Chinglish

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While many English-language learners in China might have mixed feelings regarding such Chinglish-derived humor, expats like Bromage defend the phenomenon. I enjoyed Sue's wrap-up at the end, it's clear that a lot of Jo's narrative were actually Sue's random thoughts as she went along with her writing. I also think that China could be more confident in introducing some of its Chinglish to the English language. That teenager never had the chance to read about chicken feet on the dinner table or strange herbal remedies.

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Chinglish follows the diary and thoughts of a 13-14 year old girl who was raised my Chinese parents in England. With some 250 million Chinese people currently learning to speak English or already fluent, there will soon be more English speakers in China than in the entire British Commonwealth. Cheung's heritage is woven into every page, but the story is bound to resonate with anyone who has been a teenager or felt at odds with their family. However, for us English students this goal becomes far greater since we aim to read more content not related to our course. I intend to read other works by BAME authors such as Kiley Reid’s ‘Such a Fun Age’, Souvankham Thammavongsa’s ‘How to Pronounce Knife’ and Paul Mendez’s ‘Rainbow Milk’ this year.Chinglish was belly-achingly funny, heartbreaking, tender and unflinchingly honest all at the same time. The book is told in diary format as Jo decided she was going to document all the good and hilarious things that happened in her life, although a few not so funny moments are recorded too including racism, bullying, and child abuse.

Chinglish by Sue Cheung | Goodreads

It follows Jo Kwan, a teenager growing up in 1980s Coventry with her annoying little sister, too-cool older brother, a series of unlucky pets and utterly bonkers parents. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.Because of the thousands of characters and tonal nature of Chinese, it’s considered one of the most difficult languages to master. Her older brother has worked hard to escape and Jo realises that the only way out is to help herself.

Chinglish by Sue Cheung - Book Review - Whispering Stories

The Chinese equivalent is Zhōngshì Yīngyǔ ( simplified Chinese: 中式英语; traditional Chinese: 中式英語; lit. Malcolm Moore, "Chinese language 'damaged by invasion of English words'", The Telegraph, 15 March 2010.A good example is this character ( 干 ), which has multiple meanings including “dry” and, well, “f*ck”. I for one really liked the way the book dealt with these topics, they were occasionally plot parts or briefly mentioned and then Jo's diary jumped straight back to school, bullies, and being with her best friend. To me this was a bit repetitive and dull but as a teen, who if I opened my diary again it would have looked identical to this (I also used to love Angus, Thongs series so diary-esq books were right up my alley in those days. It was a fun progress and I was rooting for her each time she set new goals and entered competitions. Later, she found out that it refers to a boy who is energetic, positive and able to make other people happy.