Perspective: Chinese American

There I stood, in what was arguably my own country, staring blankly at the middle-aged man who stared right back.  It was nearly 8pm and the narrow alleys became shaded much to the glee of the residents chatting on stools outside their homes.  It would have been a wonderful thing for myself as well, had it not made the alleys look even more similar.  I felt helpless. I clutched the wrinkled piece of paper and smiled, pointing at the map again.  “I want to go here,” I said for the 6th time.  I have no idea why I thought it might sink in this time. “Here,” as I later found out, was Jianchang Hutong, which is little more than an alley. In fact, hutongs are alleys. The entire area was covered in them.  It would take me a week before I figured out how to get home without getting lost.

For this to make any sense, I have to back up. I still remember high school when I proudly considered myself a minority. I say minority, and as an asian, most people come to associate “that” kind of minority with model minority. But I assure you, I am by no means a model. I am part of a new generation, one that is distinctly Asian American and one that can no longer be stereotyped with very much accuracy at all. They say we are all products of our environments and particularly, of our parents.  I agree and I don’t pretend to be any different, but i believe the circumstances that my parents have created and the world I have grown up in produced a certain result.

In the states I was proud of my identity, yet I was very aware that on the grand scale of things, I was neither Asian nor American.  I had the amazing opportunity growing up picking and choosing what i thought made the most sense from both cultures. I always placed myself on the Asian side, embracing classical Asian values such as unquestioned respect for parents, the importance of educational practical and  career oriented view of the world.  Yet my parents allowed a series of western ideas to creep in. I learned to trust rather than suspect. I was willing to take risks and assume the best rather than the worst.  I grew to be confident and social, rather than reserved and observant.  The end product, I have to admit was somewhat of a disappointment to my parents.  I was in no gifted child program, no accelerated after school tutoring. There were no endless hours of piano or violin, no academic awards or science competition.  Instead there was wrestling practice, leadership class and hours serving the less fortunate and soup kitchens.  There were lectures about the plight of the under-served and the inequity that was a very real part of the lives of my teammates, classmates and friends.  But these lectures were not meant to scare me into working harder. They were meant to inspire me to admire those that fought adversity and won, to inspire me to reach a point where I could help change the sometimes seemingly inevitable fate of the “have-nots.”

It is in pursuit of that dream that I come to China, a place I know nothing about.  The language, its people, its culture, all of it is lost to me, save the western spin my parents have put on the few lessons they passed on.  One month into my stay of undetermined length, I have already grown attached to the place – not for some love of its character, I’ve been here far too short to develop that relationship, but for the growing sense of curiosity i have about… everything. 4 hours of Chinese a day has done me well and I can proudly say I know my way home.  Even if I didn't, I could talk like a 5-year-old and make my way home like a confused child.  Here the difference between the rich and poor is unquestionably more obvious and I take an ironic sense of pride in trying to act as local as possible.  Each day I ride my bike through what initially seemed like a deathtrap otherwise known as Beijing traffic.  I eat at local stalls that do their best to pass as restaurants.  Yet it is still painfully clear that I am nowhere close to a local.  Countless times now, people will approach me, assuming that I must speak Chinese, only to find that the foreigner they met yesterday was 100 times more understandable.  I am always embarrassed. Similar situations made me feel the same way in the states, but sometimes I feel more out-of-place that I ever did as a minority.  Still, I have a drive stronger that I had expected to prove myself.  I will continue to study and learn and do my best to make a mark on this place. And at the end of it all, if I feel even the slightest bit more Asian, I’ll have fought for it, and I will have succeeded.

This is PSo, with a perspective