Stop saying ‘ni hao’ if you want to be an ally to

You would think that as New Zealand Chinese Language Week arrives, I would feel a sense of pride in my heritage, but actually, I feel pretty stink.

When non-Chinese people say ‘‘ni hao’’ to me, they usually want something. Most of the time they want to be recognised as globally minded people who ‘‘get’’ Chinese, and sometimes it’s for money or sexual attention. Most of these people also have no idea how the automatic attribution of Mandarin to my outwards appearance is quite traumatising.

I grew up in a Cantonesespeaking family, spoke and heard English around my schoolmates, and went to the dreaded afterschool Mandarin classes.

Nothing made me feel dumber and more un-Chinese than being in these classes. At best, I could kind of mouth along with my classmates while they recited Li Bai off by heart. I became expert at peeking over at classmates’ answers during tests.

Most of the kids had come from Mandarin-speaking families, but for anyone else, we were spoken at in a language barely familiar to us. From a very early age, I was made to believe that Mandarin was going to be important for my success and a key validator of my Chinese identity. I put exhausting energy and time into learning Mandarin at the expense of my mother tongue.

I would write sentences for homework like ‘‘I don’t like going to Chinese class’’, and the teacher would mark them as wrong even though they were grammatically correct. Pages of Chinese characters in my exercise books are smudged with tears.

Our curriculum material encouraged us to be good Han Chinese, and it felt like I was being punished for not fitting in as a patriotic Chinese child.

As I grew older and realised some other Chinese friends spoke Cantonese at home, it felt like we had a shared secret. I saw Cantonese being spoken in Pixar’s Turning Red, and by Michelle Yeoh in Everything, Everywhere, All At Once, and finally felt seen.

Losing connection with my mother tongue means I’m unable to hear the stories and experiences of my grandparents in China, and can’t express complex thoughts and emotions when we speak in stilted Cantonese. I’ve held my tongue for so long that now I don’t even know how to be angry in what was my first language.

Enroling in a full immersion te reo Ma¯ori course made me feel guilty for putting effort into a language when I’m neglecting Cantonese. Yet, Cantonese learning resources are few and far between despite the lasting history of this language in Aotearoa. I’ve been struck by the parallels of language loss between tangata whenua and Aotearoa’s Chinese community.

Early Chinese New Zealand settlers mostly came from Guangdong, a linguistically diverse province where people predominantly spoke Cantonese. These settlers experienced high levels of social and legislated discrimination, and were forced to assimilate to survive.

The expectation to assimilate remains in modern Kiwi society. While speaking, eating, dressing and acting white has helped me thrive, I’m also expected to fit into a collapsed perception of Chinese culture and language where Mandarin is Chinese, and being Chinese is being the Chinese Communist Party.

Selective aspects of Chinese culture are celebrated in the name of diversity, with much of the discourse on ‘‘Chinese’’ language learning about professional development and international trade rather than cultural preservation, family and identity.

The New Zealand Chinese Language Week Trust claims to promote the learning of ‘‘Chinese’’ in New Zealand’s education system,

I’ve held my tongue for so long that now I don’t even know how to be angry in what was my first language.