The coolness of Bilinguiailsm (Or "Tri-" "Quad-"...)

I was dining out with my family and a friend at a familiar Chinese restaurant this past weekend, and as my parents asked me what I wanted, I simply responded with memory. However, my friend ordered from the menu. This astonished me, and I couldn't help it, but feel impressed. Later that night, I wondered to myself, "Why am I impressed? Shouldn't I be equipped with such an ability. I mean I am Chinese right?" Confounded, I went to my mom and asked her why my Chinese competence wasn't up to par. She replied, "You speak it fluently and that's good enough. English was more important for your education here." Really? My sudden realization of an identity-crisis greatly exposed the haphazard environment that obstructs us from cultivating a second language.

People might argue that "on the bright side", students are able to access foreign language classes as early as middle school, but is that really the correct perspective? For more than a decade, neurologists and psychologists have compiled data that points to a critical learning period for bilingual languages (before age 10) due to the Broca/Wernicke area complexes that I won't delve into. Why not start teaching kids at an earlier age? Is it that abominable that we take maybe, an hour from Cartoon Network or the Disney channel? Or even so, parents even understand this essential concept. That is the duty of our education system. On the other end, is the practicality problem. Despite the tools offered, there remains a question that repeatedly pops up in these student's heads: Why are we learning this? The answer is a simple "fulfillment of a college requirement". There is just no driving force behind learning a second language. As a result, we don't really learn a second language in high school, - we are just there to earn a mere A. Interestingly enough, we are stuck on learning English. So are we as diverse as we thought ourselves to be? Or are we just compromising our identities to work for a decent university? Unforunately, the problem not only to the future, but also the past. Retrospect to my thoughts beforehand, my consciousness was raised through the realization that I neglected to truly learn my native language. If I could go back in time, I would surely have placed more heart and effort into my bilinguialism. Cuz' I gotta admit, it is pretty cool.