At home in the world, and just as much a Hongkonger
Joyce Man says her accented Cantonese is no excuse for name-calling
I will no longer apologise for my flawed Cantonese and foreign ways. I am that Westernised child who emigrated in the 1990s, returned later, and attended expensive international schools and a foreign university. I speak English fluently and Cantonese with an accent.
I am also, if you like, the product of the struggles, hopes and fears of upper-middle-class Hongkongers in the handover era. Out of fear, our parents uprooted us to Canada, Australia, the US and Britain before 1997. Out of frustration from not finding jobs, they later moved us back but invested heavily in international education.
That does not give anyone carte blanche to laugh at the way I speak or accuse me of disloyalty
For us, the children, that meant growing up speaking English. Between studying Western curriculums and doing after-school activities, all in English, there was not much time left to absorb Hong Kong culture.
Moreover, at my school, Cantonese was forbidden.
But as a result of my upbringing - one which many Hongkongers continue to want for their children - I have ended up on the receiving end of comments and questions that would otherwise find no place in polite conversation.
Relatives, friends, colleagues, acquaintances and even strangers have laughed at me for the way I speak Cantonese. I have been accused of forgetting my roots or, worse, of not being a Hongkonger. I have been called in professional settings.
Last year, a restaurant owner yelled at me in front of her entire clientele: "Do you even speak Chinese?"
