Within the finely embroidered tapestry of my childhood—stitched with the intricate patterns of an Asian upbringing—language occupied a paradoxical place: at once a fortress and a bridge. Though our household reverberated with the rhythms of Eastern culture, my mother tongue was, unmistakably, English—a legacy of our family’s unique history and circumstances. It was the language in which we first reasoned, dreamed, and questioned. Yet, even as we conversed fluently in the tongue of our birthplace, our parents, with gentle but unwavering conviction, encouraged us to embrace the languages of our heritage: Cantonese, Mandarin, and a touch of Teochew, all threads woven deeply into the fabric of our lineage.
At the time, such encouragement felt more like obligation. Chinese, in all its forms, appeared less an invitation than a labyrinth. Its written characters stood like sentinels, complex and unmoving, resistant to any attempt at familiarity. The vocabulary sprawled endlessly, vast and unmapped, while its tonal precision demanded a discipline my youthful self had not yet cultivated. My frustration was anything but silent. I railed against it, with all the indignation a child can muster. It was, in those early years, a tempestuous relationship—defined more by struggle than by love.
And yet, as the years unfurled, something began to shift. As my formal education introduced me to the cultivated paths of other tongues—German, with its unyielding precision; French, with its lilting elegance; Dutch, with its pleasing structure and clarity; and later, Japanese and Korean, each bearing their own quiet allure—my relationship with language matured. These were no longer academic requirements; they were passports, granting me entry into worlds I might never otherwise have known.
In time, what began as resistance gave way to reverence. I began to perceive the delicate threads that link languages together—the Slavic kinship between Polish and Ukrainian, the romance shared between Spanish and Italian, and the quiet logic that made Chinese the key to unlocking the syntax of Japanese and the nuance of Korean. Even Teochew, once spoken only by the elders in hushed tones at festive gatherings, revealed itself as a cipher to the deeper currents of Taiwanese identity. Every language I learnt became a lens, each dialect a door. What had once felt burdensome had, somehow, become indispensable.
Alongside these, my affection for Latin quietly grew—at first an idle curiosity, later a studied pursuit. In time, I came to see Latin not only as the etymological bedrock of many modern European languages, but also as a mirror of my academic life. Through the study of medicine, where Latin endures in nomenclature and precision, I found a renewed appreciation for its elegance and logic. Though rarely spoken today, its ghost lingers in anatomy, in law, in thought itself—and so, I study it still.
Travel, a frequent rhythm of our lives, was transformed by this multilingual fluency. No longer was I a mere passer-by in foreign cities; I was, in many instances, welcomed as kin. A greeting in the local tongue did far more than bridge gaps—it disarmed, delighted, and dignified. From bustling markets in Seoul to cafés in Paris, from taxi queues in Taipei to temples in Kyoto, language became the currency of connection. It turned transactions into moments of understanding, and brief encounters into stories worth remembering.
This journey through language has taught me that fluency is not the end, but the beginning—of empathy, of cultural humility, of genuine human exchange. To speak another’s language is not simply to be understood, but to honour a shared humanity. It is to extend one’s hand in recognition of another’s history, their worldview, their very soul. My early battles with tonal inflection and unfamiliar scripts were, unbeknownst to me, the laying of foundations for something far greater.
Now, as I reflect on this arc—from reluctant student to earnest polyglot—I do so with a sense of gratitude. My parents’ quiet insistence, rooted not in nostalgia but in foresight, was a gift disguised as discipline. They were not merely preserving a tradition—they were handing me the means to understand the world more deeply. In learning languages, I learnt to listen—not only to words, but to the spaces in between. I learnt to see—not only through my own lens, but through those of others.
And in that, perhaps, lies the truest gift of all.
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