Language as a Gateway to People and Society: A 2nd-Generation Chinese Kiwi Story with Annemarie Wen

In this episode of the Authentic Leadership Podcast, Annemarie Wen reflects on growing up between Mandarin and English — and how language became her gateway to friendship, culture, identity and society.

Language is often described as a communication tool. But in Annemarie Wen’s story, it is much more than that. Language determines whether we understand the joke everyone else is laughing at, whether we feel confident approaching a group, whether we can navigate an unfamiliar city, and whether we can enter another person’s world.

At 20, Annemarie speaks fluent English and Mandarin. Yet the path to becoming confident in both was not straightforward. Her journey moved back and forth between the two languages, with one becoming stronger while the other began to fade.

What makes Annemarie’s perspective so compelling is not simply that she is bilingual. It is the quiet, precise way she observes what language makes possible—and what happens when it becomes a barrier.

Growing Between Two Languages

Annemarie is a second-generation Chinese New Zealander who began her early education in China. At that time, Chinese was naturally her strongest language. When she returned to New Zealand as a young child, her teachers were concerned because she could not understand them.

As she progressed through primary school, English gradually became stronger than Chinese. The change was so noticeable that her parents began encouraging Annemarie and her siblings to speak Chinese at home and practise writing Chinese characters.

As a child, she did not always appreciate this. She was already working hard to understand English and fit in with her peers. Studying Chinese at home felt like another struggle. Looking back, however, she is grateful that her parents insisted on preserving the language.

Today, Annemarie notices that even the language of her thoughts changes with her surroundings. When she is among Mandarin speakers, she thinks in Mandarin. When English surrounds her, she thinks in English.

Her experience is not a simple movement from one language to another. It is a continual adjustment between both.

Knowing Something Is Happening — but Not Knowing Why

One of Annemarie’s clearest childhood memories occurred during morning tea at primary school. Some children made an inappropriate joke about the cucumber she was eating. Everyone around her laughed, but Annemarie did not understand why.

She knew something was happening. She sensed that something was wrong. Yet she lacked the vocabulary or cultural knowledge to understand the joke.

This moment reveals the difference between learning classroom English and understanding a community’s living language. Fluency is not only grammar and vocabulary. It also includes humour, slang, tone, social cues and meanings that are rarely explained directly.

Through friendship and everyday conversation, Annemarie gradually learned these unspoken meanings. She did not learn English only by studying it; she learned it by participating in the world around her.

Finding a Place in a New Community

Halfway through primary school, Annemarie transferred to another school. Most of the children had grown up together and already had established friendship groups. No one was deliberately unkind, but arriving as the new student made it hard to find her place.

She initially connected with international and Chinese students. She wanted to help translate for them, perhaps because she understood what it felt like not to understand everything happening around you. Yet in trying to help, she also discovered that her Chinese was no longer as strong as she had assumed.

For a time, she found herself in an in-between space: her English was improving while her Chinese was becoming less certain.

Kapa haka gave her another way to connect. It was unfamiliar to her when she arrived at her new school, but participating helped her build relationships with classmates. Shared activity became another language of belonging.

Finding Her Way Back to Chinese

During intermediate school, Annemarie concentrated on improving her English and understanding more local slang. As her confidence in English grew, she drifted further from Chinese.

High school became a turning point. She formed friendships with international students and began using Chinese more often through everyday conversations and translation. Her friends were patient. When she did not understand a phrase, they slowed down and explained it without judgement.

Annemarie later took Chinese as a school subject, began recognising written characters again, and worked on her pronunciation by listening closely to her friends’ accents. She also joined her school’s Chinese cultural group, where her ability to move between English and Chinese naturally placed her in a leadership and translation role.

Her fluency returned through study, but also through friendship, participation and the desire to connect.

As Annemarie explains, her interest was never really in language for its own sake. She wanted to learn so she could speak with more people without a barrier between them. Her curiosity was not only about words; it was about people.

Fluent in Both — Yet Assumed to Speak Neither

At university, Annemarie encounters a different kind of language barrier: one created by other people’s uncertainty.

Chinese international students sometimes hear her speaking English and assume she cannot speak Chinese. English-speaking students may see her messaging friends or family in Chinese and wonder whether she understands English.

She is fluent in both, yet people from both groups can hesitate to approach her.

This is one of the most revealing insights in the conversation. Sometimes the barrier is not an actual inability to communicate. It is an assumption made before communication begins.

For someone like Annemarie, who enjoys meeting people but often prefers others to approach first, that hesitation can quietly close the door to connection. No one intends to exclude her; they are uncertain about which language will feel comfortable.

Her experience invites a simple question: how many possible friendships never begin because we assume someone will not understand us?

Culture Around the Family Table

Language also connects Annemarie to the traditions her family maintains. Her mother is Taiwanese, and her father is from Shanghai, so their household brought together customs from both backgrounds.

As a child, Annemarie did not always understand why they followed particular traditions or why certain dishes had to appear on the table at Chinese New Year. She knew that her mother considered them an important part of the family’s culture.

These traditions stayed at home until Annemarie was old enough to understand their deeper meaning. Over time, language gave her greater access to the cultural history beneath them.

During a cultural exchange trip to Taiwan, Annemarie helped translate and also performed kapa haka. Although she was there as a translator, other young people sometimes assumed she could not speak Chinese. To show them they could approach her, she deliberately spoke Chinese loudly with her mother so they would hear.

It was her indirect way of saying, “I speak your language too.” You can talk to me.

Language as Access to Society

Annemarie’s later travels through China deepened her understanding of what language provides. She could listen to announcements, read signs, navigate trains and ask local people for recommendations. She also noticed how much more difficult the same environment was for family members who could not understand Chinese.

Language gave her more than directions. It allowed her to move through society with greater independence and confidence.

It also helped her understand that different regions have their own customs, accents and ways of doing things. By speaking with local people instead of relying only on information found online, she and her friend experienced places through the knowledge of those who lived there.

This is the heart of Annemarie’s story: learning a language is not simply learning how to translate words. It is learning how people relate, how a community works and how to participate in its everyday life.

The Quiet Strength of an Observer

Annemarie describes herself as an observant child who was often in her own world, yet still noticed what happened around her. That quality runs throughout the conversation.

She remembers sensing when something was wrong before she had the language to name it. She recalls experiences of discrimination that felt uncomfortable as a child, although she did not yet understand why. Only as she grew older and learned more about racism did she recognise that those experiences were not normal and should not simply have been accepted.

Yet Annemarie does not define her childhood only through difficulty. She remembers it as happy and speaks without bitterness. Her reflections carry the clarity of someone who has looked closely at her experiences and learned to recognise the meanings beneath them.

If she could speak to her younger self, her message would be simple: keep going. It works out. You will learn both languages, and you will find your place among both groups.

Annemarie’s story shows that being bilingual is not merely the ability to speak in two different ways. It is the ability to listen across worlds, recognise what others may be experiencing and create connection where uncertainty once existed.

Language became her gateway — not only to Chinese and English, but to people, culture, society and belonging.

Watch the full conversation: Language as a Gateway to People and Society: A 2nd-Generation Chinese Kiwi Story with Annemarie Wen