Multilingualism and Race
My father is a man who speaks in more than 5 languages, including dialects. When I was
young, I loved to follow my father around to meet his Malay clients. Every time I saw him
converse fluently with his customers in Malay, I always wondered if he was Malay. Later, I
learnt that in fact, not only my father, but all of us in the family were Chinese and my father
conversed in Mandarin at home. It made me even more confused when I heard my father
speaking in Hokkien with my grandmother and my aunts. Who is he? Who am I? It was not until
when I was eight did my parents begin to share our family history as bedtime stories and when I
got to know more about my identity as a Malaysian Teochew Chinese.
I remember when I was little, I always mixed up the Teochew and Hokkien dialects
because of how similar they were and how my family used them interchangeably. I asked my
father why we needed to learn how to speak Hokkien when we were Teochew. My father then
replied with the story of how my great grandfather migrated from Guangdong, China to
Malaysia. Due to the unequal economic development in China, my great grandfather left the
country and immigrated to Malaysia in search of better job prospects to support the family
(Lecture 5). My great grandfather spoke Teochew, but at that time, most of the people who lived
in our current hometown, Kulim, spoke Hokkien. To find and build a community away from
home is never easy. It was a tough time for him to assimilate to a new society, and thereafter, he
learnt to speak Hokkien in order to not feel alienated (Lecture 5). Therefore, even though my
family is of Teochew descent, speaking Hokkien is equally as important as speaking Teochew
due to such practical considerations. When I was younger, I did not appreciate the Teochew
dialect at all because I did not speak it outside of my family. However, as I grew up, I noticed
that when my family members are conversing in Teochew, the sense of intimacy within the
family is stronger. Slowly, I began to see how speaking Teochew was a way for me to connect to
my family history and to retain my cultural roots and identity as a Teochew Chinese.
Moreover, as a Malaysian Chinese, my parents also believed that we should be fluent in
Mandarin which is why they sent me to a Chinese vernacular primary school. They saw
Mandarin as a common language that unified people regardless of their dialect groups. This is
similar to what we learnt in Lecture 3, where people’s ethnicity is categorized by culture, and
one aspect is language. My grandfather’s greatest regret in life was not maintaining his
relationship with his relatives in China and my father shared with me why our family
emphasized on the importance of the Chinese language for us. He shared that my grandfather
was taught under English-language education in Malaysia and hence he did not know how to
read and write in Mandarin. Back then, he could not understand the letters written in Mandarin
from his uncle back in China, and his uncle did not understand his letters written in English
either. This resulted in further estrangement between our family and our relatives. It was just as
Amrith (2011, p.2) said in his article, “migrant origins were erased or forgotten over time, as the
descendants of migrants assimilated into local populations”. My grandfather did not get to learn
Mandarin because English and Malay were the main languages when my great grandfather
moved to Malaysia. This loss of connections to his Chinese roots alarmed him of the significance
of learning our mother tongue in our family.
In addition to being Chinese, because of the language policy in Malaysia, I also had to master
Malay and English in school. As a Malaysian, it is especially important for us to be good at
Malay since it is our national language. My parents also insisted that I should learn English since
it is an international language. This resulted in me being exposed to multiple languages from an
early age. The multilingual society in Malaysia resulted in a unique phenomenon where it was
difficult to categorize someone’s race based on the language he spoke. It was common for us to
speak to each other in what we call “Bahasa Rojak,” which is a combination of different
languages, including dialects, in a sentence. It has become a unique way of communication
between Malaysians. A common language may be a bedrock for us to move towards a raceblind
society (Tutorial 2). One day, if everyone speaks the same language, regardless of their race, will
we be able to differentiate their races, without referring to their skin colors or religions?
I reflected upon myself and the importance of language in shaping my racial identity and
how I viewed the different races. Perhaps in the past, during the mass migration to Malaysia
from all over the world, people were categorized according to where they come from and what
language they spoke as it was easier to do so. However, as time passed and the world became
more interconnected, the definition of race and ethnicity got more complex and difficult to
define. The role of language in identifying one’s race has less significance as people learn new
languages for practical reasons such as to work overseas. Despite that, it is still important for us
to learn our own mother tongue to retain our cultural roots and as a remembrance of our past.
Interview questions:
1. Do you still remember when our family moved from China to Malaysia? Can you tell me
the story?
2. Why do we need to learn Hokkien when we are Teochew?
3. How did my great grandfather settle down in Malaysia?
4. Why did you send me to a Chinese school?