English
Is a language I’ve learned out of necessity
Some might say it’s a success story, to have the second son
of working immigrants become his high school’s highest scoring English student
To be chosen valedictorian by his peers based on his
speech-writing ability
To get seven scholarships into university for a joint major
in English,
And journalism,
Which is basically glorified analytical English
Yes, some might say it’s a success story but for me,
All I see is that I’ve nearly lost the most sacred thing
connecting me to my ancestry
See, in the mountains of China, near the lakes and the rocks
and the forest of trees, where the sun shimmers down on the ocean of seas
There are villages
Hundreds of villages, where the sheep herders eat and the
men do tai chi and the women, they sing as they bring up their seed
And these villages?
They all speak
A different form of Chinese.
See the field villages, where rice farmers toil the fertile
soil
While speaking in hakka, and toisan, and more
See fishermen cities, their markets all busy
With gwang dong wah and gwok yeu and now do you see what I’m
speaking for?
Imagine if Ottawa, spoke a
different language than Oshawa, and Toronto different than St. Johns, and
Calgary different from Yukon, but not the same as Edmonton, all different from
Chicoutimi, a different dialect from BC, now imagine just how dope that’d be.
But they don't
But they don't
and it's not
That's why this language
English?
It's a joke to me.
