Bilingual

I speak Chinese with the Taiwanese international students, laughing over phrases as we try to teach a few students to play mah jongg. We make confused faces when we get stuck, as Ying looks to me for an English translation and I apologize because I have no idea either. I compliment him on his ability to teach a game with many parts; with a big smile, he says it's his first time, and his bright face says he had fun.

The sentences, encouragements, expressions flow out with ease. Aware that no one else knows what we're saying, I translate bits and pieces to the friends around me. But part of me doesn't really care today. I speak with pride. Not the guess-what-I'm-saying-about-you pride of fifth grade, but the pride of a language that boasts intricate characters and a culture that these friends have yet to learn. I carry not just the sounds, words, and tones; but also the mannerisms, politeness, and slang of a whole group of people.

"So, do you speak another language?," a few students ask, an obvious leading question into a conversation of what they never knew about me. I am mildly amused that a handful of them had no idea my first language wasn't English, that I'm fluent in Mandarin. I wonder what it looked like: All of a sudden, it's  I'm fully conversing in another language, like a code they weren't aware I knew. Code-switching happening right before their very eyes. And there's so much more that they don't know.

But it starts here: today they know a little more. Today, in a natural, uncalculated interaction with our new Taiwanese friends, I just let them into a little more of my life. In a slightly dramatic yet very true way, it's like they don't really know me if they don't this part of me exists. But it does. I answer the questions, I tell them my parents emigrated and I am from a first-generation family, I tell them how my parents know four dialects in Chinese and try to get them to say, "poang!" in mah jong to steal a tile they want.

I spend a majority of my life now with people who expect only English from me. Ever since I moved out of the bay, it catches me off guard every time I walk into a Chinese restaurant and have to decide what language I'm going to use. But today felt a little like home, even though ironically, it was the Taiwanese-born students I never quite fit in with in high school (my accent was hilarious to them). Without the Bay Area expectation that everyone knows the native tongue, my ability to speak is a gift, a joy, a surprise to both Taiwanese and American friends. And I speak it with joy, thankful for the gift of a native tongue.

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Related: Mom says: 'Learn Chinese."