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Analogy of Asian raised in western countries. Torn between cultures

peter 13 January 2007 General Culture, General Lifestyle 25 views No Comment  Print This Post

 

Theonian looks at the split views of Asians raised in the West. Though not all her own views, she has drawn on the experience of other people around her to try and categorize our beliefs.

I am English

I live in England, I vote in England. My friends are English. I have an office job. I laugh and joke with my colleagues, and we talk about the same television programs. When I see Chinese people in the street.  I frown because they are being rude by speaking so loudly. At the university, I look down on all those foreign students from Hong Kong.  They stay in their groups and start a hate campaign again home students. “What is the point of studying in England if you don’t want to integrate?â€?, I ask myself. I know that the answer is simple.  They didn’t come for the experience like I would have.  They have simply come because they believe the education system to be better. After I get home from work. I’ll get some pasta from the cupboard and set it to cook. I open a jar of sauce and soon I have some Italian meal that I learned to cook at the University. I settle down on my sofa.  Thinking about my current love interest. He’s a colleague of mine; he’s black. I love his humour, and he’s so open about everything and not afraid of anything. He’s tall and broad, unlike the small Chinese men that seem so distinctly unmanly.

I am Chinese

I look in the mirror.  All I can see is black hair, brown eyes, and not much else, as I cannot reach to see more of myself. My family are talking away in Chinese over the shuffling mah-jong tiles in the background. Cantopop is blaring on the tape recorder. The kids are in the corner, discussing the latest gossip about TVB stars, comparing the latest designer labels that they have acquired. When I go to visit my relatives, I sit quietly and nod and agree with the odd question: “Have you been good to your parents?â€? or “Have you been studying hard at school?â€? After  awhile, other people join that are around my age and we go off. After my A-Levels, I will go to the University. I will not do a vocational course, they not good enough, and I want a high-powered job that pays a lot of money. This will happen. At dinner time, we all gather around the table with our bowls of rice. After calling out each other’s name, we start to eat and slurp our way through the food, chopstick fighting, leaning over and passing dishes continuously. All the while we talk and the table is never silent. In my first job, I leave aside some money for my parents: payment for the years of looking after us when we were younger. When they are too old, they shall live with my new family. I would never marry someone English; my parents would probably go spare. Anyway, they wouldn’t understand the culture, or eat the food, and I couldn’t bear the looks that I would get with a mixed child.

I am a BBC

I take out my English friends for Dim Sum and they are impressed with my ordering skills. Awed by me when I say, “Table for three, pleaseâ€?. I celebrate New Years’ and eat lots, wear all my new clothes. Not long after, I tuck into my Easter egg and give eggs to others, too. I avoid walking under ladders, and I never give out clocks as presents. I love being different. I have a sense of awe that’s around me, though this is dying out. I miss that sometimes, but I have to admit that it is a good thing to be accepted as a culture. I am still able to shock people with things that Chinese people do, the way they eat for example. I don’t care who I marry; I don’t really care if I do. If the right person comes along then whatever their race doesn’t matter as long as they make me happy. My parents will just have to accept that that is my choice. I love seeing the world with my feet in the east and west. I have strong family values: something that the English don’t understand.  I have my liberating views in politics, and I believe that I can make a difference to the world and I want to. I have two lives, my home life and my outside life. Seeing the change in culture makes me so much more open to other people and I understand how much a culture shapes them. They are not strange, but different. I belong everywhere, though at times, I feel as though I belong nowhere. I am glad that China is rising up, and even prouder to know that England is accepting this. England vs. China? I don’t care who wins in the Olympics.

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