CBC's

I was down at the Chinese Consulate today to drop off our applications for our Chinese Visa. We were hoping to get a 6 mth single entry but it turns out that for tourists, the max is 90 days. So fingers are crossed that we'll get the full 90 days.

Anyways, the main reason for the blog is to talk about us CBC's. For those who don't know, CBC = Canadian Born Chinese (or close enough). I came to Canada when I was 1 yr old. Grew up speaking english and only some Chinese (Cantonese) at home to my parents. Ever since leaving home, my Chinese has progressively gotten worse. I can just barely get by nowadays on the street and in restaurants. But you know, there's only so much dry fried rice noodle with beef one can eat!

Today was just another great example of this. I'm in front of the Chinese person taking my application and she starts to talk to me in Chinese. Cantonese thank god. Nonetheless, I understood everything she said, but when it came time to answer, I mumbled something like (in quotes is Chinese, captials is English) "Yes my" WIFE HAS FAMILY "in" CHINA. How embarrasing. The lady was very nice about it. She continued to explain how we could get a 180 day Visa in English.

Anyways, long story short is this is the constant internal struggle we CBC's have. We want to be able to speak our mother tongue, but it's so hard to overcome the embarrasment of having to use English in the middle of our Chinese (Chinglish as I call it).

For this reason, I am looking forward to throwing ourselves right in the middle of another culture and language in the hopes that I can come out of it being able to speak more Mandarin. We've both started with a Mandarin CD, but the true test will be in 19 days...

Let the learning begin!