Of hole punchers and 方块字; and a Cantonese who cannot speak Cantonese

In this world today, being bilingual is not enough already.

This is after an afternoon of trying to understand a workshop conducted in Catonese. It's right that you cannot assume that everybody in the world knows or should speak English and Mandarin only. Just being able to speak the other person's language crosses so much interpersonal barrier. I only wished that I had continued speaking cantonese after when I was four years old, coming back to Singapore after one year in Hong Kong.

Effectively, I am only bilingual - English and Mandarin, though I can understand hokkien, teochew and cantonese. But ask me to speak...I spare your ears from the torture. And myself from the brain twisting trying to find the right words and forcing my tongue to pronounce deformed dialects. I was trying to say 木薯 in Cantonese- mok3 xu3 - during a work dinner to a foreign guest, and my colleauge subtly prodded me and whispered to changed my intonation so that it made sense to the guest, that what he was about to put into his mouth isn't some "wooden mouse".

Till today, I hear my mum's side speaks the lithling Teochew, my dad's side speaks the melodious Cantonese. I am always stumped when someone ask which dialect group I am. My standard answer would always be, "I'm cantonese. but I cant speak for nuts." Sometimes I wish I am able to at least be conversant a bit in both of them, though I am able to understand somewhat. I wonder if it's ever too late to pick up dialect..but then it should be like French or German that a lot of people are taking up nowadays. Just that nobody conducts classes for dialects I guess.