I Am Bi-Cultural

7 CommentsFriday • May 6, 2011 • by Imei

Wanna know a secret?

Yes, I am. I am bi, as in bi-cultural.

Here’s how I came out. When I was a kid, I remember feeling disappointed that I would never be a blond, blue-eyed cheerleader. If you think this sounds like a strange thing to pine over, consider the thoughts of a tender twelve-year-old, realizing the blond girl with the drinking problem, who would later sleep with most of the high school football team, would be selected for the best social activities over the geeky Asian girl with the glasses, with a penchant for classical music and punk, and an interest in computers and electronic keyboarding.

I gazed into the mirror one day and said, “This is who I am.” And with something of a wistful sigh, I made a promise to myself not to lose my family’s cultural distinctives, though I had never really possessed the linguistic side of things. I wish I knew back then what I know now: that being bi-cultural (and in some way, tri-cultural with art) could be so fun and incredibly useful. Being bi-cultural truly makes the world your playground.

The woman pictured to the right is where it all started. My paternal grandmother lives in a small town in Taiwan. Of the many things she did in her active years, she was a practitioner of Oriental Medicine, a city council woman, a representative of women countering domestic violence, a board member of a bank, and a sprite sword dancer. If it wasn’t for her progressive nature, perhaps she would not have encouraged my father to come to America, where I would be later born in Seattle, WA. Because family life can be insular, It would take until I was about four years old when figured out that I was not only American, but Chinese too.

Signs you just might be Chinese:

Your parents speak a Chinese dialect, such as Mandarin, Cantonese, or Taiwanese
You eat things like Pigs Blood Soup (congealed) without questions
You drink hot water all the time, even when it’s warm outside
You learned to eat with chopsticks first
(but didn’t know they were called “chopsticks”)
You’re really good at karoke from being forced to sing all the time
You own at least one “chop” of your signature
You own a bunch of solid gold (soft gold) jewelry from your relatives
You ate rice soup instead of cold crunchy cereal with milk for breakfast
You pronounce “Android” as “N-droid”
You might queue for the train, but push and shove your way onto that train anyways

Signs you might also be American (and thus, bi-cultural):
You get teary when you hear the National Anthem being sung at ball games
You prefer to text in English, even if you can read characters
You never once thought of buying underwear or red bean popsicles at 7-11
You understand the strange national sensation associated with bacon
Your T-shirts are devoid of Chinglish (unless you collected Chinglish on purpose)
You are free from the strange fascination with fluffy eyelashes
If you are a man, you don’t carry a man purse in public
Your meals are typical no more than three types of food on the plate

All jokes aside, the best thing about being bi-cultural is the addition of another lens on life, art, and beauty. Like language, culture can be a lens that creates boundaries or frees you of them. Truly owning both cultures allows me to float between worlds, to accept things others may reject, and fuse aspects of each into new options. The third culture — that is, art — adds an additional texture through musical language, color, and movement. Without a single word being shared, we can all enjoy a performance of Chinese drums and feel its powerful beats in our belly.

I grew up with so much emphasis on purity and wholeness that I had no idea how wonderful fusion and hybrid could be. Over the next weeks, I’ll be pumping out blog posts about everything from dating online (follow up), Taiwan art, culture, language, and the effects of technology on urban life. You’ll hear about the Old Rainier Brewery Artwalk May 14, 2011, and how Seattle’s art community is being revitalized by a fusion of artists and collaborators. All I can say is this: it’s a whole new world.

P.S. Speaking Chinese again is both a delight and a challenge for me. Imagine what thinking in another language does to the way you see things. On a funny note, my English regressed by the end of my two week trip to Taiwan in April. More on how that shapes the way we look at art in a future blogpost.