Being born and raised in Australia, I never felt the need to learn an additional language outside of English. However, in my 20s, I started to become more interested in understanding my Chinese roots.
Some migrant children in Australia go through an identity crisis at some point in their life, realising that they’re unable to fit into either cultures. Some assimilate completely, having no interest in their culture. Some take the effort to learn their “mother” tongues and reconnect with their heritage if their parents didn’t give them a foundation.
I’ve always struggled to learn Chinese, being unable to remember characters (文字) and struggling with the tones (语调). Somehow my adult brain is incapable of deciphering this complicated language and has always served as a source of embarrassment.
However, learning that Lee Kuan Yew (the founding father of Singapore) only learned Mandarin in his 30s, gave me the motivation to keep struggling.