JoYcelyn Wong

Bread of Speech

From a young age, grappling with languages was tough for me, to the point where I sought help from a speech therapist. Therefore, moving to a country where the language is completely different from my native one was especially challenging. Even though I can now speak, write, and understand English without much trouble, there are times when I feel held back by language barriers. I sometimes fear to voice my thoughts because of my accent, or because I can't find the right words in English, or because they just sound better in my mother tongue. This anxiety led me to wonder if I could use something to become an expert of the language.“Bread of Speech” is inspired by a Japanese cartoon called Doraemon, which features a gadget called the memorizing bread. When something (such as pages from a math book) is printed on this bread, and a person eats it, they would instantly remember the content of the pages. With “Bread of Speech”, I printed the English definitions from an English-Chinese dictionary on bread, aspiring to grasp the language instantly just like the memorizing bread. I included pages from a dictionary printed with Cantonese phrases "講啊" ("just say it") to express my urges to speak, as if I were willing to eat the entire dictionary just to master the language.Some might ask, why don’t you just stay in your hometown? Why do you go to another country and struggle with a new language? To me, this is about seeking a better life, and greater freedom, as my hometown faces political oppression and different voices get silenced. Hundreds of thousands of people have emigrated to other countries because of the elephant in Hong Kong. Many would rather leave behind their comfortable lives in search of values they believe in. For life not to be engulfed by injustice. For protecting the freedom to speak up. If I were to eat this bread, would I gain the courage to speak the truth of my hometown in another language and other places?

“If I eat it, could I break through the language barriers and say my thoughts? If I eat it, would I have the courage to speak the truth of my hometown in another language?”