CCGL 9024:
Life and Death of Languages
Interview 1- Jethro Clarke
Introductory Questions:
Can you introduce yourself?
Sure, my name’s Jethro and I’m half British and half Pilipino. I’ve lived in Hong Kong for over 19 years, but I wasn’t born here, I was born in the Philippines.
What do you consider is your mother tongue and do you know many languages?
I consider my mother tongue to be English, like I said I’m half philipino and half british but my mum never taught me and my sisters any Tagalog, I think that was a conscious decision she made because she wanted us to focus on English to get us further in life. So I’m fluent in English and I know some Cantonese but I’m not fluent at all.
As someone who has lived in Hong Kong, do you consider yourself a Hong Konger?
Like I mentioned earlier I’ve lived in Hong Kong for over 19 years, though I can’t say I can really identify myself as a hong konger although I do like a lot of things about Hong Kong like their really great trandport system and a lot of the local snacks. I haven’t really been able to identify with their culture and their language, especially their pop culture because I haven’t been able to connect to it in my daily life, like I mentioned earlier I went to a local primary and kindergarten (school) when I was younger. After that I went to a high school with a lot of international students and I lost that connection and I lost my ability to speak the language fluently and I’m actually dating someone who is local right now but he makes lots of jokes and references that I don’t quite understand.
Why do you think you can’t understand his jokes? Despite living here for so long?
Hmm, I think it’s because- although he speaks nice English- I can’t, he doesn’t really explain, there’s a language barrier and there’s a lot of people- like famous figure like historical figures and pop icons that he references to so I don’t understand where that’s coming from.
Do you think this has anything to do with Hong Kong’s culture that hindered your own understanding of that culture or was it something else?
Hmm, I’m not entirely sure why that is, I think in Hong Kong- and this is my own opinion- a lot of similar people from similar social groups keep together if you know what I mean. Like in High school a lot of the international students stay together and a lot of the local students stay together, so it was really quite hard to connect to that and stay in our own little group. And you can still see that- well I see that now in my daily life, like when I got to work the Nepalese stick to the Nepalese. Even though we all interact with each other we’re not as tight as was would be on our own.
For example do you think- as a British Pilipino- does Hong Kong promotes one of your nationalities over the other?
Honestly I think they’re (Hong Kong culture) more friendly to the british side, I always see promotions to you know learn English but you never see one promoting to speak Pilipino (Tagalog)- hmm in my whole life I’ve only been to one Pilipino restaurant and that’s because a pilippino friend brought me there. I don’t really know anything where the public has really generated publicity for the Pilipino (Tagalog) language.
If you had to choose one nationality to identify with, which would it be?
Oh, that’s extremely hard, to be honest I don’t truly identify with any nationailty that I possess. I’ve never learned the Pilipino Language, I’ve never lived there, I haven’t had anything connected to that, and then there’s my british side where again I’ve never lived there and my only connection I have to british culture is that I speak English.
So even though you speak fluent English, your language hasn’t helped you feel more connected to british culture because of a geographical barrier?
Yes I think you could say that, and especially when I lived there- my only family- say that I don’t even sound English, they say that it is (her accent) is more American. Well, that’s the closest accent they could identify it with and I felt like when I was there although I got along with my family I felt like I didn’t fit in. So I didn’t feel that in Hong Kong- I didn’t feel that in the Philippines. So there’s not really any national identity that I can say that I feel attached to.
So how do you feel that your language and nationality connects to who you are as a person? Has being half british has affected you? Do you like speaking English helped in some way?
I think I would be a lot happier if my mum had taught me Pilipino because I am half, and it is quite shameful when I met new Pilipino friends and they try to speak to me in that language and they want to connect to me- and normally their response is that they’re really surprised that my mum went her whole life not teaching me my own language. So there- I could never connect in the way that I should never had I been taught my own language.
So you feel you would have had more of an identity with your nationality had you been given the opportunity to learn your mother’s language?
Yes definitely, because it’s a part of you- and it’s a part of me that I never had the opportunity to learn.
But when you do communicate with people of you nationality do you find it difficult or easier? You partly answered this question earlier but could you elaborate?
I’m half half, but as I mentioned I never really had any connection except for language on the British side. I still don’t get a lot of cultural references, like when my dad makes jokes for example they’re a lot of dry british humor, which I understand sometimes but I don’t entirely get it because I never grew up the way he did or watch the same thing he did. Of course with Pilipino people most of them can speak English but then occasionally they can’t express themselves right so we don’t always end up saying what we really want to say so we can never really connect and that really hinders the way we communicate and the way we work. We can only do it on the most basic level.
So even culturally you don’t identify with anything specifically British or Pilipino?
Honestly culturally, no. The only thing I can really like or know about the nationalities is the food. *Laughs
Other than geography, I guess I don’t really have any full british friends- they’re mostly half. They all have their own mixed backgrounds so I never truly had anything ‘British’ is stick to except my dad. And he himself hasn’t been back to England in a really long time- over 5 years. So even when I went there (England) I didn’t truly fit in myself. My own relatives, they would be surprised that I didn’t sound English, the closest (accent) would be a mix of American accent-
I think you mentioned accent earlier, could you elaborate on that?
Oh definitely, when I went to England, the longer I stay and because most of my family stayed mostly to the north they had a really stronger british accent that rubbed off on me and I didn’t notice it myself but a lot of my friends started to point this out to me- “Oh what happened to your voice it changed? It’s a really strong British accent”. And when I stayed here it changed back.
Has this happened in Hong Kong? As you mentioned your accent changed in England, has it changed depending on people you meet in Hong Kong?
Ahh, the reason it changed it was because everyone was speaking the same accent, so I had multiple people influencing me. But in Hong Kong I have no many different type of nationalities speaking around me in so many different accents there no way my voice can adapt to that so I made up my own. It’s weird to think about it.