wyn" suffix. If I were to meet a fellow Luhr somewhere in china that had the suffix of "wyn", we would know that we were not only of the same core family, but that we were also the offspring of the same generation.

The Chinese culture is one that is preoccupied with ancestral lineages. For those of us that were born in this country, it is sad to say the awareness of those links will probably dissipate within a generation or two.

I am not sure how I escaped the "wyn" moniker. Perhaps it was in a moment of sheer hysteria brought on my emergence into this world that my mother lapsed from the traditional memories and named me Galen. Although I have a deep respect for my old world heritage, it was difficult enough growing up without being saddled with the name Gaywyn. My older brother goes by Sel., Kerwin goes by Kerwin, and no one in recent memory has ever called my youngest brother Bertwin without serious retaliation. He goes by Bert.

When I started kindergarten, my entire arsenal of English vocabulary consisted of my name and the names of my brothers. At that time, Bert had not been born yet, so it was "Selwyn, Galen, Kerwin". I’m sure that Mrs. Hines, my kindergarten teacher was frustrated when I responded to her every inquiry and comment with "Selwyn, Galen, Kerwin". It was evident that the limits of my world were in fact precluded by this scant, though colorful, arsenal.

Mom and Dad were also perplexed by their inability to assist us in learning this foreign language. They, too, did not have command of the language. It was fortunate for me though that a new invention had just become popular on the American scene. Television. At that time, television not the common commodity that it is today. It was an expensive luxury that only the stalwart middle class could afford, a novelty that had not yet permeated the homes of struggling working class families.

Not only did that twelve inch Philco provide my brothers and I with an able teacher for English, it brought us instant popularity in the neighborhood. We found that we had black "cousins", and white "cousins", and Hispanic "cousins" and a multitude of eager and curious friends now that were happy to join us after school to help us with our homework. I came to understand the concept of learning through osmosis.

Ricky and Lucy, Uncle Miltie, the beaver, Mike Fink and Davy Crockett, Cubby and Karen, Shari and Lambchop all became my teachers. Bucky Beaver taught me to sing the Ipana toothpaste jingle and Warner Brothers gave me the sense of rhythm and rhyme to lip-sync the them songs to Cheyenne, Sugarfoot and Bronco Lane every Thursday night. I was assimilating. I was becoming Americanized. My parents were happy with our progress, but like the Pepsodent commercial, they were wondering "where the yellow went".

By the time I was in the third grade, not only did I feel that I could speak English as well as any of my peers, I also had a pen pal in Australia and was taking Spanish through a school enrichment program. I remained fluent in conversational Cantonese, but I was a functional illiterate when it came to the written word. This shortcoming did not go unnoticed by my parents.

China is a large country. Its language is divided into many different dialects and those from Hong Kong are not able to converse intelligibly with those from Shanghai. The dialects are not just affectations of tone, such as a southern drawl. They are more like different languages. The glue that holds the Chinese language together is the written word. If one is able to write, he is able to communicate. Perhaps this is why there is such a strong affinity for literacy in China. And perhaps with my parents, this is also true. The limits of your language are the limits of your world!

And thus, beginning with my fourth grade year, my brothers and I not only had to attend American school in the daytime, we also had to take a bus across town right after school to St. Mary’s Chinese school in Chinatown. Once there, we became under the auspices of teachers that would have made the Gestapo cower. There was no bantering or horseplay allowed amongst the students. The formality of the learning environment was only eased by the novelty of writing with horsehair pens. Words flowed out like pieces of art. If they did not, then practice was prescribed until each stroke of the written word became a testimony to the respect that the language demanded. To this day, I cannot understand the reasons, but I loved it. When we finally arrived home, it was dinner, then completion of the homework assigned from both of our schools, and only then would we relax into the classroom of our television teachers.

My father never took to English. As we grew older, he would continue to speak to us in Chinese while we answered in English. It wasn’t because he couldn’t. It’s just that he never did. He always loved riding his bicycle in his spare time. I think it reminded him of a simpler time of life in China. Sometimes he would spend his weekends just riding from his home in suburban Marin County, over he Golden Gate Bridge, and into San Francisco. He never rode with a friend. He always traveled alone. He had this penchant for finding alternative routes, mapping out distances, exploring new trails. When he got lost, and he often did, only then would he seek out other cyclists and ask for directions. He would do so in English.

My mother read her first novel in English in 1975. It took her almost two months to finish Mario Puzo’s "the Godfather". After that, my brothers and I took her to see the movie. Twenty years later, she was absorbed by books written by Chinese-American women like Amy Tan.

Note: There is a cyclone fence around my house. I have two dogs with spots, but they are named Boxcar and Margo. I live in Boise, Idaho and my next door neighbor’s children are named Dick and Jane. They are Vietnamese.