Amy Tan Mother Tongue Summary

From the article “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan, I realize that language nowadays is very important because it is the only way to communicate with many other people. We born in many different places and learn many different language since born. She is telling us that she is Chinese and majoring in English language, but most of Chinese people tends to learn engineering or math related major. She also feel that she is better in math and science than English, but she enjoy challenges and choose the opposite way. She also feel like better language can change the way people look at you. I agree that language is affecting people in several way, but one of them is being disrespect, just like Tan’s mother. She said that, “… the fact that people in department stores, at banks, and at restaurants did not take her seriously, did not give good service, pretended not to understand her, or even acted as if they did not hear her.”
One day, when we have free time and went to a market, there are a lot of things with expensive price. When I ask the price and try to negotiate with “broken” Chinese language, they refuse and do not even want to decrease the price a bit because they may realize that I am tourist and they know that tourists usually bring big sum of money to buy for gifts or souvenirs. And even when my father who can speak Chinese fluently try to negotiate, they still did not want to decrease the price because they know that we are tourists. What if I can speak chinese fluently and pretend to be Chinese people? I am sure that they will give cheaper price. That is the moment when I realize that language is very