Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity—I am my language. Until I can take pride in my language, I cannot take pride in myself.

— Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987)

I was born into a Chinese-Indonesian family. Being raised in a strictly Chinese household in Indonesia, my family primarily speaks two languages: Bahasa Indonesia, the national language, and Hokkien, a Chinese dialect originating from China’s Fujian Province—where my Chinese ancestors are from. Yet my background is far from unique; there are an estimated 2.8 million to 11 million Chinese-Indonesians in my country. Compared to the whole nation, this number comprises roughly 1.2 to 4% of the national population.. Though this percentage is relatively small, it also does not paint a complete picture, as we usually form tight-knit communities and are heavily concentrated only in several cities across the country. Most of this population therefore shares the same linguistic background as me, in particular the older generation, learning their ancestral language through their parents and their (mostly) Chinese neighbourhood, and learning the national language in school. The experience of navigating these two languages became a defining part of my daily life. In particular, I grew fascinated by the fluidity of code-switching—talking with my friends in Bahasa on the phone, only to immediately reply to my parents in Hokkien. Throughout my life, I would find out the extent to which I could push this ability, and how much I would end up benefiting from it.

My experience with languages is far from done with the aforementioned two languages, especially during both my past and current education. I picked up English, which is a mandatory subject part of a standardised, national curriculum. Although my current interest is in English language and literature, at the time I used English only when I had to, and most of the time spoke Bahasa with everyone else except my immediate family in Hokkien. I did not enjoy reading and speaking English. In retrospect, the quality of English teaching at my school was also subpar at best. The kind of learning environment I was exposed to in my school was not conducive enough for me to pick up the language seriously. I remember how I used to despise people who spoke English in a country that is predominantly Bahasa-speaking, and had always judged those people as being pretentious—completely oblivious that in a few years, I would become the person I had hated so much myself.

Often I still reflect on whether my judgement all those years ago was true. In a country where English usage is often treated as a marker of privilege rather than a simple tool for communication, casually slipping into it can feel like an act of performative elitism. Looking back, my resentment stemmed from my observation that use of the language was indirectly gatekept by an invisible, cultural and socioeconomic boundary. While I could not articulate it at the time, I recognised a consistent pattern when observing English speakers around me: they were often wealthier and more cosmopolitan. Though it isn’t made explicit, the de facto prestige language in Southeast Asian countries is English, and thus for us non-English speakers, these people carried an air of unapproachable exclusivity. While I now realise that there was a degree of truth to these observations, I would end up adopting the language for a different reason anyway, one that younger me never could have anticipated.

My school also had an unusual academic focus, we also had an unusually strong Chinese department, where we had Mandarin lessons for two to three hours every week, from the day I started kindergarten to the day I graduated high school. It is rare for schools here to teach Chinese. When schools do offer it, the programmes are usually a weak gimmick, taught by unqualified Indonesian teachers speaking poor Mandarin with little-to-no mastery of the language. My school, despite its many flaws and weaknesses in other subjects, takes Mandarin really seriously. We had native speakers to teach us the language—a rarity amongst schools in Indonesia—and they were all really good. My Mandarin instructors remain the most memorable teachers of my life, bringing a profound knowledge and a contagious passion to teaching their mother tongue. Their enthusiasm for the language greatly inspired me to absorb as much of the language proficiency as I could from them. I still hold them in deep respect to this day.

I used to perceive my proficiency in Chinese solely as a useful skill that I could later benefit from. Later on, however, I found that this ability to speak the language proved even more valuable to my identity and personal growth. For a long time, my understanding of my heritage was confined to my own neighbourhood. It wasn’t until I had the opportunity to visit Taiwan and Singapore with my family that my perspective shifted. There, I realised that there were lots of people like me, people with direct Chinese ancestry living in other countries (known in Chinese as 華僑 or Huaqiao, literally meaning ‘Overseas Chinese’).

Even though our common ancestors went on to different destinations around the world—whether it’s the United States during the 1800s, or to parts of Southeast Asia (including my country!) much earlier in the 16th century—we all share the same cultural background, same societal values, and in some cases even a common language. And yet, it seems that in these countries, they celebrate their culture and take pride in it, a notion which simply had never occurred to me—nor to most Chinese-Indonesians I have known. I saw them proudly speaking the Chinese language in their own dialects, using Chinese names as their legal names—which we were banned from having as part of an unsuccessful nationwide attempt at forceful assimilation—and having thriving Chinatowns. They retained their original Chinese roots and yet have also assimilated so well in their respective countries that they formed a new, distinct culture of their own, one which blends their heritage while incorporating local norms and traditions.

For the longest time, I thought that the reason I was taught Hokkien at home and Mandarin at school was simply for the sake of convenience. Perhaps that was just what my parents and school had in mind. But I never realised that, practicality aside, all of this also has direct ties to who I am. Being raised in a culturally Chinese household, following age-old traditions which my ancestors would have also partaken in, and most importantly learning their way of thinking by speaking their language is what defines my identity. My heritage was not a suit I could take on and off; instead, it is a foundational truth about who I am. Hence, I believe I owe it to myself to discover and embrace it. I felt immensely grateful to my parents and my upbringing for keeping this cultural thread intact, allowing me to fully embrace it on my own terms.

My linguistic journey changed course when COVID struck. As schools around the world moved to online learning, I would become exposed to the online world more than I had ever been before. For some reason, my interactions in anything related to technology have always been in English—whether they are my device’s language settings or the digital content I consume daily on YouTube and other platforms. As I moved to a new high school, I didn’t really have any friends to talk to in Bahasa, and I spent most of my time talking with strangers I had met playing video games. This significantly impacted my language skills and preferences during the pandemic, a time when most of the world became online. In the span of months, my everyday conversations moved from spoken words in Bahasa into message bubbles in English.

When the world finally moved on from the pandemic, my proficiency in my mother tongue had atrophied. I developed a strong preference for speaking English whenever possible, and that in turn led me to form friendships with the few people in my school who shared it. As we grew closer, we realised that our mutual preference for English was a by-product of the digital hobbies we shared during the lockdown. My school did not have an English club, so we formed one—primarily so we could spend more time together after school. We would play spelling bee, Family Feud, and other activities that would have seemed foreign. For a few hours every week, that classroom became our own little enclave, and the time we spent there would end up becoming the happiest part of my school life.

A language is a dialect with an army and a navy.

— Max Weinreich

Up to that point, I have managed to work my way around things with the languages I had learnt—whether it is conversing with my friends in both English and Bahasa, or talking to my family in Hokkien, or engaging in formal discourse in Mandarin. I naively assumed I had figured out how to navigate most communication challenges. When I moved to Hong Kong to continue my studies, however, I found myself brought a harsh reality check: a genuine linguistic barrier. The vernacular of the city was Cantonese, a dialect of Chinese that is mutually unintelligible with both Mandarin and Hokkien—featuring its own set of complex tonal systems, rapid-fire idioms, and rhythmic cadence. I spent my first year in Hong Kong brute-forcing my way through translation apps, using Mandarin—which most locals will understand, but is disfavoured due to political reasons—and hoping that the people I talk to also happen to speak English. It temporarily stripped away the linguistic confidence I had spent years building and reminded me of the isolation I had once observed in others—my classmates who weren’t as advanced in Mandarin as I was, or my cousins who struggle to talk to my grandparents in Hokkien. It reminded me of the sheer diversity of language, and how constraining life can be due to language barriers. I was humbled yet inspired, for my journey with language is far from over. In my quest to understand the world, I will always be a lifelong language learner.

I have been taking Cantonese classes at my university for over a year now. While I am far from being fluent in it, I am now able to navigate day-to-day life in Cantonese—with occasional hiccups along the way.