*the final countdown*
ok not reeeally the FINAL countdown... but we are definately teetering on the edge right now. in about 15 minutes, vancouver will face minnesota in the deciding game 7 after losing our 3-1 lead in series with the last two games. it all comes down to this. we were outscored the last 2 games 13-3. that's ridiculous!! i still have hope though. we are masters of the comeback. and we WILL conquer...
you know, many people have told me that canadians are the most adamant about how great our country is. well... that's because canada IS great... duh... i will spare you the moving prose i could expound on the greatness of canada, but you should all check THIS out... oh canada! :)
*i'm not white*
i often have to remind myself of this. strange as it may sound, i realized since coming to hong kong that i actually did subconsciously believe this for a long time. i mean, i look at myself in the mirror and i see a girl with olive skin and dark hair and eyes, but i didn't think that people saw that. in canada, i carried myself as if i was exactly the same as everyone else around me. but then i realized that wasn't how others saw me. they saw a chinese girl and probably thought all the stereotypes that go along with that. i'm not saying i was blind to prejudice, because i don't believe i really experienced that much of it. but i do think there is a slight difference in the way people think of you according to your skin (not necessarily in a disadvantaged way). this was something that became really apparent to me here in hk, and i had to consciously urge myeslf to reconnect with my asian roots, having denied them for so long.
this week, i realized how much further i still had to go in this re-transformation. i was sitting in a restaurant with derek, both enjoying our shanghainese noodles and choy faan. i noticed a chinese mother eating with her young daughter, who looks eurasian. and i thought, i wonder if my kids would look like that... that.. WHAT?? just to rule out i wasn't thinking i would be marrying a caucasian. i was thinking... THIS would be a representation of myself. that this was somehow still how i envision myself. that inner picture of myself is still not accurate, at least not physically. i had to kick myself back to reality and admit once again that i am, and will always be, purely chinese, no matter how i feel. i suppose at this stage, i also cannot deny that i have spent 2/3 of my life in canada, and that place has near-full responsibility in defining who i am today, so i suppose this is just a subconscious effort to recognize the marriage of two cultures in my identity. so what to make of it all? i don't really think there will be and end to this struggle, as it is for so many others in hong kong and elsewhere. third-culture kids, or TCKs, are definitively undefinable in their identity. we can only attempt to sort out all the complex tangle of cables one by one, and in the process hope to have a slightly more clear understanding of who we are.
ok not reeeally the FINAL countdown... but we are definately teetering on the edge right now. in about 15 minutes, vancouver will face minnesota in the deciding game 7 after losing our 3-1 lead in series with the last two games. it all comes down to this. we were outscored the last 2 games 13-3. that's ridiculous!! i still have hope though. we are masters of the comeback. and we WILL conquer...
you know, many people have told me that canadians are the most adamant about how great our country is. well... that's because canada IS great... duh... i will spare you the moving prose i could expound on the greatness of canada, but you should all check THIS out... oh canada! :)
*i'm not white*
i often have to remind myself of this. strange as it may sound, i realized since coming to hong kong that i actually did subconsciously believe this for a long time. i mean, i look at myself in the mirror and i see a girl with olive skin and dark hair and eyes, but i didn't think that people saw that. in canada, i carried myself as if i was exactly the same as everyone else around me. but then i realized that wasn't how others saw me. they saw a chinese girl and probably thought all the stereotypes that go along with that. i'm not saying i was blind to prejudice, because i don't believe i really experienced that much of it. but i do think there is a slight difference in the way people think of you according to your skin (not necessarily in a disadvantaged way). this was something that became really apparent to me here in hk, and i had to consciously urge myeslf to reconnect with my asian roots, having denied them for so long.
this week, i realized how much further i still had to go in this re-transformation. i was sitting in a restaurant with derek, both enjoying our shanghainese noodles and choy faan. i noticed a chinese mother eating with her young daughter, who looks eurasian. and i thought, i wonder if my kids would look like that... that.. WHAT?? just to rule out i wasn't thinking i would be marrying a caucasian. i was thinking... THIS would be a representation of myself. that this was somehow still how i envision myself. that inner picture of myself is still not accurate, at least not physically. i had to kick myself back to reality and admit once again that i am, and will always be, purely chinese, no matter how i feel. i suppose at this stage, i also cannot deny that i have spent 2/3 of my life in canada, and that place has near-full responsibility in defining who i am today, so i suppose this is just a subconscious effort to recognize the marriage of two cultures in my identity. so what to make of it all? i don't really think there will be and end to this struggle, as it is for so many others in hong kong and elsewhere. third-culture kids, or TCKs, are definitively undefinable in their identity. we can only attempt to sort out all the complex tangle of cables one by one, and in the process hope to have a slightly more clear understanding of who we are.
posted by jana* at 10:25 AM
