First Excerpt from Chinese-American or Something Like That...

I'm so excited to share an excerpt from what I have been working on since 2004.  No joke, for my college senior thesis, I wrote about what it was like growing up ABC (American born Chinese).  It's changed a lot along the way and I haven't really focused on it until 2012... but this year, my goal is to actually finish it so here's one excerpt.  Enjoy!

Chinese-American.  Is that what I actually am?  I’ve always felt like a foreigner.  To the white man, I’m just an Asian girl.  To the true Asians abroad, I’m just an ABC (American-born Chinese).  I love the USA.  I also love my Chinese heritage.  I speak English.  I speak Mandarin.  I speak Chinglish.  I’m really just sort of lost somewhere between American and Chinese.

In reality, I am part of a small minority of immigrant children who think they can speak Chinese fluently and eat all the food from Taiwan or China, only to venture to Taiwan or China and find out I’m too dark, too thick, have an American accent, and my weak stomach can’t actually handle any authentic Taiwanese street food.  Lost somewhere between generations and cultures, learning along the way what it actually means to be American, my life has been filled with struggles to figure it out. 

I remember it took some time for me to fully realize we just didn’t celebrate American holidays the same.  I remember learning about how the Indians and Pilgrims would celebrate that first Thanksgiving together and how the tradition of elaborate Thanksgiving meals complete with corn, mashed potatoes, gravy, turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce would make everyone giddy with excitement.  I remember spending weeks on end during our designated craft time at school carefully using a pencil to stick brown tissue paper all over a newspaper filled paper bag to make a grand master turkey centerpiece.  I remember taking it home to my mom, telling her it was supposed to be a used for our Thanksgiving dinner, and then coming home one day and finding out she had thrown it away because it took up space.  I remember another elaborate craft project tying red and green tissue paper around a wire hanger that we had molded into a circle to make a red and green and very festive wreath for our front door.  I remember the excitement of bringing it home to my mom who told me our door didn’t have any means to hang anything on it.  I remember never writing letters to Santa Claus.   I remember opening one present from my parents on Christmas Eve because there was no such thing as waking up early on Christmas morning.  

Part of me vowed never to throw away my kids’ art projects, but mostly, it didn’t matter much.  We might not have celebrated Thanksgiving or Christmas the way white people did on the television, but we always had family, all our cousins, lots of mah-jong, and lots of Chinese food.

I think it’s funny to look back at the things I missed out on because my parents were immigrants but also fun to think about the unique experiences I did have because of that.

While American mothers were teaching their kids how to make chocolate chip cookies, I was rolling glutinous rice balls for our red bean soup.  While American mothers were making baked goods for the school fundraisers, we were taking a trip to the American super market (a rare occurrence) to buy some already baked goods to donate. While American mothers were taking their daughters to brownies and girl scout meetings and activities and AYSO soccer practice, my mother was scheduling my private tutoring sessions, speed reading classes, piano lessons, Chinese school, and dance lessons.  While American mothers were planning grand Thanksgiving dinners with stuffing inside the turkey, we were stuffing our turkeys with Chinese sticky rice (which btw is way better than stuffing).   

There were just a lot of things my mother didn’t care to adapt to when it came to the American culture.  She never said I couldn’t do what the white kids were doing, she just didn’t bring it up if I didn’t.  And because she didn’t really understand the American pop culture of the time, we were essentially fresh off the boat (“FOBs”).  I looked like I was a byproduct of Taiwan, not America.  My mom dressed me in shirts with awkward improper English phrases (I can being your friend too!), and blouses and skirts adorned with unfamiliar Chinese cartoon characters.  My mom put my hair in pigtails with big fluffy balls instead of neon shoelaces and anything of American trend in the 80’s.  I didn’t have big hair or big bangs, I had straight black hair that was flat, never crimped or curled.  And yet I had a fantastic childhood… one filled with Chinese expectations and American struggles, but fantastic nevertheless.