Me no speak Taiwanese: gaining and losing languages

Although I'm very thankful for the chance I was given to learn English in the United States from a young age, one thing that I lost while I was in Michigan that I never fully got back was my ability to speak the Taiwanese (Min nan) dialect (also known as Taiwanese Hokkien). According to statistics, 70% of the people Taiwan speak Taiwanese as their native tongue, but Mandarin is the official language. Although it is considered a dialect, it sounds very different from Mandarin. There are eight tones in Taiwanese whereas in Mandarin there are only four tones. My parents grew up speaking Taiwanese and had difficulty transitioning to speaking Mandarin when they started school. Back in the day, some schools would fine students for speaking Taiwanese instead of Mandarin. The government policy has since changed and learning Taiwanese is encouraged in schools now.

Because both of my grandmothers had not attended school and could not speak Mandarin, we had to communicate with them in Taiwanese. Keeping up with my Mandarin while I was in the US was hard enough, as I mentioned in my previous post, and I did not speak Taiwanese at all during the five years we were there. Therefore, my sister and I couldn't really communicate with my grandparents when we went back to Taiwan. The only thing I could say in Taiwanese was 'grandma' and 'grandpa' and simple things like 'how are you?' and 'have you eaten?' (A common way to greet people in Taiwan). Learning the way to address the different aunties and uncles on my mother's side and my father's side was very difficult. During Chinese New Year we would have big family reunions and everybody would be speaking in Taiwanese. My sister and I were very bored because we didn't understand most of what they were saying. I remember being confused by the words for 'male' and 'female' because they sounded so similar to me. Therefore, when relatives started talking about someone's new baby and asking about the gender, I always got mixed up, thinking they had a boy instead of a girl or the other way around.

Another funny thing that happened was my grandma asking me if I wanted to 'bei swah'. Thinking that she was asking me to go clothes shopping with her, I excitedly said yes! To my surprise, we ended up going mountain climbing. The phrase for clothes shopping is 'bei sa' instead of 'bei swah!'

Although I used to be close to my paternal grandma (who has passed away) since she took care of us before we moved to the United States, I felt a great barrier between us after I came back to Taiwan. It was as though we were strangers. I couldn't express myself and could only smile and call her 'Granny' affectionately. I tried learning Taiwanese from my roommate at University and I did improve somewhat but I still felt like a young child speaking. Language is a funny thing; once you stop using it and don't practice it, you will lose it. I learned German for two years while I was at University and had gotten high marks, but a few years ago, when I went to Germany, I had forgotten even the most simple phrases except for Guten Tag (good day) and Danke (thank you). I am not sure if my Taiwanese will ever improve to the level where I can engage in a deep conversation with my maternal grandma (the only grandparent left), but I know she can feel my love for her through other modes of communication.

Note: The photo was taken with my Samsung Galaxy s5 in June 2016 in Nantou, Taiwan at a ceramics museum/village.