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23 Shen ai shi ren Wendy Hu The pigtails on my seven-year-old head swung like mini-jumpropes as I scurried into the breakfast nook. In between gasps for air, I excitedly announced, “Ma Ma? Ba Ba? Wo jue ding le! Wo bu yao jiang guo yu le. Oops. I mean, Mom? Dad? I’ve decided! I’m not going to speak Chinese anymore . I’m going to speak English only. Well . . . starting now.” All four of the Chinese adults turned and stared at me in dumbfounded wonder, startled from their casual conversation as they sat around the dining table. My dad, mom, uncle, and aunt, whom I respectively called Ba, Ma, YiDiong , and Ah-Yi, had been sitting together, peacefully snacking on dried watermelon seeds, when I made my unexpected and unwelcome announcement . I do not remember what they said next, if they said anything at all. I was much too excited to care about their response. This was to be the greatest moment of my life, the decision to affect all decisions. I was about to correct all of my faults in a single move and make myself anew. I had assumed that my family would be equally ecstatic. I explained to them in a high-pitched, euphoric voice that I had been inspired by Ru-Ru. Only eleven years of age herself, Ru-Ru had become my new role model because she could speak English relatively well. If she could be Chinese and speak English at the same time, then I could too. I did not stop to wonder about what would happen to my Chinese if I spoke only English. Chinese was not something of value to me. It was a skill that I had always possessed, but had never desired. Shen ai shi ren (Chinese saying). Direct translation: God so loved the people of the world. Found in the Book of John, chapter 3, verse 16. Although I was born in Santa Barbara, California, my parents, recent immigrants from Taiwan, raised me to speak Mandarin Chinese. People tell me that my Chinese-speaking capabilities were impressive. By age two, I was forming complete and articulate sentences, all in impeccable Chinese. My parents took me to a Chinese church and surrounded me with Mandarinspeaking relatives, so I never felt out of place primarily speaking Chinese until my ‹rst day of school. Kellogg Elementary may have seemed like an ordinary, harmless elementary school. Set in the suburbs of Santa Barbara, it had everything an elementary school was supposed to have: a playground, blacktop, classrooms, a small cafeteria, and a nice grass lawn where students could sit and eat. To me, at age ‹ve, it was a terrifying place. I had entered a completely new world. Every child spoke perfect, unaccented English and dressed fashionably. I immediately felt out of place with my broken English and my well-patched pants. I felt so estranged that I would always eat lunch by myself or with Xiao-Shen, whose name in Chinese sounds like “Little Noise.” Usually, I chose to eat quietly by myself. I eventually began to dread lunch and recess because those would be my loneliest periods during the day. I remember when Ma Ma approached my ‹rst-grade teacher about my social problems. “Hi, Mrs. Strickly?” She spoke slowly and carefully. “I’m Wendy’s mom. Is Wendy okay at school? I think she doesn’t have many friends.” Oh no! I cringed internally at every word that fell from my mother’s mouth. I felt like I was trapped under a waterfall. I could see my mother’s words falling like rushing water, but I had no way of stopping them and no way to escape. I held my breath, hoping against all hope that Mrs. Strickly would not tell my mother the painful truth, that I really did not have any friends at all. I would never be able to bear the shame. Not only would I be a loser at school, but I would also be one in my mother’s eyes. “Well, Mrs. Hu, she doesn’t seem to talk to many of the other children. She will only play with one other girl. They seem to exclude the other children because they only play with each other.” Who was she talking about? What girl? “Oh,” uttered Ma Ma as she paused to think. She stood there, thinking, while I grew increasingly embarrassed with each passing moment. She ‹nally ended the silence...

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