On my first day of school in Canada, a girl sitting across from me was surprised at my identity of being an international student, “Are you not Canadian? You have a pretty good accent!” Well, I was born and raised in the old imperial city of central Beijing, China. I grew up looking upon the magnificence of the forbidden palace, imagining that probably one of my ancestors was one of the constructors of this amazing art piece. As a child, I wrote Chinese calligraphy with brushes, and I learned hundreds of ancient poems and The Analects. Admittedly, I was a child from a normal Chinese family raised with traditional upbringing. Mandarin is my mother tongue, and it is still the language that I can best transmit my thoughts and feelings. My diary, a record of my emotional states, whether it is joyous or sentimental, are written in Chinese. My parents do not speak English; they only know a few basic vocabularies. Sometimes they make fun of themselves saying that the only English word they can speak is “bye”, but in fact, the word “bye” and the Mandarin slang “拜拜” (derived from the English word “bye” and pronounced as “bái-bái”) has almost the same pronunciation. My primary school was an old-style private school that spent most of the time teaching traditional Chinese classics, …show more content…
Undoubtedly, the English language opened me another window to look at the world. By speaking English with the people around me, I was not only enthralled by the fascinating cultures, but being able to think from an utterly different perspective as well. I recognized some English slangs that I used to misapprehend, which allows me to discern genuine camaraderie and mutual respect around. Now that I am more integrated into the Canadian culture, I rarely blurt out some Mandarin phrases subliminally, but always communicate with people in