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BRICK 102 of these manoeuvres only came to me through the feel of the boat turning into the wind, the hull and rudder become an extension of my body, where I can sense a gust underneath my ass as the boat tips and heels. And to think that I once considered that appendage as merely ballast. When learning any language code, reflecting on its place of origin and the powers that have shaped and defined it across time is valuable. Sailing’s distinct idioms are, in large part, a result of British naval history, where sailors took pride in the stories and skills that made their profession unique from other branches of the military. These were the same seamen and ships that forcibly conscripted civilians for military service, held enslaved peoples in cargo holds, stole from Indigenous Peoples in the New World, and claimed harbours. Along with laws, policies, and the English language, British ships brought opium into the ports of Hong Kong, the islands where my family lived with the sound of the waves at their doorsteps. All this colonial violence has been steeped in the language like tea leaves. Idioms such as “all hands on deck,” “long shot,” “toeing the line,” “run a tight ship,” and “knowing the ropes” are shadowed with the strict protocols of sailing and its militaristic, subjugating narrative. These phrases evoke an era where maritime travel and transport had a much greater global role. They are a time capsule, an archive animated by the act of sailing, which brings the past into the present. Even though I’ve spoken and written in English for most of my life, I have never lost the feeling of my slippery hold on the language. It’s likely why I became a writer, so as to give myself more time to pin down what I really mean rather than being crowded into the moment. Speaking in English is a constant negotiation of meaning and implication. My parents speak English with bluntness and directness, translating the syntax of Cantonese imperatives, tenses, and word order. When they use idioms, it’s with a certain deliberation. My own diction is wide but arcane, gleaned from the Victorian novels I read through my teenage years. In high school I knew what reticule, petticoat, scoundrel, and sovereign meant, but I struggled with Simpsons references. I avoided fuck and shit and asshole not out of a dislike for profanity but because it felt fake whenever I swore. My self-consciousness with small talk and banter might have more to do with shyness than with my immigrant background, but the two are inseparable. Even my mother tongue, Cantonese, can feel foreign to me. While Cantonese was the language I heard at home, my parents began speaking to me in English before I entered kindergarten. Despite three years of Chinese school, my command of the language is basic. My aunties and uncles have praised my accent and ability, but that is partially because I have learned that speaking Cantonese, being Cantonese, requires a certain attitude, a brashness and wit, just as Canadian English requires tact and a determined friendliness. Being between two languages, without an unthinking fluency in either, has highlighted the performative aspect of speech. Taking up a pastime where I might never feel fluent may be a deliberate attempt to seek comfort in discomfort. It is almost assuaging to have such a conscious sense of unbelonging.
page 105
PHOEBE WANG 103 Despite this, I still find words like leeward and windward and layline to have a compelling charm, a spell on my spirit. It’s possible that I veer away from critiquing this diction and what it might mean as a colonized subject to take up a sport with a brutal and bloody history. Or that I desire at least one form of recreation that is a literal and metaphorical escape. Maybe it’s a relief to subjugate my identity into that of a crew member or to spend a few hours a week with my mind and senses taken up with the immediate tasks of skirting and trimming sails rather than exploring the endless ways I’m complicit and accountable. Like many Canadians, I have any number of shortcomings but have begun to contemplate the implications of how Toronto Harbour has historically moored tall ships carrying settlers and cargo. The yacht clubs in the Great Lakes region are built on Indigenous Peoples’ traditional territory. Queen City Yacht Club (QCYC) is located on Algonquin Island, the name only a passing acknowledgement of Indigenous presence in the area. I’ve seen little evidence of more substantial actions toward reconciliation in the sailing community. Asking how sailing can be decolonized is like sailing into a hole—a word used to describe a patch of open water where the wind has died. Boats will inevitably stall, drifting aimlessly in irons until a breeze lifts them out of it. While crews on tall ships making voyages across the Atlantic dreaded being becalmed, I think it can be necessary and useful to take stock, to pause mid-voyage and reflect on the costs of this journey. With the evolution of sailing from a military occupation to a sport in the nineteenth century and the establishment of races such as the America’s Cup in , sailing became a recreation of an upper-class, male, and white demographic. Participants today require the time and resources to train on customdesigned boats fitted out with the most advanced instruments. The image of a crew in matching sponsored jerseys, working their mechanical winches in perfect coordination on a boat costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, contributes to the idea of sailing as exclusionary and cliquish. At many co-op and community clubs in Toronto and around the Lake Ontario region, it’s a much more modest pursuit (though the cost of boats and their maintenance leads owners to define them as “holes in the water where you throw money”). My images of typical lake sailors include retired older couples in paint-splattered shorts and ball caps or guys in dirty boat shoes and wraparound reflective sunglasses. While still inaccessible for many, sailing is less elitist than I had once assumed. Each yacht club has its own culture. I visited one where all the wait staff were Asian and white families bowled on manicured lawns, while I sail at a club that doesn’t have a dress code and whose commodore the first year I sailed was Pat, a Japanese Canadian woman who had lived on a reserve with her husband. Pat’s warmth and notice of new faces at the club, especially female ones, was a signal that sailors could look like me. Gradually, I have seen more new members who don’t fit the stereotypical image of a skipper or racer. Much more can be done to improve sailing’s inclusivity, but my own presence at the club is a sign of the sport’s shifting values and identity. Still, if a collective identity for sailors exists, it’s inflected with paradoxes. I note other contradictions, such as how sailors view themselves as both

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BRICK

102

of these manoeuvres only came to me through the feel of the boat turning into the wind, the hull and rudder become an extension of my body, where I can sense a gust underneath my ass as the boat tips and heels. And to think that I once considered that appendage as merely ballast.

When learning any language code, reflecting on its place of origin and the powers that have shaped and defined it across time is valuable. Sailing’s distinct idioms are, in large part, a result of British naval history, where sailors took pride in the stories and skills that made their profession unique from other branches of the military. These were the same seamen and ships that forcibly conscripted civilians for military service, held enslaved peoples in cargo holds, stole from Indigenous Peoples in the New World, and claimed harbours. Along with laws, policies, and the English language, British ships brought opium into the ports of Hong Kong, the islands where my family lived with the sound of the waves at their doorsteps. All this colonial violence has been steeped in the language like tea leaves. Idioms such as “all hands on deck,” “long shot,” “toeing the line,” “run a tight ship,” and “knowing the ropes” are shadowed with the strict protocols of sailing and its militaristic, subjugating narrative. These phrases evoke an era where maritime travel and transport had a much greater global role. They are a time capsule, an archive animated by the act of sailing, which brings the past into the present.

Even though I’ve spoken and written in English for most of my life, I have never lost the feeling of my slippery hold on the language. It’s likely why

I became a writer, so as to give myself more time to pin down what I really mean rather than being crowded into the moment. Speaking in English is a constant negotiation of meaning and implication. My parents speak English with bluntness and directness, translating the syntax of Cantonese imperatives, tenses, and word order. When they use idioms, it’s with a certain deliberation. My own diction is wide but arcane, gleaned from the Victorian novels I read through my teenage years. In high school I knew what reticule, petticoat, scoundrel, and sovereign meant, but I struggled with Simpsons references. I avoided fuck and shit and asshole not out of a dislike for profanity but because it felt fake whenever I swore. My self-consciousness with small talk and banter might have more to do with shyness than with my immigrant background, but the two are inseparable. Even my mother tongue, Cantonese, can feel foreign to me. While Cantonese was the language I heard at home, my parents began speaking to me in English before I entered kindergarten. Despite three years of Chinese school, my command of the language is basic. My aunties and uncles have praised my accent and ability, but that is partially because I have learned that speaking Cantonese, being Cantonese, requires a certain attitude, a brashness and wit, just as Canadian English requires tact and a determined friendliness. Being between two languages, without an unthinking fluency in either, has highlighted the performative aspect of speech. Taking up a pastime where I might never feel fluent may be a deliberate attempt to seek comfort in discomfort. It is almost assuaging to have such a conscious sense of unbelonging.

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