Confession: I am a Taiwanese doctor who cannot speak Taiwanese well.
It was only after I started clinical practice that I regretted not being able to speak Taiwanese well.
I was born in Tainan (southern Taiwan) and grew up in Taichung (central Taiwan) in the 1990s.
My grandparents lived in Tainan. They spoke Taiwanese and only little Chinese Mandarin.
My parents, on the other hand, speak in Taiwanese when they talk to each other, but switch to Chinese Mandarin when talking to me and my brother.
My brother and I speak Chinese Mandarin, and only little Taiwanese.
I regret that being so.
I received good grades all the way through high school and went to medical school smoothly (P.S. top students usually go to medical school or law school in Taiwan). Not speaking Taiwanese well didn’t seem to cause me any problem — in fact, I speak English so much better than Taiwanese, and I even know a little German. Having learnt second (and third) foreign language may have more or less impressed my medical school interviewers, but literally no one had ever questioned my ability of speaking Taiwanese.
Starting this year, I am the radiation oncology chief resident in a medical center in central Taiwan. Patients I come into contact with are usually middle-aged or elderly adults (pediatric cancer cases are rare in our department). Occasionally, some elderly patients I encountered speak only Taiwanese. Such being the case, I will have to explain the details of radiotherapy treatment course and its side effects in Taiwanese, but will soon find myself struggling and wanting to give up half way.
For me, understanding what the elderly patients are saying is not that difficult, but when it’s my turn to speak, I have to fight hard to convey my thoughts in Taiwanese. I cannot find the correct word and constantly pause.
At this moment, I feel sad and frustrated.
Even more, I feel a sense of guilt.
Seldom had I felt upset about not speaking Taiwanese well. But during my residency training, I started to learn a little of my grandparents’ frustration — not being able to understand and communicate with their grandchildren who speak only Chinese Mandarin.
This happened right after the Republic of China (R.O.C.) government was exiled from mainland China and came to Taiwan (read this article to know more about Taiwan and R.O.C.). The government lifted the martial law (1949–1987) and banned Taiwanese people’s freedom of speech and assembly, and the law also forbade people to speak and publish in Taiwanese.
Language barrier was one of the many ways the R.O.C. government applied in order to gain total control over Taiwan. Over the years, Taiwanese was gradually replaced by Chinese Mandarin. When my parents were at school (that’s about 40 years ago), they would be fined if their teacher heard them speak Taiwanese.
Of course, the practice of martial law is no more today — thanks to the many fighters for freedom and democracy in Taiwan’s history. In recent decades, the DPP government and many Taiwanese-culture revivalists has been promoting Taiwanese not only at school but also in many cultural activities.
Many individuals and civil societies are also working hard to defend Taiwanese’s survival. Here are some well-known examples:
iTaigi, an online Taiwanese dictionary that promotes co-editing: https://itaigi.tw/
Now, I am still working hard and deliberately practicing speaking Taiwanese, which should have been my mother tongue.
I wish that by the end of my residency training, I would be able to communicate with elderly patients fluently and confidently in Taiwanese. Somehow I feel that this is something I should make up for… and that I should also be responsible for sustaining the survival of this language.
