4 | Mother Tongue
When language shifts faster than love can follow
When you’ve lived too far for too long, even your mother stops understanding your words—and love must find new ways to translate itself.
She came out of customs pushing a cart with two huge suitcases—stuffed with toys and clothes for my daughter—after a twenty-hour flight in economy. My mother had come to help: childcare, cooking, housework, and preparing for another baby. I was more than grateful and wanted to treat her well. But we both ended up hurt.
On a family trip designed mainly for her, I asked if she would like to visit the university where my husband and I met. She gladly said yes. We drove an extra four hours. The next morning, we brought her to the main library, the iconic limestone towers pale against the gray sky.
“Let’s get out,” I said.
She looked at me blankly. “Why? There’s nothing to see.”
My husband looked at me; I looked at him. We both reached for our seatbelts at the same time. The sound clicked sharp in the silence. Then we drove off.
The next morning, we arrived in Cincinnati.
“We’re having lunch with an old friend,” I asked. “Would you like to join us?”
She said no.
Two hours later, I walked out and saw her sitting alone on a bench in an empty square with stores closed around her. Her tiny shoulders slumped from hunger and fatigue, yet her back remained straight, the empty square around her stretching like a stage she didn’t choose to stand on.
After we returned from the trip, she told me she wanted to go back to China and asked me to book a flight whenever convenient. With the last bit of strength in me, I asked,
“Do you still want me to continue the Canadian visa application?”
She paused. “Forget about it.”
I turned away, tears burning my eyes.
I don’t remember how I sank into the couch. Then the tears came.
My chest tightened.
I gasped for air.
The harder I tried to stop, the worse it got.
I heard my husband’s footsteps. His arms around me. His calm, steady voice: “It’s okay. Breathe with me.”
It wasn’t okay.
Between gasps I managed only fragments: “I… can’t… breathe… can’t… control… it.”
My mother hovered nearby, terrified. “What’s wrong? What happened?” she kept asking in Chinese.
My husband, with the few Chinese words he knew, managed to say, “I don’t know how to say.” She stood frozen—small, helpless, but unyielding—like she had looked that day in Cincinnati.
After I calmed down and he helped me to bed, my husband took out his phone, typed into a translation app, and showed her the screen:
“I don’t think she understands you. And I don’t think you understand her.”
He was right.
The resolution finally came from someone who does not speak Chinese but sees with remarkable clarity. Soon, both my mother and I began to understand what had happened.
When I asked, “Do you want to visit X University?” she heard, We’re going to visit X University and want you to tag along.
When I said, “Would you like to join us for lunch?” she heard, I’d rather you not.
When I asked, “Do you still want me to continue the visa?” she heard, I don’t want to do it anymore.
Right there and then, I remembered the indirect politeness of Chinese conversations—the way we read between the lines, how a question often hides a refusal, how an invitation might really mean maybe, or maybe not.
In her world, every question hides a wish not to impose.
In mine, every question means exactly what it says.
I thought giving her my credit card, planning trips, and driving long hours showed love. She thought my calm tone and questions hid rejection. We weren’t fighting about words; we were fighting about how meaning is made.
That night I told her, “If you don’t understand what I’m saying, pay attention to what I do.”
She nodded, finally understanding—not my words, but my intention.
I still speak fluent Chinese.
But I no longer speak my mother tongue.
Maybe every immigrant daughter becomes a translator—first for her parents, then between her parents and herself. I used to think fluency meant speaking without mistakes. Now I think it means forgiving them.
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I also had a similar experience. During winter break, I stayed with my uncle. He came to the U.S. about forty years ago. Of course, we could still communicate in Chinese, but there was a slight difference between what we said and what we heard. It felt like I was talking to someone from the 1990s, speaking the Chinese of that time. It’s easy to overlook how quickly a language is changing and how rapidly its vocabulary is expanding.