My current writing project is a series of essays about life as a middle class Wisconsin dad raising his daughter alongside a first generation Asian American mom. I am two years into the project, but only recently have I been sending draft chapters to my bicultural daughter for feedback. A week ago I spoke to Clare on the phone about a chapter I’d written on Manyu’s obsession with Clare learning to speak fluent Mandarin.
Early in our conversation, Clare said, “You know, Dad, I speak Mandarin with a Taiwanese accent, but Mom doesn’t.” With my very limited comprehension of Mandarin, how would I know that? I did not even know Mandarin came in accents.
In 2008, Manyu, Clare, and I moved to Taiwan for a year. The reason was largely to improve Clare’s Mandarin. For one full academic calendar, she attended a Taipei public school and spoke Mandarin with everyone except me. At school, her teacher and most of her classmates were Taiwanese. When I say that they were Taiwanese, I do not mean that they grew up in Taiwan, although they did, but that they were descendants of people who emigrated to the island from the Mainland in the 1700s. They are the original Han people to Taiwan, sometimes called Taiwanese and sometimes called bénshěngrén (本省人), the “provincial people.” Bénshěngrén have foods and customs that are distinct from anything on the Mainland. They also have their own spoken language (Taiwanese). While Mandarin is the official language of Taiwan, it is the second language to about 80% of the island’s population.
Manyu is not bénshěngrén. Both of her parents emigrated to Taiwan with Chiang Kai-shek in the 1940s. This makes her wàishěngrén (外省人) or “outside the province people.” Wàishěngrén does not mean foreigner so much as Johnny-come-lately Han people. When Clare told me that she spoke Mandarin with an accent, she was saying that she spoke Mandarin with a bénshěngrén accent. As wàishěngrén, Manyu does not have the accent.
I am describing bénshěngrén (Taiwanese) and wàishěngrén as if I know what I am talking about. I don’t, but that is only because the people from Taiwan aren’t sure themselves. The distinction between bénshěngrén and wàishěngrén is important to Manyu’s generation and to the generation of Manyu’s parents. Young people don’t really care. When I met Manyu in the early 1990s, Manyu considered herself Han or wàishěngrén, but not Taiwanese. Thirty-five years later she does not know what she is. If pressured to put a name to her heritage, she will say that she is “Chinese from Taiwan.” Clare, on the other hand, definitely considers her Asian half to be Taiwanese. When Clare completes official forms with questions about race (e.g. census, college admissions), she will click “Chinese” or “Asian” if she has no other choice. If, however, the “Other” box provides space for an explanation, she will click “Other” and type in “Taiwanese.”
This blog is a longwinded way of saying that I only recently learned that my daughter speaks Mandarin with an accent.
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