Sherry Zhang 章雪莉
How To Learn English
(Content warning: self-harm and eating disorders)
You begin in a one-story house, three generations of 章 Zhangs living together next to the Papatoetoe train station. Pacific Islander neighbours sing over the fence. Pots of pork bone melon soup, Mandarin, Hakka dialect, and broken English. Plunket encourages Ma and you to socialise more. Motherhood doesn’t care for language barriers.
You move to the beach. Your grandparents carry your blue Buzzy Bee bag all the way to the gate. Ah Gong tucks a chocolate Calci-Yum into the front pocket. The teachers make you spell your name with magnetic rainbow letters before you can go in. You make it as far as S. Ah Ma makes it as far as H. Everyone is worried so Ba swaps you to the kindy where the other Chinese girl goes. XinXin is your first friend.
You make up words. DEE! means microwave. You run around the house laughing at the colours on the wall from the TV. Everyone is crying and hugging at Ah Gong’s funeral so you get scared and cry. It seems like the right thing to do.
You are in ESOL. Ma borrows your picture books to study. You help her cut out coloured strips of paper. She writes Chinese translations and sounds below the cat who sat on the mat.
ðə kæt sæt ɒn ðə mæt
猫坐在垫子上
XinXin wants to be called Kitty at school. Her name is XinXin. It means stars. It’s pretty. You say no. She hits your arm. You cry. Your name is Sherry.
You tear out all the annoying flappy bits in your picture books. Mum should get her own books. She stops trying to read your books after a while. You get your pen licence for neat handwriting. XinXin goes back to Hong Kong. You are proud when you write your first story. It ends with ‘and it was all just a dream’.
A tantrum is thrown at Whitcoulls. Your parents can’t afford the $45 encyclopaedia with the glossy animal pictures. Next week, a hardcover bound fairy-tale book appears on your bed. No one will tell you where it came from. Gege tells you to look after it well. Ba gets you to help fix his spelling on the chalkboard menu at the coffee shop. There is a new Chinese girl at school. You watch her get teased. You stay silent and learn. Gege is the best brother. He buys you Maccas when Ma isn’t looking.
You start Kumon English. Do pages of homework. You win a certificate for being the best speller. Camp parent volunteer form stays crumpled in your backpack. You tell Ma and Ba it’s because they aren’t good enough at English. In the coffee shop, you write epic novels about mermaids. Sometimes you feel things, too many things, and you can’t find the words for them. So you hit your wrist on the piano. A teacher asks if you can speak another language, you lie and say no. You feel safe.
You write a love letter in your diary, lock it, and imagine dropping it into his letterbox. You make it as far as the corner of his street. You win the Caring Cup. Mum asks if you could try being friends with the other Chinese girl. You ignore her, because you learnt. You pretend to be bad at maths, you learn. You’ve had a crush on him for three years, why would he like you? You have chingchong eyes, you’re learning.
You figure out how to order all the Nancy Drews books from the library! The Chinese girl is bullied. She brings milk tea and WanWan rice crackers to school. You are happy it’s not you. You get angry at Mum when she buys gross nut bars for you and not fruit roll-ups. She apologises and starts following the other mums at Countdown to see what they grab. You eat WanWan rice crackers secretly at home and they taste so good.
Your parents enrol you in Saturday Chinese classes. You never do your homework. You roll your eyes when the international students talk with thick Asian accents. Dad says you are too fat and ugly to be an actor, no one would want to watch a girl like you.
Your favourite English teacher stays after class to tell you she liked your essays. She laughs at your jokes. You stand in front of the whole school and win the speech competition. You feel on top of the world. You tell your parents to turn off the annoying voice on TV, ‘can we just watch something in English?’
You tell your parents not to talk to your friends when they come over. You are embarrassed when they offer food or ask ‘Heeello! You good? How you?’ You call Mum and Dad stupid. Your English teacher asks if you’ve ever thought about being a writer. You laugh and say your parents don’t think it’s a real job.
You get stuck in your head. Your mother disappears into herself. The words, ‘I feel sad,’ can’t quite come out for both of you. The school talks to your parents. Dad thinks you got in a fist fight. You wish! You punch yourself over the toilet bowl. The school puts you in talk therapy, and it helps for a while until it doesn’t. Your mother disappears on long walks.
Dad shows you Ah Gong’s old plays. He reads them out to you because you can’t. You find the do re mi’s of his song, and hum it out. You lead the debate team to the finals of the Auckland grade. Dad sends a photo of the gold medal to Ah Ma. You and your first girlfriend swap secret perfumed love notes to each other in statistics class until you don’t anymore.
You fall in love again. You write her a love poem, and win a spoken word slam with it while she sits in the crowd. You ask her on a date properly a week after. You introduce her as your friend but your parents don't talk to her. Your mother says she loves you for the first time on your 18th birthday. You cry.
Your mother asks you if you’ve had sex with men. No, she asks you if you’ve done bad things with men. It’s as much as her English can muster. You don’t know the Chinese word for bisexual. She thinks you are pregnant. You drop it. Your high school girlfriend dumps you over a phone call. You secretly start doing theatre again, stacking train timetables out South with lecture recordings on double speed.
You get into law school. You are supposed to be good with words. Your father tries to get you to help him with his contracts. You don’t know anything about contracts. You remember all the times you are cruel to your parents and you cry. You try to say sorry, but can’t. Maybe they know already.
For a Communications major, you really struggle to communicate. You get ghosted, or maybe you are the ghost. You wear a suit, and moot in the High Court. You are paid to write fun lifestyle pieces by the university. You receive top in course for TV Journalism.
Your wrists bloom into a mottled tabby cat. Bruises easy to fade. Vomit easy to flush. A therapist names these things, and you know you should stop. Ba calls you a disappointment for running around on the stage. But you can’t stop. Mama starts forgetting things, and texts you ‘I love you! moos u! eat finner?’
The coffee shop closes down, and the landlord calls your parents ‘difficult to communicate with.’ He lies to you and you scream out the window. Nothing you say is taken seriously, so you pay $3000 for a lawyer to say the same things. Except when she emails, you can tell she’s white and over 30.
A girl writes a poem for you. For the first time. ‘I’m not straight’ slips out to Gege. A thousand khàu-thâu 叩頭 outside your bedroom door, he begs you to stop being selfish and find a man. You punch the bus stop wall. He continues rocking for the shame of the ancestral seed dying. You stop talking to your brother. You yell at a catcaller to ‘Get the fuck away.’ You get paid to write this.
You learn English. You learn English so good. You’ve made it.
When your ex asks for walt whitman back
Walt Whitman sighs about Stars! Planets!
Minerals & vegetables!
Grandiose & poetry!
He is my favourite old white man.
On the beach at night alone
my bench a concrete crease in the ocean’s forehead,
licking my freckles like stamps,
lining my thumb up with constellations:
I’m going to post them back to Ah Gong.
He is a poet
with manuscripts
forgotten in the space
between the piano and the wall.
We burn paper money and incense,
light cigarettes on his headstone,
gift peanuts and mandarins.
I stare at his smiling
big forehead.
He is my favourite man.
On the beach at night alone
my dollar store magician cape trips me up,
lucky cat, crayfish tank, hong bao,
Jandals, kiwifruit fluff,
tahi rua toru whā.
I hammer glow-in-the-dark stars
in the sand with my plastic wand.
Plant them tight so
I can find myself again.
On the beach at night alone,
the sky is plum,
dripping with violet sweetness.
White blossoms sweeping the darkness,
hand on thigh.
We used to have car sex here,
parked on the edge of suburbia,
fog, breath, lights, hiding,
wait, okay, they’re, gone.
You are my first girlfriend.
On the beach at night alone
empty and flat,
we break up in the bus stop.
The waves and salt crystallising across the road.
I give your jumper back to you,
stow away letters under the bed,
throw your ring back to the sea.
But I’m keeping Walt.
On the beach at night alone,
he can stay with me,
so I can read him to Ah Gong.
Sherry Zhang 章雪莉 is finishing up her Law and Arts degree at the University of Auckland, and enjoys a spot of theatre and a hot cup of chai. She is the features editor of Oscen, and is currently interning at The Spinoff. You can find more of her writing at Pantograph Punch, and look forward to her co-written play in ATC’s Here & Now Festival 2021.