Bridging My Own Cultures

As part of the four-week Orientation Seminar Series during the fall semester 2023 at the Tianjin Juilliard School (TJS), I was asked to participate in a TED-Talk-style event called TJS Talk on Chinese Identity Across Borders. This event featured current students and faculty of Chinese heritage sharing their experiences of growing up outside China and discussing their identity during a panel discussion. As a Chinese American experiencing China for the first time, I happily accepted the opportunity to speak. In the following account, I detail my experience preparing for and delivering a talk about my cross-cultural identity.

During my preparation for this event in the weeks leading up to it, I grew more and more anxious about speaking in front of an audience of strangers about an aspect as close to my life as my cultural identity. Growing up as a child of Chinese immigrant parents in the United States meant that in personal statement essays, I wrote for admissions essays would often be filled with the dissection of my life’s story to beg for more money. Over time, I have come to realize that my self-understanding has been deeply influenced by being viewed through a commodified lens. This scrutiny has shaped how I emotionally connect to my identity, making my experiences only feel valuable when they can be quantified in terms of dollars and cents. This reason is why when I was approached to participate in this talk, I felt eager to share my experiences but had no idea where to start given where I was in my journey towards self-understanding.

I developed the topics for my presentation based on what I needed to express to an audience primarily made up of native Chinese colleagues. These individuals were raised in an environment where ethnic homogeneity shaped their understanding of cultural differences, focusing more on variations within Chinese culture rather than racial distinctions. A topic that did not quite make it further than a bullet point in my final presentation was how the discrimination I faced as a child, despite growing up in such a diverse area like Washington, D.C., negatively affected my sense of identity. Especially in my formative years when social media expanded deeply into everyone’s lives, it felt even more necessary to soften the depth of my experience by selling it through a socially understandable lens. I echo this through one of my favorite quotes from a book I read during the social tumult of the early pandemic:

“Patiently educating a clueless white person about race is draining. It takes all your powers of persuasion. Because it’s more than a chat about race. It’s ontological. It’s like explaining to a person why you exist, or why you feel pain, or why your reality is distinct from their reality. Except it’s even trickier than that.”

― Cathy Park Hong, Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning

While my presentation wasn't aimed specifically at a "clueless white person," I still felt anxious about discussing identity in a culture where showing vulnerability is often not seen as a valid way to talk about oneself. This anxiety might stem from my upbringing by traditional, first-generation Chinese parents. Despite my fears of not being understood, the audience, primarily native Chinese students, was surprisingly receptive and attentive to my story. This acceptance provided a comforting space to explore and share that aspect of my identity.

The day of the TED Talk came, and, with the help of luck, I was listed on the call sheet to be the second speaker out of seven. Because I was closer to the beginning of the talk, I could enjoy the presentations of my colleagues without feeling my palms grow sweatier with every passing minute. As I walked up to our version of the iconic, big red TED Talk circle to begin my own eight-minute speech, seeing familiar and engaged faces in the audience made me feel more comfortable in letting my thoughts flow. Because I feel I know my life’s story better than the back of my own hand, I chose to improvise on key points instead of sticking to a prepared script.

One such point was how my maternal Chinese-Vietnamese heritage made me feel even more distanced from what it means to be authentically Chinese. This sense of separation was magnified as I grew up feeling disengaged from my peers who came from Mandarin-speaking backgrounds. Remarkably, Tianjin Juilliard’s Dean Katherine Chu shared that she too was raised with a Chinese-Vietnamese identity. Our shared background deeply resonated with me, reinforcing a sense of understanding and connection with someone as successful as she.

As the presentations went along, I felt a sense of community between myself and my fellow presenters as well as between us and the audience of eager listeners. Hearing my colleagues, who also grew up in Western societies, speak about their experiences of alienation both within and outside their Asian/Chinese communities deepened my sense of connection with them. Rather than dwelling on shared traumatic and difficult experiences, I felt more able to embrace the joy and pride of our unique differences.

Something I have been realizing since moving across the world to a place my ancestors once resided is that I am unique to my own experiences, and that my experiences do not have to be primarily shaped by my hardships. Growing up in a society that encouraged deep self-reflection about belonging has enriched both the rewarding and difficult aspects of my journey towards self-understanding. Listening to the experiences of my colleagues during this TED Talk has served instrumental in showing me that my feelings of disconnection are shared, underscoring our common humanity beyond just the superficial layers of trauma and appearance-based identity. I thank TJS and the organizing team for creating a space for that kind of inward reflection as it has helped me re-orient my own sense of self at the start of my journey in China.