Why Does it Matter No.2?

Read any story that we haven't read yet and write a review of the story and explain why it matters. Why should anyone care about the story/read it?


Relatives of Learning My Language by Amy Choi


This story matters and is one that people should care about or take an interest in as it tells the reader about the guilt that the author faces when she realises that over her childhood years she had never wanted to listen or be with her grandfather because of the language barrier that the author had made for herself.


The author feels that the barrier between her grandfather and herself through her language  is something that she does not take to much worry about in her younger years and this is something that she should not be blamed for. Younger children, whether they are Australians or Asians do not want to talk to old people when they have friends to play with and school to go to but those feelings soon to catch up to her when she is in her late teens and the author and her family are at their grandfathers funeral 'At the funeral, my sadness was overshadowed by a sense of regret. I'd denied my grandfather the commonest of kindness.' The author feels that her relationship with her grandfather was a struggle because of the language barrier and that family is something that should never be something of an effort to be with and talk to.


The author's feeling of regret strives her to re-learn her native language and be not only willing but able to speak to Chinese elders when they want to speak to her. This feeling that the author has is one that is something that people who are not Asians feels that these people do not have and because of their differences in their culture and appearance we feel that theirs feeling will be different to ours as well. 


This story is important and one that people should care about as it tells us about the importance of family and that family should not be something that has to be stopped by a language.