That is the image you are identified with.

I am Malaysian. Or so people can tell when I speak. Heck, if you’re very good, you can even spot whether a person originated from KL, Penang or Johor through their choice of words and language.

I guess it’s an oddspot for me, this cultural identity thingy. I have learnt English, Mandarin and Malay, speak a little Cantonese and Hakka, can understand some conversations in Hokkien, and because of anime, pick up odd bits of Japanese occasionally. I feel weird at times because I wonder about what cultural identity I have. Of the languages above, you feel like a jack of all trades, and master of none. If you’re Australian or British, you speak English with their respective slangs and twangs. If you’re Spanish or French, you ought to be able to speak fluent Spanish or French. As a Malaysian, I know a hodgepodge of languages, and among Malaysians, you can intermingle all the words from various languages, in a form of ‘rojak’, and still people will comprehend you.

And you wonder if this is an issue? At times, maybe. Language is an issue. When I walk to Chinatown to get groceries, sometimes I talk to the cashier in English, other times, in Cantonese. I have wandered into restaurants distinctly Asian, and when I try to order in Cantonese, I get a waiter/waitress who only speaks English with the matching Australian accent. That’s why at times you are lost for words and can’t even start off a conversation cause you don’t know which language you should pick to communicate.

At my part time job, a customer walked in who was Asian but was definitely local through the way she spoke. She was talking to my employer (who is Australian) and he was joking about her being Chinese and such. She was slightly offended and identified herself as purely Australian. I have no arguments with that statement, as we should be proud of who we are. Which brings me back to the issue of identity, of who we really are.

The world is so global today that people just pick up their roots and go somewhere else. And some people can so easily let go of what their ancestors represent and are simply assimilated into their new surroundings. That would probably be true of me as well, as while my ancestors did come from mainland China, there is not a single thread to make me want to go back there. The idea of where one stays isn’t as great an issue as it is the cultural identity I keep talking about. Being Chinese, understanding the language allows you to dwell further into the intricacies of the culture, its idealogies and history. Or perhaps that is how I want to be identified as culturally.