MAKING ASIA PART OF YOUR LIFE

Calvin Dang

Calvin Dang, one of many third generation Chinese-Canadians who have lost their linguistic roots, grapples with the question of what it really means to be Chinese.

Calvin, a social studies teacher at Windsor Secondary School in North Vancouver, came face to face with this harsh revelation in Singapore while studying Mandarin as a second language. He was one of ten high school students to receive a scholarship to study in Asia for a year.

In Singapore, Calvin's Mandarin tutor questioned his inability to speak the language at the first lesson. More specifically, the tutor asked why Calvin who looked Chinese and for all intents and purposes was Chinese couldn't speak Chinese.

"To me it was an absurd question because it's like going to a Caucasian person in Canada and saying to them why can't you speak Chinese," he said. "But to my tutor and the rest of people in Asia it's a common sense question.

"Is that what being Chinese is about? Being able to speak the language, eating Chinese food, or having Chinese friends or whatever," Calvin asks.

It was then that Calvin realized that being Chinese is more than just speaking the language. He thought back to how his grandfather had immigrated to Canada in 1908 and struggled to deal with not being accepted in "Canadian society" and had to pay the infamous head tax, as it is commonly known in the Canadian-Chinese community, in order to enter Canada.

His grandfather was also forced to leave behind his first wife, whom he married in Canton, China in 1911, and daughter because of the Exclusion Act in Canada. Calvin's grandfather would later marry another woman and start a new family in Canada.

While growing up, Calvin's parents spoke Cantonese as children but consider it to be their second language and barely spoke it at home with their own children. His grandparents never learned to speak English.

"My father's excuse for not speaking the language at home is that he doesn't know Chinese well enough to teach it to me," he said with a tinge of bitterness adding that his first and only language is English.

Proud of his family heritage, Calvin believes his parents were able to pass on many Asian values to him.

"I was very loyal to my parents, I did take orders, I did respect them more," he said in reference to Confucian values. "A lot of my friends in high school did not feel the same way. They had conflicts with their parents, they hated living at home."

While Calvin isn't sure if he will continue studying Mandarin, he has brought his enthusiasm for Asia to his curriculum and managed to convince his colleagues to include Asia in a course on world civilizations. It should be offered within two years, he said.

"I have been assimilated but it 's hard to avoid. On the other hand I do still have the values my parents gave me and I still care very much about my background every chance I get I learn about it."

When asked what his grandfather would have thought, Calvin first wondered whether his grandfather would have been disappointed because he lost the language. He then concluded that his grandfather had a reason for coming to Canada.

"I'm that reason," he said. "I'm carrying on what he wanted us to do which is to survive and be successful."