Before I can talk about what being Toisanese means to me, I should probably define what "Toisanese" is, since not everyone knows that. Toisanese is a dialect of Cantonese spoken in the city of Toisan, which is located in Guanghzhou Province, China. It is also referred to as Taishanese (Taishanhua) or Hoisanese (Hoisanwa/Hoisanva), and the city of Toisan is also referred to as Taishan or Hoisan. Below is a map showing its location.
Recommended for you
But to me, it's more than just a language. It's a part of me, and it's a part of my identity.
It's a part of me because it was what I was brought up speaking, until I was about two or three years old and learned English. While I'm not as fluent in it as I once was, I still speak it with my grandparents and my mom, and I'll occasionally throw bits and pieces of it into English conversations. (A rough translation usually follows if the other person doesn't speak it.) This is usually because I got a little emotional, I think the Toisanese word or phrase conveys what I'm trying to say much better than the English "equivalent" that doesn't imply all of the same things, or I just think it has a nicer ring to it.
I feel that Toisanese is the language I associate with most of my emotional reactions to things, especially pain, anger, and discomfort. For example, if someone randomly grabbed my butt I would yell "Mao moh ngoi lah!" ("Don't touch me!") When I was younger and my mom told me not to touch things, she said it as "Mao moh." It was only teachers and my English-speaking dad who said "Don't touch that." I know what "Don't touch that" means, but the Toisanese version of that phrase is what I'm more used to. Therefore, I say that when I tell people to mao moh, it's because they startled me so much I forgot to speak English. It's said humorously, but it's true.
In some cases, the Toisanese just sounds better. When someone's unnecessarily worried about something and I think they need to calm down, I'm like "Mm soi lei." ("Don't worry about it.") It is far more demonstrative of being chill than the English version or any of its variants. Another thing I prefer to say in Toisanese rather than English is the word "boogers" - it's kind of scary. "Bei see" is a lot less intimidating; it's cute and it literally translates to "nose poop." What's not to love?
However, Toisanese and I haven't always had as great a relationship as I might be making it sound... truth be told, my linguistic pride is a pretty recent development.
When I started to learn English, I told my mom not to speak Toisanese to me anymore because I thought it made her sound "mean." (She yelled at me a lot, and Toisanese is one of those languages that can sound very emotionally charged if the speaker sounds angry.) Outside of my interactions with her and my grandparents, there were no other situations in which I would have to use Toisanese. Although I still know some of the more basic stuff from talking to my grandparents, a lot of my knowledge of Toisanese was lost. I regret that a lot, because it's hard to identify with something that you don't have as much of as you could. It kind of makes me feel like an incomplete painting, and people seeing diaspora Asian people as inauthentic and whitewashed if we aren't fluent in our languages and extremely well versed in our cultures just makes everything worse.
There was also a (very long) period of time in which I hated Toisanese. One reason behind this was that I disliked the sound of it; I thought it was ugly because of how different it was from English. As a result, whenever my mom or one of my grandparents tried to speak it to me in public, I would feel ashamed and tell them to speak English. If I was ever nagged in Toisanese by anyone from my mom's side of the family, I felt more angry and annoyed than I would have if they had done so in English. It got to a point where I thought of Toisanese as the "nagging language" because my relatives did so much nagging.
The other reason why I thought Toisanese was ugly was because it wasn't Mandarin. Mandarin is the dominant language in China, and in the USA it's the most commonly spoken language among its Han Chinese residents and citizens. Apart from my relatives, I was the only Han Chinese person I knew who spoke Toisanese. This was very alienating for me - it made me feel like I didn't really belong in Chinese spaces, and it made me feel like I wasn't as authentic as the other Han Chinese kids who did know Mandarin. Not being as in touch with my culture as I'd like to be further exacerbated that.
Today, I no longer believe my language is ugly. I've come to see its difference from English as unique and cool, not strange and embarrassing. I've come to see that speaking Toisanese doesn't make me invalid as a Han Chinese person just because it isn't Mandarin. I've come to see my being able to pronounce the ng consonant sound at the beginning of words and the watery S sound in the words for three and four as a special talent. I believe Toisanese is beautiful, and I see speaking it as an act of defiance, rebellion, pride, self-love, and reclamation of my culture. So when it happens to slip out or becomes necessary to use during an English conversation, I don't mind at all.
