Language as Two Selves
I realised recently that I don’t actually “lack” daily English. I simply store my casual, messy, emotional language elsewhere — in Chinese.
Chinese is the place where I allow myself to ramble, swear, exaggerate, contradict myself, or say things that would never survive the cold audit of the outside world. In Chinese I can be loose, chaotic, illogical, half-serious, half-joking. Nothing I say there feels binding. Most things can be taken back.
It’s a language without consequences.
English is the opposite. The moment I switch to English, I become precise. Controlled. Every sentence is edited before it leaves my mouth. Every word is chosen for clarity, responsibility, and traceability.
English is a “functional identity”: the one that deals with paperwork, medical records, legal documents, university emails, professional writing, and the entire machinery of adulthood. It’s the language where words matter — sometimes too much.
Chinese is my private room. English is the public office.
One lets me be unguarded; the other forces me to be correct.
When people ask why I seem articulate in writing but avoid casual conversation, the answer is simple: my “waste words” exist, just not in the languages they expect, nor in the public spaces they assume.
I don’t have a single voice. I have two selves, and they live in two languages.
And maybe that’s not a flaw, but a structure. A quiet architecture I’ve built to survive — and to stay whole.