by Karen Zheng
as in thank you for allowing her English
Her second gudebai
Things you say when you
part with something
San q eweyding gud
Gud gud gudebai
Si yo
I’m teaching Mother English
Braken Inglish
There is nothing to fix
but the other day I gave her a 50
on her quiz because she told me
they walking hard a lot
everyday hot
tired not
I told her
it’s hard for them to walk
every day is hot
they’re not tired
She says she doesn’t care
just let her pass
Karen Zheng: As a young child, I read the Chinese translation of Crayon Shin-Chan 蠟筆小新, a Japanese manga series, and also watched the cartoon version of it. While reading the comic, I came across a linguistically interesting phrase—“三Q” as a replacement for “thank you” (the literal meaning was “three Q” but phonetically the word “three” in Chinese sounds like “san,” so “san q” together sounds like “thank you”).
Two things stood out for me. 1) Why did Shin’s mother, an Asian, feel the need to say “thank you” in English or pseudo-English? 2) How did this way of expressing English emerge?
This phrase was always in the back of my mind, but one day during the summer of 2020, my mother asked me to teach her English. So I embarked on this undertaking with zeal by writing out vocabulary words and sample sentences where the words might be used. When trying to figure out how to teach pronunciation of these words, I remembered “三Q.” Then came teaching my mother English words with Chinese characters as a way of pronunciation. This made it easier for my mother to understand the way the words were supposed to sound with familiar Chinese characters.
There is a constant monolithic ideal in America, where everybody is supposed to speak English perfectly, and those who do not are looked down upon. Those who do not speak it perfectly include my mother. She came to the United States when she was 18. The only English words she knew were “thank you” and “goodbye”. To this day, she still has her English corrected. I have now become one of those who corrects her English, and when she tells me her pronunciation is good enough, I have to take a step back and remind myself that all types of Englishes are valid, and “there is nothing to fix”.
Published: Tuesday 14 September 2021[RETURN TO AUDITORY CORTEX 2021]
Karen Zheng is a first-generation, queer, Chinese-American undergraduate studying English and Creative Writing (poetry). She is interested in writing about the intersectionality of her identities. In her free time, she hosts the Mx. Asian American podcast.