Yell-oh Girls!

Meggy Wang  “The Train”

 

I was born in a blustery Michigan environment and raised in north­ern California. Seventeen years later, I am finishing my senior year at Los Gatos High School, not necessarily unscathed, but certainly worn and torn in rather beneficial ways. What makes this essay similar to other "identity pieces" is what also makes it important. Looking back, I wrote "The Train" in a doldrum-ic state; however, in contemplating one's own existence, thoughts are bound to come in ups and downs.

 

"Where are we going? Where are we going?"

My brother was pestering my mother for the hundredth time as we walked through the train station. The air was hot and muggy, making him louder and my mother more irritable. We were toting two cans of guava juice from the vending machine by the ticket stand, but even they were beginning to lose their cooling effect as beads of condensation dripped down the sides. Guava juice is prac­tically the only thing I drink in Taiwan; it's fresh, not fake-tasting like Chinese orange juice, and it's not a warm beverage.

"Tainan," my mother replied sharply. "We're going to Tainan."

    Public transit in Taiwan is much more popular than it is here in the United States, mostly because Taiwan is about the size of Cali­fornia, putting less emphasis on private vehicular transport. There weren't enough seats for us to sit together, so my mother placed my brother and me into a passenger car by ourselves.

"When we reach our stop, I'll come get you," she said. "Don't leave."

We nodded obediently. I was thirteen, already headed into the depths of adolescence, and my brother was nine years old. Being in Taiwan made me nervous because while my brother could easily pass as a native youth, I was obviously American. I couldn't quite pinpoint what it was about me that screamed “American-born Chi­nese!" but whatever it was, everyone could sense it. It was in the way I spoke, my mannerisms, my skin, even the way my face devel­oped in the absence of a true Chinese environment.

Approximately two hours later, after watching numerous cows and rice fields roll by, the train made yet another stop and the loud­speakers blared: "Dau luh. Tainan tzan." (We have now arrived at the Tainan station.)

    My brother, who had been extremely antsy throughout the train ride, leapt out of his seat. "It's Tainan," he said. "This is our stop!"

    I grabbed his arm. "Hey. Wait until Mom comes to get us."

    I kept my hand on his arm as we watched people go by: old women with their graying husbands clutching suitcases, young women with their trendy Western clothing, children and their dot­ing mothers, all very frazzled and tired-looking. As the people trickled away, we grew more and more nervous.

"Last call for Tainan," the announcer blared.

"Maybe she got off the train already. Maybe there wasn't time for her to come to our car," my brother piped nervously. "We should go."       Allen shoved me into the aisle. We stood by the door, craning our necks to peer down both sides. The irritated man by the door asked,  “Are you getting off at Tainan or not?"

    I blinked and turned my head to look at him. In my accented

Mandarin, I said, "Yes, but-"

    "Well, then," he answered shortly, "Get off. This isn't a vista point."

Under the glare of the doorman, we stepped off the train and looked around anxiously at the depot. There were about thirty peo­ple milling around, but my mother was not one of them. As the people dispersed like so many globules of oil in a pot of soup, and as the train pulled away from the station, it became obvious that our mother was nowhere to be found.

"I think we're lost," said my brother in a moment of pure wisdom. "Yeah."

"I don't see her," he continued in a more panicky voice.

Thank God for kindergarten safety education, which I hear­kened when I spotted a man in a uniform by the tracks. Pulling my brother behind me, I said to him (in more accented Mandarin), "Excuse me, sir, but my brother and I seem to have gotten off the train without our mother. . . . She said we were getting off at Tainan, but we can't find her. She's not here."

    He peered at us curiously, then cast an eye over the area around us. "Come with me."

We followed him into the station itself. Allen was near tears as he led us to the Information section. Two other men were there. They were also in uniform, and peered down at us from their stoops.

    "Now, tell me again what happened," the man said.

    I told him again, quicker this time, as if to achieve a greater illu­sion of fluency.

    "And is your mother especially old?"

    "No."

"Well, then, she couldn't have forgotten you out of senility." He grinned with amusement. "I'll call the station ahead, then." He went behind the booth to where the phone was, made a phone call, and turned to us again.

"Your mother is worried sick about you two," he said. "She's taking a taxi from the next stop to Tainan. Just wait over there with the rest of the passengers and she'll be coming shortly." My brother exhaled a long, relieved sigh.

"Thank you," I said, feeling proud of my ability to remain calm and communicate in a foreign country. "We're from America, you see, so we don't really know what we're doing."

    "Oh, really?" The other uniformed men stared quizzically at us.

"You're from America? What state?"

I didn't know how to say California, so I stuttered my way through. "We're from near San Francisco," which literally trans­lates to "Old Golden Mountain" in Chinese.

They started laughing. I wondered if I had drool leaking out of the side of my mouth, or if I had just called my dead ancestors something obscene without knowing it.

        "You don't know how to say California in Mandarin?" one

            finally asked.

    My pride sank. "No, I don't."

    More laughter. Allen, who had since calmed down upon realizing that we were going to be recovered, walked over to the passenger area while my cheeks burned with embarrassment. I was reminded of my male cousin, who had laughed at my inability to read the Chi­nese newspaper outside of a few words like you and China.

As I played with the unraveling thread on my skirt, I also recalled an incident in Seattle a few months earlier, during which my father and I had visited the Lake Washington botanical gar­dens. He had asked an elderly male to please take a picture of us beneath a large white tree.

"Oh, sure," he said with a charitable smile. Picking up the cam­era, he asked, "So, are you visiting the country?" I almost cried.

It was there in the train station in Tainan that I realized that I was a foreigner everywhere I went, no matter how fluent I was in English or how un-American my facial features were. I could be mistaken for an Asian tourist as certainly as I could be laughed at for being an ill-spoken A. B. C. (American-Born Chinese) out of place in her parents' homeland. When my mother finally came to the sta­tion, her eyes red from frantic crying, she told us that we were really going to Shinying, not Tainan, and that we were at the wrong place at the wrong time.

I couldn't help but agree.

 

 

Michelle Chang “Identity Crisis”

 

I was born in March of 1983. That makes me a Pisces according to the Western horoscope, and I was also born in the Year of the Boar. Currently, I live in San Francisco with my parents who are from Taipei, Taiwan.

 

Being Taiwanese American is supposed to give me all the benefits of two rich, vastly different cultures, when in reality, every cultural influence from either side makes it impossible for me to be accepted by the other. Everyone who is Taiwanese considers me American. Everyone American considers me Taiwanese. It's like standing with one foot planted on a side of a crack that continually widens with time.  For every time I thought I actually belonged to either side, there have been five times when I've felt entirely lost, bereft, and on my own. When I begin to feel comfortable in one environment, something brings me back to reality. I don't fit in anywhere.

"Do your parents encourage you to speak your opinions?"

 

I sit, listening to the teacher in an orange chair in the warm classroom, half asleep from yesterday's grueling six-hour gymnas­tics workout. Leaning over the desk with my head down in my arms, I try not to attract attention to myself; I am content to listen to, but not participate in, the discussion of a book. Slightly inter­ested, I hoist my head up to watch the other students' reactions. Of course, the ones whose parents have encouraged them to form opinionated minds are the first to respond.

Someone answers, confidently, "My parents were extremely op­pressed and not allowed to voice their opinions, so they try to encourage me to always say what I think."

Well, then, that was profound, safe, and politically correct. Intelligent, creative, thoughtful answers like these scream, I’m trying my hardest to let you know I see everyone as an individual and I know that everyone is equal. Their preposterous self-righteousness makes me want to laugh but instead, I put my head back on the desk and I close my eyes.

I consider the question, too, but what could I say?

"Well, actually-no, not really. My parents' opinions were sup­pressed; therefore, they silence mine as part of traditional Asian beliefs. I supposedly have no opinion, because as my parent daughter, I have no right to an opinion." Besides, according to my parents, it's not right to talk about personal, family matters. And now I'm wide-awake. My teacher's question has reminded me once again of my inner conflict: I don't belong here or there.

I'm going back to Taipei this summer, just as I have every sum­mer since I was born. I still speak Taiwanese and Mandarin Chinese with an atrocious American accent. I still bring my old, ratty clothes, because the decrepit washing machine at my grand­mother's house bleaches stripes on my T-shirts. It's still hot, and mosquitoes plague us throughout our stay. Now, when I go back, I sit down at the dinner table, view the food, and swallow hard against what tries to come back up. My grandmother looks at my sister, my brother, and me with suspicious eyes that seem to gaze right through my mind. She looks at the food that is unfamiliar to us, and infinitely familiar to her. I am unable to finish it, and she turns to my grandfather and my parents, and says, "bi-gok gin-na" (American children) in the tone of disgust people use to describe a homicidal Satan worshipper. Then she looks at me as if I cannot understand anything but American English, even though she knows I do. My parents bow their heads in shame, and I'm also ashamed for something that I can neither help nor change.

And if it's not my grandmother showing me that I don't belong here, the sales clerks in shops and department stores will remind me. I'll walk in Shinkong, a huge department store, trying my best to imitate a humble, unassuming, quiet, Taiwanese girl. I don't say a word, because the moment I open my mouth, my Americanized Taiwanese will give me away. Just when I think I'm blending in and nobody notices, the saleswoman will approach my parents. After asking if they need help, she opens her mouth to converse with me, does a double take, and then says to my parents, “Ta shr chong mei-guo lai de." (She's from America.) She never tries to see if I understand.

When I return from Taiwan, ready to start a new school year, I hope that I’ll be accepted here, where I live. All I want is to have a place where I can be myself; I want time, sleep, friends, and  some freedom. But I'm not normal, because my parents have tried and continue to try to make me truly Taiwanese; this is a far cry from being a typical American kid.

If I get a 99 percent on a test they ask me where the last 1 per­cent went. Anything less than an A-is considered flunking.  Despite my hard work high school makes it nearly impossible to continue getting A’s in all my classes. I'm constantly compared with my older sister, and what makes it worse is, she's too smart for her own good - or mine. My parents compare our report cards and class schedules every semester to determine whether or not I'm doing well enough. My parents remind me that if I don't get "good" grades, "Li xi-ya" - I'm dead.

The generation gap that separates teens from their parents makes communications difficult; in my case, it's more than twice as bad, not only because my parents are extremely conservative, but because they're extremely conservative even for Taiwanese parents. They seem to think that they can raise us exactly the way their par­ents raised them in Taiwan; the fact that we're living in the United States a quarter century later apparently means nothing to them. Even though I was born here, I go to school here, and I spend eleven months of every year here, I'm supposed to be 100 percent Taiwanese. Clearly, it doesn't work, and it's obvious that I don't belong in Taiwan. Regardless, they continue to try to make me into something I'm not.

Imagine being unable to lock (or even close) your door for any reason, ever. Imagine being punished for listening to WILD 94.9 radio because of the sex and violence contained in the lyrics, but because the music is a sign of how 'American" you've become.  Imagine being treated as if you were less important in the family because you are a girl and because your last name will be lost when you marry. Imagine having to listen constantly to sexist or racist or homophobic ranting and getting punished for expressing an oppos­ing viewpoint. Imagine a place were staying silent when you dis­agree is not enough; you must vocally agree and submit to their power. Imagine having to follow a course of action that will lead you nowhere, simply because your elders are always right—even when they're wrong.  Imagine living in constant fear of being disowned by your family were you to do something wrong. Imagine having your entire life plotted out for you without your opinion or consent. Any deviation from a prescribed path is impossible.

Imagine all this, living in a country supposedly built on liberty and equality for all, while going to school in a supposedly open-­minded environment, where independent thought is encouraged. The home environment inevitably has an impact on everything else, especially school. For instance, how can I participate in class and present opposing views when it's expected that, at home, I shouldn't have an opinion at all? How can I choose my own classes, my own path, make my own decisions, when my parents have already made them for me?

Living in the U.S. has instilled me with more American than Tai­wanese values; I think we should develop strong, personal opinions and foster creativity. I believe in freedom, equality, and nondiscrim­ination, wherever these issues might be problematic. Unfortunately, for me, my parents have been more successful than they know in inscribing certain Taiwanese ideas in me. I feel uncomfortable talk­ing to anyone about my personal problems, or even presenting my own ideas. I'm never happy with anything less than perfection. I see things skewed through the window of my own experiences.

People tell me that I have to be positive and that I will come to a conclusion about my conflicts; in the meantime, I don't know what to do. Someone once told me, "Everybody faces these issues to some extent, but it's the choices you make that solve them."

I just need to find the choices that are right for me.

 

 

Jenny Yu “Her Three Inch Feet”

 

When I was eleven, I crossed the Pacific and moved to a remote suburb in upstate New York. Despite learning the ABCs and sur­viving culture shock, I reunited with parents from whom I had been separated when I was born. Though born and raised in Shanghai, I've spent my most impressionable years humming to TRL (MTV's Total Request Live) and watching Ally McBeal. I wrote "Her Three-Inch Feet" as a self-reflective piece back in tenth grade. Chi­nese lotus feet and urban Manhattan, as mentioned in the piece, exemplify the East-meets- West complex that I dealt with fre­quently.

 

Her Three-Inch Feet

 

She is different. Not just different, her presence in this big city seems anachronistic. She has a benign grandmotherly smile with skin like a piece of crumpled paper flattened out with lines reveal­ing her age. She has a petite, almost childlike body, and tiny bound feet only three inches long.

It is difficult to get a close look at her feet since she likes to move about constantly. She can never and will never stay in one place long enough. For most of her life, Great-Aunt Yeung worked dili­gently; first for her parents, then for her husband, and later for her children. In the seventy-six years she has lived, she has been burdened by responsibility. And, as a result of life's challenges, Great­-Aunt Yeung possesses vigor that exceeds a teenager's.

If you have ever seen her feet, you will never forget them. They are small and pale. They are like two pieces of sponge cake that have been accidentally mashed and tortured. They are painful to look at, for I wonder how excruciating it must be to walk on them, yet they are fascinating. They represent the ancient world of the East, a place of a thousand emperors and fabled dragons.

It is always a treat for me to visit Great-Aunt Yeung, though it means a three-hour drive to New York City. She lives on Mott Street, only three blocks from the heart of Chinatown. Her apart­ment isn't very big; in fact, it appears somewhat cluttered and unimportant compared to a typical, suburban, four-bedroom Colo­nial. It only has one bedroom, one bath, and a small open space that one might call a living room. There isn't much to see in the liv­ing room - just a chair, a few pieces of furniture that she might have gotten from local church sales (since they don't quite match), a thirteen-inch TV, and a table.

But it's not just a table. It's the table of Chinese gods. The burn­ing incense on it perfumes the whole apartment. The twice – daily ritual of worship consists of kneeling, lighting the incense, and then bowing to the gods while holding up the incense with both hands above the head. It is quite a lovely scene. I like watching her and pretending to be lost in the world of yin and yang, Confucius, and fortune cookies. But deep down, I know I can never be a part  of  that inscrutable world.                  

That is how I feel about my Great-Aunt Yeung. The combination of her and New York City is as odd as eating rice topped with rocky road ice cream. She prefers bamboo mats over soft mattresses, medicinal tea over creamy cappuccino, and cooked vegetables over raw salads. Great-Aunt Yeung will always have her own ways. The East and the West will always remain apart, and the best proof of that is seeing Great-Aunt Yeung plod the streets of New York in her size 1, black-cloth shoes.

 

Caroline Fan “Chinglish”

 

A subjectivist adviser, traveling storyteller, and cynical idealist, sometimes I wonder how these all fit inside one petite Asian mind, forever searching for a voice to express their thoughts. At this point in my life, all I can say is that I am Caroline Fan, a nineteen-year-old Williams College student and food fanatic. Every day I become more fluent in expressing who I am, incorporating new aspects and ideas. I wrote "Chinglish" as a reflection of some of these discoveries.

 

Language is a barrier to me. I grew up silent, but bursting with the glimmering desire to describe everything I observed in the closest detail. I scrutinized people sitting across from me on trains, attempt­ing to read their life stories from the lines on their faces, the wrinkles­ in their clothes. I turned an empty car into a joyous amusement park for a family of ants, with the windshield converted into a glee­ful water slide park. I would trace the interior features of our sta­tion wagon with the intent to discover its secrets, to script a story worthy of a childhood afternoon.

I remember being four, having just returned from a half year's stay in Taiwan, where I had attended school and immersed myself in Mandarin, shedding the English language of my birthright.

When I returned, I spoke haltingly, in a language I now call "Chinglish," a bit of Chinese and a few parts of English, communi­cated with the anxiety of someone lost on the street. Preschool was rough: I was brimming with stories to be told, in al1 the languages I contained, but they were silenced the day I climbed to the top of the playground and triumphantly yelled out, "Wo zhe She-Ra!" Yet somehow, no one wanted to play. I immediately resolved to set aside my other tongue, intending to pick it up again when it was convenient, when I had friends. Years passed, and my English progressed, but I remained ever silent; and when I spoke in class, it was with a pounding heart and quickened breath that let the words tumble out and scatter in the wind. I knew that if I ever faltered, I would be reminded at recess, at the water fountain, and during day care. So I spoke rarely, frustrated that everything fascinated me and that my vocal descriptions lacked the substance of my written poetry.

But no one should ever settle for imprecision. Words carry an almost holy weight that I have lugged around in an attempt to hide my unspoken thoughts, only to try to expose my feelings through writing. And after having mastered the English language, I tried to help others communicate their ideas effectively in my high school's Writing Center. The process of revision is something I have never feared. Tutoring my peers, refining their essays, correcting their grammar, and sharing their ideas only strengthens my writing and belief in the power of words. I plan to harness this force to become a writer. I speak up in class now and chase my goals directly.

Much of this change is attributable to my visit to Taiwan a few summers ago, where I recovered my Chinese heritage, which I had thoroughly neglected. I fell in love with the embroidery  of the lan­guage the silk of my culture. I participated in the speech contest. My friends and I spent numerous hours exploring every nook of Taipei, whether "cutting prices" with market vendors or visiting museums. I delved ever deeper into the ancestral pool, and the waters welcomed me. I can only say that the wounds are healing. I am sewing my fragmented soul together again, and I could never leave one half for another for it would only tear me apart. I have rediscovered a focus and love of learning that had seemed to wane after high school started and all my friends spent their Saturdays at the mall, while I was cloistered indoors, repeating character after Chinese character, trying to get the pronunciation exactly right. Today I am proud to have served as a translator for my Chinese painting and calligraphy class. My mother always said I would thank her for prodding me to go to Chinese school, someday. Now is a better time than any to take the words that have been rolling around in my head, in all my harmonious languages, push them out of my mouth, and into the light.

 

Jennifer Wang “Orientation Day

 

I am a high school senior in Dix Hills, New York, who emigrated from Beijing, China, at the age of seven. My favorite subjects are physics and computer science, and I enjoy reading, writing, and sleeping during my nonexistent spare time. Influenced by various summer programs I've attended, "Orientation Day" was written hoping that it would foster a greater understanding of Asian teen­agers and their search for identity. My goal is to become a research scientist.

 

Someone spiked the air, I'm sure of it.

It's summer, yet I'm sitting in the auditorium at one of the great­est universities in the world. Fear and anticipation are oozing from the seats, the walls, and the heavy stage curtains, which are stained the color of fresh blood. A thick carpet of yellow, brown, and red hair covers everything in view.

The director, a gaunt woman with cropped blond hair and the gait of a track star, saunters over to the podium. She opens her mouth and reluctantly releases a word every few minutes, holding them captive in her mouth like lonely prisoners. We are welcomed to the program, introduced to the counselors, explained the rules, and then we are generally oriented - all within the window of sixty interminable minutes.

“And now, we'd like to hear something about each of you," she intones. "Please stand-up and introduce yourselves."

    Something about yourself? How do I summarize, in thirty sec­onds, everything, which adds up and equals a neat little bundle called, Me? How do I present myself in a user-friendly format, com­plete with "Help" buttons and batteries? Who am I, and why do I matter to any of you?

First of all, I am a girl who wandered the aisles of Toys "R" Us for two hours, hunting in vain for a doll with a yellowish skin tone. I am a girl who sat on the cold bathroom floor at seven in the morn­ing, cutting out the eyes of Caucasian models in magazines, trying to fit them on my face. I am the girl who loved Connie Chung because she was Asian, and I'm also the girl who hated Connie Chung because she wasn't Asian enough.

    In sixth grade my health teacher announced in a dictatorial voice that all female pubic hair was curly. And I watched in horror over the next two years, as mine grew straight. During that time I also first heard the term "chink," and I wondered why people were calling me "a narrow opening, usually in a wall." People expected me to love studying and to enjoy sitting in my room memorizing facts for days and days.

While I was growing up, I did not understand what it meant to be "Chinese" or “American." Do these terms link only to citizen­ship? Do they suggest that people fit the profile of either "typical" Chinese or "typical" Americans? And what or who determines when a person starts feeling American, and stops feeling Chinese?

I eventually shunned the Asian crowds. And I hated Chinatown with a vengeance. I hated the noise, the crush of bodies, the yells of mothers to fathers to children to uncles to aunts to cousins.  I hated the limp vegetables hanging out of soggy cardboard boxes. I hated the smell of fish being chopped, of meat hanging in a window. I hated not understanding their language in depth - the language of my ancestors, which was also supposed to be mine to mold and master.

I am still not a citizen of the United States of America, this great nation, which is hailed the destination for generations of people, the promised land for millions. I flee at the mere hint of teenybopper music. I stare blankly at my friends when they mention the 1980s or share stories of their parents as hippies. And I hate baseball.

The question lingers: Am I Chinese? Am I American? Or am I some unholy mixture of both, doomed to stay torn between the two?

I don't know if I'll ever find the answers. Meanwhile, it's my turn to introduce myself. Ms. Gaunt Director smiles a loan-shark smile; it was meant to be reassuring, I'm sure. Eyes are on me, taking in my every move. Is the judgment of strangers harsher than that of friends?

I stand up and say, "My name is Jennifer Wang," and then I sit back down. There are no other words that define me as well as those do. No others show me being stretched between two very different cultures and places - the “Jennifer" clashing with the "Wang," the "Wang" fighting with the" Jennifer."


Jean Chow “Memories of Chinatown”

 

I was born in Taiwan, but my family moved to the island of Oahu, Hawaii, when I was eight months old. I recently moved to Palo Alto, California, where I am a student at Stanford University. I originally wrote "Memories of Chinatown" for an English assign­ment, but enjoyed it so much that I continued to revise and edit it even after it was due. Writing about my childhood really sparked a new interest in learning more about my Chinese culture.

 

The pig's hollow eyes stared at me. I stared right back. Around this intense staring contest, sounds of excitement whirled. Shouts of "sau ji, sau ya!" (roasted chicken and duck), mingled with "char siu bau!" (roast pork buns), were everywhere. A mix of strange smells in and out through the city streets. It was a typical Saturday morning in Chinatown.

Each weekend my mom, my brother, and I piled into our shiny red Buick and headed to Chinatown while my dad went to work.

"Why do we have to go there? I don't want to go there!" My brother and I would whine and complain during the seemingly long drive, but Mom knew just how to handle us with sweet and tasty bribes. A cold strawberry Icee for each of us was usually enough to keep us quiet.

As a child, I didn't understand why we went to Chinatown. The truth is, I was both fascinated and terrified by the place.

We would walk down the main street, stopping at every market, shop, and stand. The pungent smell of fish, the noisy chatter of shoppers, the sight of panhandlers. . . every aspect of Chinatown filled my world on Saturday mornings.

"Mom, what's that? Look, Mom! Mom, let's go over there!"

    This came out in a childish rambling of Mandarin as my atten­tion darted from one thing to the next. What thrilled me most were the boxes lined up in the seafood sections. Live crabs scrambled over each other in an effort to climb the walls and escape from their confines. I peered into the boxes to investigate the scratching sounds and shrieked in fear and delight when one clawed upward at me. I'd hide behind my mom before deciding to make my daring moves once again.

Upon reaching the end of the street, I was tired, thinking about my Icee, which, by then, had long disappeared. Hearing us start up with new complaints, my mom knew just what to do. It was time for lunch - a dim sum lunch. I had never been one to turn down good food. Rattling carts, which sporadically passed the tables, intensified the din of the restaurant. I eagerly awaited the carts, making sure I didn't miss a single dish. After dim sum, we'd pile back into the shiny red Buick and return home in a ride that didn't seem quite as long.

I never understood the significance of our weekly trip to China­town. Now I see that it was a way to keep the Chinese culture instilled in me. I was raised in American society, but my parents didn't let me forget or lose the Chinese values that they had been taught. They, too, had taken trips to the market (not exactly "Chi­natown" since they actually lived in Taiwan!) with their parents when they were young. someday I hope to continue this tradition and share these experiences with my own children. I have grown up and matured since the days of pig-staring contests, but I will never forget being deeply immersed in the Chinese culture during our weekly Chinatown excursions.