Why My Mother Can't Speak English?

Why My Mother Can't Speak English?
By David



Why my mother can’t speak English is a short story written by Garry Engkent, an immigrant from China. Mr. Engkent’s mother arrived in Canada with her husband and her son when she was forty years old, and she didn’t realize the necessity of learning English until she hurried for obtaining Canadian citizenship for the sake of keeping her properties and old-age pension in Canada. Her husband, from the beginning, forced her to work in their own restaurant kitchen in which she could never contact any Canadians. In addition, her working time was extremely long, and she almost had no holiday for her own purpose. Meanwhile, she actually hated all the things that were related to Canada, for she was deeply afraid of losing her Chinese soul. There is no doubt that her husband’s interference and her personal character are the two main causes that led to her failure of learning English.
Firstly, that her husband hindered her from learning English is the objective cause. First of all, her husband was a selfish person, and he didn’t allow his wife to learn English for fear that she might leave him. Once she begged her husband to allow her to learn the language, he immediately ignored her pleas and discouraged her from going to those once-a-week sessions. At the same time, her husband offered to do translation for her at any time. As a result, she had to depend on him for everything. ‘I could not go anywhere by myself. He drove me to work and he drove me home.’ In addition, her husband kept her far away from the English speaking surroundings. He put her into the kitchen where nobody spoke English but only Chinese. ’The kitchen is no place for you to learn English. All you do is speak Chinese.’ Furthermore, she had to work seven days a week from six in the morning until eleven at night, and this condition lasted for twenty-five years, almost to the day of her husband’s death. Therefore, she seldom had the time to learn English language.

Secondly, as the subjective cause, that she didn’t learn English was due to her personal reasons: she didn’t feel that it was necessary. Above all, her attitude towards learning even a little English was always negative but not positive. It was true that she did feel unsatisfied with her husband’s arrogant; however, she never said ‘no’ to him, and she was only docile and obedient. While she was working in the kitchen, she only learnt some English words such as French fries, pork ships, and only for the purpose of surviving in the restaurant kitchen. When she presented her wish of obtaining gum san--the Canadian citizenship, her son tried to teach her some ‘ready-made phrase’, she forgot them at all even though she had know it was extremely important for her. There was no denying that the most important reason why she didn’t learn English is the fact that she feared that learning English would change her Chinese soul. ‘If you are here long enough, fan gwei will turn your head until you don’t know who you are—Chinese.’ One thing she kept doing since she had landed on Canada was that she resisted anything that was fan gwei. She neither celebrated any fan gwei holidays nor tried to say even one word in English but only in her local dialect to her English-is-better-than-Chinese son. On contrary, she did everything the Chinese way; she always converted the months and the days into the Chinese lunar calendar; she insisted that ‘lai-shi is definitely much easier’ when her son offered to teach her English for the interview.
All in all, her husband’s obstruction and her personal fault for learning English are the two main causes. Although she obtained the citizenship of Canada finally, she still couldn’t speak English at all. How do you think about it? Won’t you feel any nervous when you are determined to become a Canadian while your English language ability is still in a low level? So, why don’t you follow Mr. Garry Engkent’s steps?