Kimba's Living

My cousin called me a hybrid “banana” today, when I posted this duet on Instagram, because she was impressed that I could sing a Mandarin song 😂

For those unfamiliar with the term, think about it literally – yellow on the outside, white on the inside.. 😂 it’s often used for Asians who grew up more westernised, primarily English-speaking, and not deeply connected to their mother tongue or traditional culture. In my case, I was born in Malaysia, I’m half Chinese, but English has always been my dominant language. Then I moved to Australia, and I’ve now lived here for the past 20 years.

So culturally, I’ve often felt like I exist somewhere in-between.

Not fully “Aussie”, but also not Chinese enough to comfortably speak Mandarin without panicking internally every time someone talks to me too quickly. 😅

Growing up, I understood bits and pieces of Mandarin and could quite comfortably speak my family’s dialect Hokkien. The Mandarin was mostly from school, random TV snippets, and overhearing conversations. But because English became my main language, I never properly developed confidence speaking Chinese. Over time, it became one of those things I just accepted about myself.

“I’m just bad at languages.”
“It’s too late now.”
“My accent is terrible.”
“I’ll probably never learn properly.”

And honestly? Life gets busy. Between motherhood, work, church life, and being surrounded by Aussies and everything else, re-learning a language felt unrealistic.

Then somehow… a Chinese drama changed that.

Recently I started watching the Chinese drama Pursuit of Jade, and unexpectedly, something about it stirred this curiosity in me again. Not just the story itself, but the language, the emotion in the dialogue, the music, the cultural nuances, the poetry in the lyrics. It made me realise how disconnected I’d become from that side of my identity.

And then came the soundtrack.

There’s a song called Yi Nian that completely captured me. Emotional. Dramatic. Peak C-drama soundtrack energy. The kind of song that makes you stare out a rainy window pretending you’re the main character of a tragic love story. 😂

So naturally, I did what any reasonable person would do.

I opened Smule.

Now let me just say, singing Mandarin songs when your Mandarin is questionable is a humbling experience. I was fighting for my life trying to pronounce some of those lyrics correctly. But somehow, I ended up doing a duet with this random guy on Smule who happened to sing it REALLY well.

Meanwhile I’m over here sounding like:
“✨emotion✨ but also mild pronunciation confusion.”

But honestly? It was fun.

And weirdly emotional.

Because for the first time in a long time, I stopped feeling embarrassed about not being fluent enough, Chinese enough, or “authentic” enough. I just enjoyed the process of reconnecting with something I’d quietly distanced myself from over the years.

No pressure.
No perfection.
Just starting somewhere.

Maybe re-learning Mandarin at this stage of life will be slow. Maybe my accent will forever sound slightly confused. Maybe I’ll still need subtitles for most dramas for the foreseeable future.

But every little step counts.

And if a random Smule duet and a C-drama soundtrack is what finally pushed me to reconnect with part of my cultural identity… honestly, I’ll take it. 😂

I have switched my Duolingo lessons from Korean to Mandarin now.

I also have plans to visit CHINA sometime next year. I REALLY want to explore China. I am determined to be semi-fluent in Mandarin by the time I go. Let’s give me a timeline.. say 12 months?

So here’s to embracing the “banana” life.
And here’s to slowly becoming slightly less banana, one Mandarin song at a time.