{"id":26450,"date":"2015-11-23T10:23:52","date_gmt":"2015-11-23T15:23:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/?p=26450"},"modified":"2015-11-25T12:51:27","modified_gmt":"2015-11-25T17:51:27","slug":"an-endless-tug-of-war-being-a-diasporic-asian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/2015\/11\/23\/an-endless-tug-of-war-being-a-diasporic-asian\/","title":{"rendered":"An Endless Tug-of-War: Being a Diasporic Asian"},"content":{"rendered":"My Neighbour Totoro. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.\r\n\r\nChar siu bao<\/em>. Maple syrup pancakes.\r\n\r\nRed pockets. Christmas trees.\r\n\r\nAs a child, I never questioned why my life was a mix of Canadian and Chinese culture. It had always seemed natural to participate in each culture\u2019s respective traditions and indulge in its entertainment and food. I didn\u2019t realize that this was partially due to the fact that I was a diasporic Asian.\r\n\r\n
\"An<\/a>
Any self-proclaimed Totoro enthusiasts here? (Hand shoots up.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nMembers of a diaspora refer to a population who has spread from their ancestral homeland elsewhere. It encompasses people who have immigrated to a foreign country as either a child, teen, or adult, and also those who are born in the foreign country\u2014which becomes their native country\u2014to which their parents have immigrated. In my case, I\u2019m considered a second-generation diasporic Asian because, while my parents immigrated to Canada from Hong Kong, I was born in Canada.\r\n\r\nBeing a diasporic Asian never really meant anything to me until I grew older. Around the time I entered middle school and onwards, labels thrown at me triggered an identity crisis. I was called \u201cwhite-washed\u201d and \u201cWesternized\u201d because of how \u2018Canadian\u2019 I dressed, spoke, and acted. Other times I was called \u201csuch an Asian\u201d because of my hobbies and diet. I knew my friends didn\u2019t mean to hurt me with those words, but nonetheless, they only fuelled my helplessness in trying to figure out where I fit in.\r\n\r\nFor the longest time, I thought I was missing something in the equation that equated to this notion of a Chinese-Canadian. Was I too Canadian to be Chinese-Canadian? Too Chinese? Why was I constantly told I was too much of something and too little of something else? What was the balance I had to strike to fulfill the criterion of \u2018Chinese-Canadian?\u2019\r\n\r\nI received my answer the other day, when the topic popped up unexpectedly during a meeting with an academic peer counsellor, who was also a diasporic Asian. She told me that I was, in fact, a Westernized Asian. I would never think or act like someone who was raised in Hong Kong because I\u2019d grown up in a different culture, and as such, my values would be different from them\u2014more \u2018Western,\u2019 if you\u2019d like. However, that didn\u2019t mean I was \u2018less\u2019 Chinese than them. Having grown up in a Chinese household had, in itself, exerted an influence on the way I viewed and interacted with life. In reality, I wasn\u2019t lacking in one culture or another\u2014I had both.\r\n\r\n
\"Chinese<\/a>
Chinese tea one moment\u2014<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n
\"Apple<\/a>
\u2014Canadian apple cider the next. (Creds to my mother for turning a simple apple cider into art.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\nI hadn\u2019t previously thought about my situation that way, but afterwards, it made sense. I shouldn\u2019t feel ashamed by the fact that I had adopted Canadian values despite my ethnicity, and I shouldn\u2019t feel ashamed that I retained distinctly Chinese values despite my nationality. If anything, I should be proud of harbouring values derived from both cultures.\r\n\r\nTo all of you diasporic people out there, you are strong. It has never been easy trying to fit in to your current culture as well as to retain attachments to your other one, especially if your home country is far away. I, myself, am still trying to figure out how to balance my two cultures, and hopefully, university will help with that; I plan on joining some clubs and learning more about the culture of Hong Kong, if I can. If any of you happen to have the same train of thought, know that there are many clubs catered towards different ethnic groups here on campus<\/a>\u2014and if the one you\u2019re seeking isn\u2019t there, start a club for it! It\u2019s never too late to try and retain or regain your other culture\u2014but don\u2019t feel that there\u2019s a quota you have to fill on how engaged you are in it. Embrace the richness of your diverse heritage, but don\u2019t force it.\r\n\r\nUltimately, remember that you are who you are, and no one else can dictate your identity. Be loud and be ridiculously proud.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nWhat have you experienced as a diasporic person? Let me know in the comments below or through @lifeatuoft on Twitter!<\/em>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"My Neighbour Totoro. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.\r\n\r\nChar siu bao<\/em>. Maple syrup pancakes.\r\n\r\nRed pockets. Christmas trees.\r\n\r\nAs a child, I never questioned why my life was a mix of Canadian and Chinese culture. It had always seemed natural to participate in each culture\u2019s respective traditions and indulge in its entertainment and food. I didn\u2019t realize that this was partially due to the fact that I was a diasporic Asian.\r\n\r\n
\"An<\/a>
Any self-proclaimed Totoro enthusiasts here? (Hand shoots up.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n
Continue reading “An Endless Tug-of-War: Being a Diasporic Asian”<\/span>…<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"author":268,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7204,66,67],"tags":[1053,78,153,333,15711,15712,297,286,25506],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26450"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/268"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26450"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26619,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26450\/revisions\/26619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}