Cindy Shin-Min Wang  王馨敏

It was1998. Our family decided to start a new life in a new place; what followed were all kinds of changes in language and environment, fromㄅ、ㄆ、ㄇ to A、B、C. Together, the
four of us endured a different kind of culture shock. But, it's all just learning, which took time, money, and energy. To me, the most hectic was having my values repeatedly judged and my culture and traditions repeatedly questioned. I had to constantly explain to others why or why not. During the twelve years I lived in Canada, this was the "pain" I least wanted to face. Didn't I say that I would take full responsibility for my own choices? When I chose to move to a new place to live, I should have been ready for the consequences of that decision.

Then, in April of 2011, when my status became "non-taxable resident," I told myself that it was time to conclude it all. Therefore, all the different colours, characters, and etches became the record of our life on a foreign land. And all these things share one common theme: the transition from one century to the next that we've experienced is also a broken era in which our languages continue to be reassembled and transformed over and over again.