Banana is a term I am sure most Malaysian Chinese are familiar with. No, I am not going to talk about the greatness of the most yellow looking fruit nor I’m insinuating that it is a human anatomy that most MALES have.
I am sure there are countless of topics about it in the Internet unless you are from another planet who has not heard of banana before. You can google it yourself. Today I am going talk about banana that is used as a derogatory remark against Chinese who are only proficient in English but totally suck or clueless in the Chinese language itself.
It is unclear how this term is being applied in our daily lives but I guess it depends on the context that is being used at. Sometimes it is used to reflect your inability to write or read Chinese. Sometimes it is used to reflect your inability to converse in Chinese. But Chinese language itself is pretty diverse because not every Chinese speaks Mandarin.
Some Chinese speaks only hokkien, Cantonese, hakka or hainanese since like forever without speaking a word in mandarin. Yeah I speak fluent Cantonese but there are still Chinese who labeled me as a banana just because I can’t write or read Chinese. Unfortunately, the level of my mandarin is sufficient enough for me to order food in chinese restaurants.
At least I am proud to say i did not confuse lat jiao (chilli) with lanjiao (do I need to explain this?) like my friend did 
Just because a chinese speaks decent english (I am still learning because I feel my command in English is still not good enough. My grammar is atrocious) and fluent in a couple of different other chinese dialects, it does not make them a banana or any less chinese, right?
At least it is whole better than Chinese who is only fluent in Mandarin and speaks half ass Bahasa Melayu with the annoying chinese accent that makes you cringe everytime they open their stinky mouth. So it is quite ironic when other mandarin speaking Chinese labeled other Chinese who only speak other dialects as ‘banana’. I thought the term is more applicable to ABC (american born chinese) or UKBC (united kingdom not ulu kelang born chinese) or any HSBC?
ps:- yeah i am fully aware lanjiao is not a mandarin word but what the hell?
