Chinglish VS Chinese/English

I was reading a Chinese lady's blog this morning. She wrote a short article about Beyonce and American feminism. I didn't know anything about her before today. Interestingly, her blog uses a style of mixing Chinese and English. I am no language purist. I think the recent ban on English acronyms usage in public media in China is ridiculous. Language is liquid, it changes with time, culture, and geography. Languages mix with one and other daily. There isn't and shouldn't be any defined border among languages.

But I honestly didn't see the point of this lady's blog of mixing the two languages. Is she writing to a Chinese audience or American audience? Switching back and forth of languages destroys the flow of the article and annoys the hell out of me. Is it a pretentious way of showing off that she can command both languages? Or is it a sign that she can't work with either well?

I speak and write in English everyday, it doesn't make me a better writer in Chinese. Ultimately, it is the logic and flow that makes a good argument and good essay. The soul of writing is not the language, it's the thoughts behind the language.

Funny Chinese Comedian

This guy is really brave and funny! He came from Rice University, made a very unusual career.

Helping Others and Felt Stupid

A few months ago I was buying breakfast at a McDonald's at O'Hare Airport. A Chinese man, who spoke no English at all, was trying to buy a hamburg. Seriously, he couldn't even say "hamburg", he said "han bao" in Chinese! The cashier seemed to be quite experienced with international travelers so he just brought out a menu with pictures. Of course, this man didn't know there were so many different "han bao" in the US. So being the good Samaritan, I tried to help, talked to the cashier to help him make the order while talking to him in Mandarin.

This man didn't look at me at all the entire time, nor did he talk to me directly, let alone saying "thanks". He's got his food and went back to his table, where a couple of same mid-age Chinese men were sitting, without food.

I don't know if he felt "losing face" because a young Chinese woman helped him, or he was used to have others' service, or he was just not used to express appreciations like many Chinese, whatever reasons, I felt really stupid for helping this stranger. Well, it turned out that I didn't stop helping wandering Chinese tourists later, but I was deeply saddened by this incident.

Welcome to Daily Immigrant Blog Site

I was at an interview dinner with a few of my colleagues a few days ago. One of my lovely, highly educated colleauges was talking about a book she has been working on. It was about the African American immigrant experience in the US. As the usual observer, I didn't say a word and was patiently waiting for her to take notice the fact that if she needs the firsthand data about race, identity, and everything comes with being an immigrant in the US, she could just ask me about my daily struggle. Well, I don't know if she was trying to avoid offending me, she didn't seem to raise any questions. Of course, being the non-typical Chinese, I started to talk about my visa situation, my fear of being kicked out of the country, etc. etc. That always seems to fascinate people who have no idea of that daily experience of being an immigrant.

Hey, I thought to myself, why can't I start a blog about it? I like to document this experience before I am completely "assimilated" into this society and it might someday become an interesting book. Someone needs to know the price we pay for working and living in this "free" country, of course, nothing is free, anywhere.

This is not a blog about "political correctness", warn you. But I promise you this will be an interesting journey.