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27.8.12

Mother tongue


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
and it's not
That's why this language
English?
It's a joke to me.

19.8.12

Midas touch

Anything the man formerly known as Marcus Jameel sets his mind and creative spirit to, will always turn to gold.  This is too good.