Although Valentine’s Day passed almost two weeks ago, love is a subject that we never tire of talking about, a notion that brings back memories for many that are sometimes sad and painful, sometimes sweet, even soothing. It is also a word that can sometimes ring hollow, by dint of being repeated and rehashed without us really asking the question of what it ultimately consists of loving someone, of loving ourselves. -self, the world, etc.
I would nevertheless like to explore how the choice of a language can distance us from the people we are supposed to love the most, namely our parents, to whom we literally owe our lives, our flesh, and many of the annoying tics that make us make us realize, sometimes to our greatest misfortune, that we are, in fact, reflections of them. My mother’s advice from traditional Chinese medicine, which I once found so silly, no longer seems as far-fetched to me as it used to (for example, drinking hot water is better for digestion — it’s that’s why if you go to China, you shouldn’t be surprised if you’re served boiling tea rather than a bottle of cold water in the middle of summer, for example).
The question of the language shared between parent and child does not arise for most of us. But for many individuals from a migratory background, this is particularly tense. Maybe your grandparents live far away from you, speak a distant variation of French, or your parents come from two different countries and raised you bilingual. We are all crossed by these multiple heritages, we just have to go far enough into the genealogy. And today, this subject is even more relevant than ever.
For many obvious reasons, learning the language of the country you live in is a necessity. But what happens when, with a family to support, enormous economic pressure, a traumatic past linked to forced exile or the simple difficulty of learning a whole new system of communication, parent and child cannot share the same language? Can we love a loved one who doesn’t speak the same language as us? And if yes, how ?
I’ve been asking myself these questions for years, having grown up in a trilingual household where three cultural and symbolic worlds constantly collided with each other. First, China, where my parents spent 30 years, which gave them their mother tongue, Mandarin. Then, Canada, with an English-speaking majority, where they immigrated in 1997. Finally, Quebec, this unique province where we all speak French and English, with this particular and warm accent.
Depending on the period of my life and my interlocutor – I have two sisters who also grew up in the West – these languages have profoundly shaped and complicated our relationships. My mother spoke neither French nor English fluently, and my Chinese was decidedly poor at the time, I could not express the most basic ideas to her in her mother tongue. Today, who could I blame? The Quebec government, for having imposed certain language policies which ensured that I received an education in French until I was 16? My very parents, for having worked too much to offer us a better future, thus sacrificing hours that they could have spent passing on this legacy to us?
I ask all these questions knowing that there is no satisfactory answer: life takes its course, languages have made their way into our history during our travels across continents, between the Orient and the ‘West.
To return to the question of love, I am obliged to give in to the cliché by answering yes: even without a common language, parent and child can love each other, because gestures count, which is not articulated through language. remains present in the sensitive world. A meal, a favor, a lift are all things I had to hold on to to convince myself that we loved each other. However, I can’t help but notice, over the last three years, when I started to relearn Chinese, that it is much easier for me to communicate with my parents now that I can express myself almost perfectly. . The other day, my father even told me: speaking Mandarin when we used to speak English brought us closer together, in an unconscious way. Maybe it’s also the fact that I live far away from them now, or that we’re simply getting older.
Is it really the communication in this language that brings us together, or the act of relearning Chinese from a fragile base, and doing so with determination – for that I thank the silly, but entertaining Chinese reality TV shows, who helped me reach this level —, who testifies to my greatest love for my Baba and my Mama? I’m starting to suspect this is part of the answer.
Loving would therefore not be confined only to a choice of language, since it depends on far too many complicated factors which would not resolve anything. Loving, at least for me, comes down to this caring and unconditional presence that my family has shown over the years; This observation strikes me much more now that the language problem no longer concerns us.