Split in Half

I live in Canada. One of the best places to live in, but it doesn’t mean that I am fully Canadian. I’m also Vietnamese. It’s hard to balance this lifestyle. At school, I learn English and some French. At home, however, I have to switch back to Vietnamese language. Sometimes, it’s hard to control the urge to start speaking English. On the other hand, I do speak English to my dad and sister which I get yelled at … Nevertheless, the average Vietnamese kids barely know how to speak Vietnamese fluently.

I go to Sunday school, from which I am at my last year. In our classroom, there are only about 8 students in the grade-seven class. To people, this grade is useless, but my parents said: “if you have a chance to learn, and then take it”. Well then! I did. But who says EVERYBODY is always fully speaking Vietnamese there? We always challenge our teacher, and sometimes we make him stumped out☺. The thing we usually learn is all reviews from our confirmation class last year which get boring …

Now, at English school, of course, I speak English there. However, we sometimes do cultural or multicultural projects so then I get to use my Vietnamese language. I have lots of friends that are Vietnamese at the school so if we ever get annoyed of talking too much English, we speak Vietnamese to each other which no one understands. Weird! … Whenever I’m supposed to speak Vietnamese, I don’t. When it doesn’t matter which language to speak, I speak Vietnamese. That comes to show that if you force me to do something, I won’t, but just let me have time, and I can do what you want me to do.

-Linh Dang 13 yrs of age