how to remember

星期五的行管課結束的時候 我跑去問助教期末報告可不可以用英文寫

她微笑著問我: 喔你是外國人嗎?


我常常被大家說是外國人 但我一點也不介意

因為我知道大家其實都很好心的把我當成跟自己一樣是台灣人

但不知道為什麼 助教認真的問我這個問題 讓我之後想了很久

我一直都把自己當做台灣人 只是因為離開台灣太久所以需要適應而已

但是助教的問題卻讓我再一次的反省

雖然這不知道是不是結論 可是我想到最後真的被自己嚇到了

沒想到 我竟然跟David宅 是同一種人....

我好想吐 (雖然我真的有試著去喜歡他 真的!)


when i was in the u.s., i thought of myself as chinese american. but i wasn't the only one; everyone who knew me saw me as chinese american. i lived for several years without giving much thought to who i was or what country i belonged to. questions like that didn't seem very important to me. i received most of my education in the u.s., identified more with americans, had more "american common sense" than i had "chinese common sense," had better command of english than chinese, sided with american values more often than chinese values when they are in conflict, enjoyed american literature, music, movies, theatre more than i did chinese ones, wore american eagle, drank jamba juice--in general, i was just as american as any other blond-haired blue-eyed lived-in-the-u.s.-their-whole-life american, only without the popular image factor.

i guess some people (this includes my mother) would say i adapted. my whole life up to this point has consisted of nothing but change. at this point, i have already gone to 13 different schools and moved 6 times. so losing became an easy task. losing friends, losing the way, losing old furniture, losing neighbors, losing pets, losing habits, losing ticket stubs... memories started piling up. they gathered dust and lost their glow. it wasn't long before losing turned into forgetting.

forgetting is a powerful tool. it dulls the pain you feel when you realize you lost something important to you. i learned to forget many things. at first i delighted in this new skill because forgetting was so refreshing. i forgot in whole bundles and crates. it wasn't that i saw them as trash that needed to be thrown away, but they were like bulks of yellowed newspaper clippings--still worth keeping but not worthy enough to travel thousands of miles away with me. some people envy what i have experienced, but what they don't know is that too much of something became nothing at all. most experiences were telephone directories to me, though they may seem like gold to others.

and so, like an anorexic who refuses to eat foods they once enjoyed, i refused to remember forgotten memories i once treasured.

of all things, i forgot what being chinese was like. now if this happened to an american-born-chinese, you can't blame them because they never really knew that feeling (although many may think they do). but it happened to me, someone who has always been and should always remain chinese. so the decision was to come home, even though it seemed ironic to me that my home was such an unfamiliar place. leaving a whole country behind was hard, but it wasn't impossible. after all, i had done it once already when i was 9.

i didn't choose immigration; immigration chose me. for those who wished they moved to a foreign country when they were little, allow me to ask: if you had to choose a time in your life to live in a country where you needed to say to your teacher that you had to go to the restroom but didn't know how, what age would you choose? or where you sat in the car next to your mother, who got lost driving to a nearby supermarket and you wished you could help read the map for her, what age would you choose? or when your classmates made fun of you because you brought chinese food to school for lunch, what age would you prefer? or when a neighbor came to speak to your father and, after talking very fast in his own mother tongue, looked at your father condescendingly and asked him in a tone he might use when talking to a five-year-old, "do you understand what i said?" what age would you prefer?

all my other family members, even though they too lived in the u.s. for quite a while, were able to adjust quickly when they came back to taiwan because it was where they grew up. but for someone who was american in every way except for appearance and birthplace, the task of adjusting was not easy. perhaps i would have felt better had i received the encouragement and positive attention that "popular image" americans do when they perform simple tasks most chinese were used to everyday, such as using eloquent or "fashionable" language, knowing how and when to haggle, the proper way to greet and make conversation with the different people you meet everyday... i didn't even know that when they play "fur Elise" it means it's time to take out the trash. but i could tolerate such things because i wanted to learn them, if such chinese survival skills were what made a chinese person chinese. what i could never get used to was the way "popular image" americans were applauded when they spoke the same language i was struggling with and did the same things i was learning to do. it was mythical the way waiters and cashiers were always friendlier and more patient when they were serving a white customer.

so, white americans are treated better in their own country AND in a foreign country? people speak to them in their own language in their own country AND in a foreign country? they don't MAKE these things happen; we LET these things happen because we think of ourselves as lower or not as advanced as they are. (some people have tried to make me feel better about this by telling me that we are being nice to them because they are in a foreign place. but if that is the case, why do so many people discriminate against foreign laborers and vietnamese wives?) and so i envy those white americans who are taken for who they really are--people think of them as foreigners, so they can behave like foreigners and not feel out of place. (it's ironic that a foreigner in taiwan might feel more at home than i do.)

in america, people treated me like i was american and therefore "one of them" because i spoke perfect english and behaved as an american would in every way. in taiwan, people treat me like i'm taiwanese for probably the same reasons. but even though the people around me already recognize me differently, i fear that i still see myself in the same way. after all these years of trying to prove to myself that i am in fact taiwanese, i realize now, with some degree of horror and disbelief, that i may never "turn into" a taiwanese, that i am and will never cease to be really american. it's like looking into a mirror and seeing a monster. i look like one thing but inside am actually another completely different being. am i an american who has to wake up every morning and learn how to become more chinese because i am "supposed to be" chinese? or am i chinese but just don't know it? or worse yet, am i both?

it's not that i WANT to be treated as an american just to live an easier life. but being treated as a chinese person who has had the "opportunity" to become bilingual (and, therefore, ooh so lucky) is more than i can take. i hope i am not being unappreciative, because i do enjoy having two mother tongues, but i know that if i could go back in time and choose for myself, i would stay where i belong and not move until i have already developed a set picture of who i am.

because there is nothing worse than losing yourself.

t.s.eliot

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.

hitori gatari

i took a look at some of my previous posts and realized that they've been sorta.. misleading. :\ it's not really that bad here, in fact, life has been treating me pretty good and i'm adjusting ok. but sometimes i DO miss home (if i may call cupertino home, that is) and when i do, this blog becomes the only way to let negative emotions out.

so just in case anyone still reads this blog, i just thought i should paint a more "realistic picture" by blogging more about NORMAL stuff.

ironically, i'm in finals hell right now and also in a pretty good mood.

i wonder what everyone is doing after graduating from college. most of my friends here in tw want to go to grad school. haven't been using aim so haven't been talking to people... not in real time at least. but i do use msn! so add me if you see this: Shelley508@hotmail.com

sadly, will not be visiting u.s. during the summer. i have a feeling it will be quite a while before i go to the u.s. again. :(

dreams and thoughts

i've been having weird dreams about friends back in the states for several nights now. last night i dreamt about tyson, the night before chrissy, and some nights before i saw charlton and angela. maybe it just means i miss you guys. but i think there's more.. i feel like i'm losing some part of myself slowly, and before i know it, i'd turn my head and find that part of myself completely disappeared. just vanished into thin air. and it makes me so scared to think this way, but there's nothing i can do to make things better.

i'm stuck in one place and not going anywhere. and i'm all alone.