“Clean up the floor.” The cold voice of my third granduncle spurred my senses. “Don’t be a coward.” I was so nervous, but I followed what he said. I grabbed the rug from the floor and started to clean up the mess I had made. I cannot forget this scene, even after all these years. To tell the whole story, I need to start from where I had lived first.
I was born in a small city called Zhenjiang, one hour from Shanghai by train. My grandparents came from Shanghai to the small city to teach in the university. My grandmother is from a feudal family in Shanghai; her father, my grand grandfather, owned and managed China’s first and biggest refrigeration company in Shanghai. He was powerful and kind, while one of his sons, my third granduncle, was a proud and indifferent person. After my grand grandfather passed away, my grand-uncle took his position as the head of the family. My parents can speak both Shanghainese and Mandarin. However, they taught me only Mandarin when I was born. Since I did not speak a word of Shanghainese, I barely talked to anyone in Shanghai. I had never felt that those elderly people who lived in Shanghai were relatives of mine: I thought I was not a member of their family. I was afraid of speaking that dialect. Maybe it was because I thought my relatives who spoke Shanghainese were indifferent and solemn, and speaking to them was stressful for me. However, since Mandarin is the national language, I had experienced nothing inconvenient until my grandmother took me to visit Shanghai at that time. There, my impression of my granduncle totally changed and I finally started to learn Shanghainese. This experience helped me to gain as sense of belonging with my family. It gave me courage when I met trouble because it built my confidence.
At that time, my grandmother took me to the family house right after we arrived. Following the custom, I was going to send my greetings to the elderly. Slowly, step by step, I moved upstairs. What frightened me the most was the embarrassing condition of talking to the elderly in my family who only speak Shanghainese. “Hi, grandaunt,” I said in Mandarin. Just as I expected, what I heard was long and not understandable speech-sounded words. I looked to my grandmother, hoping for her to translate for me or to give me some clue, yet she was talking earnestly to her other siblings and did not look back. I gripped my hand tightly while my grandaunt continued her “speech.” My mind floated away back to years ago when I first came to Shanghai. When I was a child, I had been taken care of by my parents and grandparents. I did not have to face a dialect that I could barely understand. I had every excuse to avoid being considered inappropriate in such an occasion. Transiently, my grand-aunt’s voice dragged me back from these childhood experiences. “Come on,” she said. I had some reaction because that sounded like Mandarin. She put her hand on my shoulder and took me upstairs.
I was absent-minded, thinking over and over about finding an excuse to escape from the house. The door upstairs opened before I reached the top. “Hello, Liangting.”
I could tell that there was more than one sound stabbing into me. Question by question, they asked; their gentle voices became harsh and irritating. Yet at that moment, the language seemed to be a blade on my neck. I could analyze the message in pieces from their fast and strange pronunciation, but I was unable to assemble the information into one complete question. I uttered no words to them. ‘Who am I? Why can’t I understand?,’ I thought to myself. I had been thinking about this problem for years while other family members talked in Shanghainese from time to time. Languages seemed to be the identity of my family, but I did not have it.
Overwhelmingly, I did not even realize I was staring at them. They stopped talking while a cold and deep voice said in Mandarin, “You don’t speak Shanghainese? Then learn it!” The voice suddenly became severe enough that I felt it turn into a fist punching into my chest. It was from my third granduncle. I nodded and ran off to the bathroom directly. Opening the tap, I waited for the sink to be filled. I wanted to bury my face into the water to calm down. I hated that moony air around me. My mind was vacant and the sorrow in my heart was like a burden stopping me from breathing. Before I could immerse my face in the water, I heard a voice right behind me at the bathroom door: “Clean up the floor! Don’t be a coward!” I was shocked and I turned off the tap immediately. The water overflowed to the ground. I did not dare look up while I cleaned the floor. I hoped granduncle would leave me alone, yet he stood there, leaning on one foot.
This embarrassing scene lasted about five minutes. Granduncle did not leave to give me a relief. I finally stood up, looking anywhere but from grand-uncle’s eyes.
“Look at my eyes.” I could not believe my ears. His voice had become warm and gentle. Granduncle seemed to be another person when he was not around my family.
“Trust yourself; Shanghainese isn’t that hard.” He cupped his hand around my shoulder and said, “You’ll be proud of yourself once you do it.” I nodded again, silently but in a touched mood. My impression of him changed completely. As a head of the family, he surely needed to be severe, but when he talked to me alone, his words were gentle and inspiring. Language is not an apocalypse; it is more likely to be gentle and warm. The next few days passed so quickly, and whenever I saw my granduncle, we smiled at each other but did not talk. We were like two wistful men who had a tacit understanding of one another.
After I returned to my city, I asked my parents to talk in Shanghainese at home. Because my grand-uncle had helped me feel more accepted when I used Shanghainese with my family, I no longer felt terrified. Possessively, I could understand and speak a little bit. Before I became a Shanghainese master, I had gone to visit my grand-uncle again. Differently from the last time, we talked in Shanghainese. “Are you proud of yourself?,” he’d asked me on my last day stay. “Sure!” I’d said delightfully. With a big smile, what he replied to me was like the sunshine sliding on the booming grass in spring: “I am proud of you as well.” For the first time, I saw myself as a member of the big family.
Years later, my grand-uncle passed away. It happened before I became an international student in the United States. At first, it was difficult for me to study English. I couldn’t possibly remember how many times I wanted to give up, but grand-uncle’s smile always reminded me of something unutterable. Today, his words remind me of the support from my family, and they make me more confident and courageous when facing the challenges in my life.