Swee-ha

From Memory

Growing up with Chinese parents from Shanghai can be an interesting experience in language diversity. Our parents wanted us to excel in English and be conversant in Mandarin Chinese, but their native tongue was the Shanghai dialect (Shanghai hua or Zhong-he-wu) that they often used between themselves. As a consequence, in my early childhood, I was never sure what words were English and what words were Chinese. In addition, although my parents spoke English quite fluently, there were some quirks in their speech that I didn't discover until years later.

From as long as I can remember, Mama would call us (my two sisters and me; and my dad or all of us collectively) "Swee-ha". Once I was old enough to know about different languages, I assumed that this fell into the Shanghai hua bucket as an endearment.

Amazingly, it wasn't until I was in high school when it hit me that Mama was actually calling us "sweetheart".