Two Words by Karen Li
“You’re in America - speak English!”
I felt the sprinkles of spit hit my arm. Whipped my head to the right. All I could do was watch as a scowling seventy-something year old Caucasian man huffed away - an expression full of hate and an air of self-righteousness. My mom’s voice on the phone seemed distant while I stood, frozen. Shock. Anger. Sadness. Wanting to speak up but not wanting to start a hostile exchange. As he disappeared around the corner, I wondered if I should have defended my identity.
~
I was running late and dreading the 25-minute walk to the train station. Sure, I could have taken the bus, but the NYC transit system is notoriously unreliable and is always breaking down (New Yorkers, you know what I mean). After finishing the last of my pineapple bun, I threw my phone, charger, and sweater into my bag, and then sprinted out the door.
As I jogged out of my building and turned onto the sidewalk, I glanced at my watch -- 9:30! Work starts at 10:15! My calves transformed into jetpacks and though I watched the crosswalk countdown go from 5 to 4 to 3, I kept on moving - the New York way.
Then, just as I passed the halfway point in the crosswalk, I heard the phrase, spoken with an American accent.
The two words that I’ve always dreaded hearing from those who can’t actually speak the language.
NI HAO!(你好)
I turned my head towards the people waiting for me to cross the street - which one of these vehicles is holding a person who feels so entitled and educated that they can say that without embarrassing themselves? But I couldn’t find the source of the sound. The watchful eyes of the headlights followed me across the street and even after the cars drove away, the two words kept echoing in my head.
You’d think that after the seventh time someone used those two words to mock my identity, I’d be used to it. I wish that were true.
~
I still remember one of the first times it happened. My sister and I were walking to the Food Basics supermarket in my neighborhood discussing our grocery list: corn, watermelon, oranges, maybe peppers… depending on how fresh they looked. My tote bag full of plastic bags bounced against my hip, and my ten-year-old legs pitter-pattered on the ground to keep up with my sister’s pace. On the corner of Batchelder Street and Avenue U, there was a group of women conversing with each other. One of them was wearing a bright yellow bandana over her cornrows, the woman to her right was wearing the kind of reflective sunglasses that looked like two rainbow-tinted mirrors, and the third woman had her hair in a bun that was almost the size of her head. They turned to look at us as we walked by and a few of them smiled their neighborly smile, as if to say good afternoon. We smiled back and my little attention-needy self was so happy I waved.
Then, bun-lady said the two words.
Between my sister and me, she has always been the less opinionated one. She is more indifferent towards the world and loves to shrug or roll her eyes when I yell hysterically at the TV during news reports. Her iconic line is “You can’t let everything get to you.” Cue my eye roll.
So while my sister responded with a simple “hello” to the group of women, I loudly articulated the question, “WhAt KiNd Of PaStA dOeS mOmMy WaNt?” My sister turned to look at me, her face embodying the annoyed face emoji, and said, “Karen, why are you so LOUD? I already said we’re not getting pasta - we already have noodles at home!”
I waited until we were out of earshot of the women and said “I know, but I wanted them to know that I could speak English.” My sister turned to look at me. “Well, why did they say that to us? Do they think that we only speak Chinese?”
“Karen, they were just trying to be nice. You can’t let everything get to you.”
I looked at her.
“Well, why did they just think that I speak Mandarin? What if I was a Korean person or Japanese?”
“Well, ARE you Korean or Japanese?”
“No…”
“Okay then.”
“But if they were really trying to say hi, then they could just say hi, like isn’t it weird if I said ‘hola’to a ‘Spanish-looking’ person and random people in New York City don’t say hi to people -”
“Karen. Just let it go. It’s not that big of a deal! They were just trying to be friendly, jeez. Stop looking into it so much.”
Maybe I was overthinking it - I do that a lot.
But that moment stuck with me.
~
The two words were still echoing in my head when I arrived to work at 10:20. A few of my coworkers came up to me and asked about the incident; I had posted it on Snapchat a few minutes after it happened to express my frustration. About half of my coworkers’ comments consisted of a variety of “What? That actually happens? That’s so messed up!” A good chunk of people, mostly those of East Asian descent, said with an air of defeat, “Yeah, I hate it when that happens. I don’t know what to do.” One girl exclaimed, “They say that to me and I’m not even Chinese!”
She explained, “Yeah, I’m Korean but people say nǐ hǎo to me anyway because they just assume I’m Chinese.”
“Yikes, sorry, Anna. Same, though. I don’t even speak Mandarin and they still say nǐ hǎo. I speak Cantonese!” said my coworker Daniel.
Suddenly, we heard footsteps echoing through the halls. We all leapt back into our chairs and shuffled papers, trying to organize what we could. My director walked into the room. We all looked up, waiting to be criticized for not being on task.
“Wow. I’ve never seen you all working so diligently.” Nervous laughter. “I heard you guys next door and I just wanted to say that I know how you feel.”
While we went around sharing memories of feeling like foreigners in our home country, my mind wandered to the one time the words helped rather than harmed.
About a year ago, I was standing on the train platform, waiting for the F train on a particularly humid day. “Where is this damn train?” A woman muttered next to me. People tapped their feet, sighed profusely, and fanned themselves with what they could: newspapers, books, flyers from that guy handing out papers to everyone on the platform. I was in the middle of tying up my hair when I heard a stranger say the two words behind me.
I whipped my head around, ready to give someone a death stare, but my face froze when I saw the source of the sound.
She was a small, elderly woman wearing a little round hat with a mini pink flower sticking out of its side. She looked like the kind of woman who had lived through so much and deserved anything in the world. As I turned to face her, she held a map up and smiled at me expectantly.
“Nǐ hǎo, nǐ huì shuō zhōngwén ma? (Hello, do you speak Chinese?)”
“Wǒ shuō guǎngdōng huà, dàn shì wǒ huì shuō yīdiǎn pǔtōnghuà. (I speak Cantonese, but I can speak a little bit of Mandarin.)”
Her face lit up like the Empire State Building at night. As I conversed with her some more, I surprised even myself with what I could remember from Chinese school. I gave her directions in my broken Mandarin and she thanked me so many times I felt like Mother Theresa.
This cute elderly woman wasn’t saying “nǐ hǎo” just to say it. She was saying it, expecting to have a full conversation with me, because she thought that I was educated enough to do so.
~
“What if they’re just proud of what they know?” My sister always asks me. She makes a good point. Some people are just trying to be kind or inclusive. It’s nice when people want to learn the language. However, the mentality of that Caucasian seventy-something year old man echoes throughout the country. In America, people speak English. So when I’m greeted in Mandarin, are they implying that I can’t speak English? That I’m not an American? On the one hand, I want to be proud of my heritage and bilingual abilities, but at the same time, it separates me from my other half - my American half.
Sometimes it’s nice for people to assume I speak Mandarin; it makes me feel educated. However, when store clerks belittle my mom for having an accent, when kids shout “ching chong” to me and snicker, and when people say “nǐ hǎo” on the street just to provoke me, it makes me seriously doubt any good intentions behind those two words. And honestly, most of the time, it’s people who don’t actually speak the language who say it to me, and then expect praise for doing so. But do I, as a Chinese-American, get a prize for knowing both English and Cantonese? My reward for knowing it is simply that - knowing it.
And that should be everyone’s reward.
Karen Li is a sophomore at Yale University and Masthead member of Changing Womxn Collective. She hails from New York City. As the proud daughter of two immigrants, her Asian American identity is her badge of honor. With Changing Womxn Collective, she hopes to highlight Asian American identities and bring attention to perspectives that have historically been pushed aside in our patriarchal, white-dominated society. She hopes to create pieces that speak to her own identity and reach out to other Asian American womxn.