Mother
2021
six-hour drive
past the border
and i am watching a troupe
of mouths dance high above a colony of warm guangdong dishes that sit atop a lazy susan
in the living room of
maa maa’s
kuala lumpur house.
my born-and-bred relatives
twist their tongues in
intricate patterns
effortlessly mastering
the thick, smooth, boisterous
consistency of cantonese speech marinated with so much more
flavor than the cookie cutter
mandarin i am force-fed in school.
yes, i can confidently recite
yat yih saam sei
ngh luhk chat baat
gau sahp.1 and
pick up certain fragments
thrown around the house that
aren’t just chap chyes 2
of syllables to my ears, such as sihk bao mei? 3
leng lui 4
hou gou 5
faiti faiti 6.
but at the dinner table
i take on the role of an annoying child left out during playtime
repeatedly
disrupting the
back-and-forth
verbal performance
with bland
english,
begging gu jie 7 or dai pak 8
to help me unwrap zong 9 after zong
of incomprehensible phrases
jou ji yau gam yat ho bit dong cho?
yat yan jou si, yat yan daam.
that leave another grown-up’s mouth,
into bite-sizes i can chew.
my mother still calls me a cantonese girl
as if it were some sort of genetic trait
i could inherit without an ounce of effort.
tell me how i should live up to that simple term
when the slight aftertaste of disgrace
bubbles at the back of my throat
every time i indulge in the leng ngau tong 10
from the bowl at the
heart of the table, shared with my
cantonese
family members. (tell me how)
i should still feel like i belong
while i am trying to
grow out another tongue
that can proudly execute
routines of coherent sentences
to the right rhythm;
to stretch out
past the invisible border
between us.
1 One two three four five six seven eight nine ten
2 A type of mixed vegetable stew
3 Have you eaten yet?
4 Pretty girl
5 Very tall
6 Hurry up
7 Aunt
8 Uncle
9 Traditional pyramid-shaped glutinous rice dumpling, stuffed with different fillings and wrapped in bamboo leaves
10 Lotus root soup