At China Inn, I was terrified of seeing anyone from school, especially those with whom I’d nev

At China Inn, I was terrified of seeing anyone from school, especially those with whom I’d never interacted but was forced to greet. I thought it was unfair that I had to be in a smelly Chinese restaurant serving others while all my friends were out doing whatever typical teenagers do. It only made me feel more alienated from my mostly white peers — some of whom were my friends but no one I could relate to 100 percent. Whereas the other kids in school had grown up familiar with classic pop culture like The Beatles and The Brady Bunch, I knew all the words to popular Chinese folk songs and watched dramas set in Imperial China with my mom. My friends whispered secrets and giggled over jokes that I’d often miss, because conversation was harder for me as a kid who thought first in Mandarin and then in English. And football was their religion. Family was mine.I’d known that I was different since a friend pointed it out to me in first grade. She’d tapped me on the shoulder, and when I turned to look at her, pulled the corners of her eyelids into slanted slits. From that point on, I dodged anyone’s questions and avoided conversations about my ethnicity as not to draw attention to my differences. It wasn’t that I wanted to blend in with my peers or erase my culture. I just didn’t want my heritage to be the only thing that defined me.But as I grew up, things only got more confusing. I wanted to be accepted by my peers, and I wanted to appease my parents. But there was a part of me that wanted to be my own person, which meant disappointing my parents. Instead of a disciplined, studious child and dutiful daughter, they got a kid who was content to slack off and scribble absentmindedly on the backs of placemats. The ones at China Inn had the Chinese zodiac on them.According to those placemats, I am a goat — creative, timid, reserved, “compatible with boars and rabbits, but never the ox.” The description was actually quite apt. Carefree and contemplative, I was a dreamer, not a doer. I quit ballet after just one recital, which is a lot longer than my stint in gymnastics and violin lessons. In school, I did what I could to get by with no desire to be the best, much to my mother’s frustration. And though I never outright disobeyed my mother, I often fought with her.Through tears, I would protest: “Why do I have to learn Chinese and study so much? I’m an American. I live in the ‘States, and here, people speak English, and they go out.” She would remind me that like her, I had yellow skin and slanted eyes. Because of that, nothing would ever come easy for us. “We’ve got to work twice as hard to get ahead!”To my mom, there was always something I could be working on, if not refining my Chinese then working on SAT practice questions to raise my score. Her idea of constant improvement terrified me, as I had grown content with being average. More than anything, being average was something I could claim as my own. It was my personal way of quietly countering against a mother who wanted so badly for her kid to be an obedient, refined, and high-achieving daughter.Read more: -- source link

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