Lost in Translation

Who am I? Over my travels I constantly met people of different nationalities/ethnicities. After learning each others' names the next question is always "where do you come from?" or essentially "what are you?" My reponse was complicated. If I said "I'm Canadian", they would sort of peer at me strangely, since they're really asking about type of Asian ethnicity I was. If I said "I'm Chinese", they would be puzzled by my fluent English and North American mannerisms. What I eventually found is that "Canadian Born Chinese" (CBC) really is the most accurate, albeit a bit longer (and thus harder for non-native English speakers to immediately understand). The problem is I'm not fully Canadian or Chinese. The Chinese have a slang for me, 竹星仔 'jook sing jai' (literally "bamboo star boy"). This term is used to say that just as bamboo appears in independent sections, I am such a section. Thus I do not connect with either the section that grew before (Chinese) or that which is growing after(my Canadian side). Rough.

The last couple years I have yearned to find my cultural identity, this post is about how this journey started.

The book The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan absolutely floored me. The book is a collage of the stories of 4 Chinese couples and their 4 CBC daughters living in the US. Jing-Mei Woo(a CBC), the main character, goes through her journey of finding cultural identity. Her mother passes away, and Jing-Mei discovers she has long lost sisters in China who have never met their mother. The other parents tell Jing-Mei she must tell her mother's story to these sisters: who the mother was, all that she had suffered, and all that she had done for these lost sisters. The daughter is at a loss for words, and stutters that she wouldn't know what to say... she is torn between feelings of shame, guilt and confusion. She always argued with her mom, always thought poorly of the Chinese way of doing things, and really never understood or appreciated the Chinese way of things. It was with a deep sadness that I empathized with Jing-Mei.

Since then I've been trying to get more exposed to my parent's culture. This involves getting back into learning Chinese, watching Chinese movies, reading books, but much more important than all this - simply having an open, receptive attitude.

Understanding one's culture identity is incredibly important for growing as a person. To know who one is, one must know where one came from. For almost all of us, that's learning about our parents' culture and background. Those by far are the greatest influence on our core values, perspectives, temperament, communication style, morals, etc etc I could go on.

As I grew in my friendships in Austria it was so enriching to encounter different cultures - the conversation that comes out of it causes us to learn to identify our own culture. So when I explained that I was 24 but still lived a home (one of the few amongst our group) I had to think about why that is, and why in CBC culture this was actually almost always the case.

There have been ups and downs in this journey. Culture is a tricky, and quite vague really. I'm reminded when my whole family sits around the dinner table (myself, 2 older CBC sisters, dad born in India, moved to Hong Kong as a teenager, and mom born near Canton and moved to HK in early twenties). We're all different. We're all really really unique ("really" used for emphasis, really you can only be unique or not - really). Culture is a convenient generalization, but really we all exist on a cultural spectrum, with varying similarity and variance.

So this is where I am - learning about who I am, and where that comes from. God has made us with so much cultural variety. And our culture is something we're all proud of, and the thought of losing culture seems both sad and shameful. This isn't the case though - our culture simply changes. Yes its true my Chinese culture is definitely watered down, and likely my children (well, pending children) will retain even less traditional Chinese culture. There will be something in its place, something different - but also something worth treasuring and being proud about.

And if I persevere, perhaps I will not find myself as flustered as Jing-Mei. Instead I will be proud to tell of the culture from which I come from. If I also persevere as a student of culture, hopefully I will be able to fairly evaluate different cultures, and take from the good, and keep from the bad. As a Christian this will also mean what God's culture is like, what are His values and perspectives.

What about you? Tell me about your culture.



My Books tagged with 'Chinese'
My Links tagged with 'Chinese'