I only speak cantonese at home, for most of contact with society, it was English, when in the US, or during the few early years of my life in China, it was Mandarin. (But now it’s just English, since its the US)

And my parents are… not very nice parents…

Emotionally abusive for my entire life, and, during the early years of my life, used “corporal punishment”, but only stopped because I got older and can defend myself.

But still constantly being emotionally abusive.

And deny that my (diagnosed) depression exists, while accusing me of “faking” it. While simultaneously threatening to hospitalize me.

Also my (older) brother (who also speaks cantonese at home) is a major douchbag, very abusive to me, especially when I was younger.

grandparents are passive agressive

Like, I kinda just hate Cantonese. I mean, almost every interaction in Cantonese is with an abusive person. And with how closely related Mandarin is to Cantonese, I kinda hate Mandarin too. There’s just so much conservative culture that’s attached to Chinese languages, everytime I hear someone talk in Chinese, especially Cantonese, I kinda feel fear, I feel like my parents are nearby and are yelling at me.

I mean, with English interactions, there’s like half good half bad interactions

With cantonese, its like almost 100% bad interactions

So like… 🤷‍♂️

  • UltraHamster64
    15•3 days ago

    Like, I kinda just hate Cantonese. I mean, almost every interaction in Cantonese is with an abusive person.

    I mean, yeah, I think it’s completely valid in your case. I think people are very good at linking together the sound of something and the atmosphere it is being heard in. This is a very mild example, but I heard many many times the story of " I heard the music that used to be my alarm, and jolted in pain for a moment". So even in such simple cases the effect is strong, and you just had to go through terrible things, all accompanied with the same type of sounds. So yeah, it isn’t weird or bad, it’s just your associations with the awful things that you needeed to go through.

    I hope that one day you be able to grow much more warming associations with these sounds, or even just letting them go entirely and embracing another language as the powerful language of love.