Am I “Othering” Myself?

Something I’ve been thinking about as I’m leaning into my Chineseness is: “am I ‘othering' myself?”

Ok. Let me explain. I am, of course, ethnically Chinese but born and raised in Canada. Raised pretty Western. I didn’t grow up traditionally Chinese with a tiger mom or anything, that wasn’t how my family chose to raise me. They didn’t force me to take piano lessons my whole life or continue Chinese school. I did French immersion all throughout elementary and high school, I watched Disney Channel shows (Hannah Montana was the fave), I listened to Katy Perry. You know, typical Western/Canada and America stuff. But I’ve always labelled myself Chinese. And now especially Chinese-Canadian. Because also, let’s be real, if you look at me, my face, I am clearly Asian. There is no way around that. But I'm also Canadian.

In recent years I have been jokingly saying that I am “aggressively Asian”. It is something that’s always in my head. It’s part of me. How can it not be? Just like how being Canadian is part of me. But then, what does being "Canadian" even mean? Mostly being "Canadian" comes out the most when we compare ourselves to Americans. We don’t really have a specifically patriotic Canadian identity, or at least for me, being from BC, I don’t have a super distinct Canadian identity in the same way that people from Newfoundland or Quebec typically do (broad generalization). So anyway, in recent years I have embraced more specifically Asian stuff. People, books, theatre, research. It has all centred around that.

Throughout high school, I drew a very distinct definition between “China Chinese” and “Canadian born Chinese". The differences between new immigrants and you know, Canadian born Chinese. Between those two groups alone, there seemed to be a lot of cultural differences. Like me being born and raised in Canada with pretty Westernized/Canadian parents, I didn’t grow up speaking any kind of Chinese dialect. No Cantonese, no Mandarin. I didn’t grow up watching any Chinese shows or anything like that. Some values, attitudes, upbringings, and all that stuff are a little different too. And just in terms of style, it was apparent. There was a difference between the two.

Now, for me this summer, I am searching for that Chineseness from China and Taiwan instead of just looking at Chinese-Americans and Chinese-Canadians. I'm embracing all of it. Mandarin language dramas, Mandarin language music, I’m learning Mandarin as best I can through a few phone apps. But ultimately, if/when I go to Asia (whenever that happens to be), I definitely won’t fit in there. I went to China when I was maybe around 10 years old and spoke no Mandarin, my mom had to do all the communicating and I was just there for the ride, and they could tell we were Western. I’m still Western born and raised. I’m still Canadian. But in this Euro-centric, white dominated society, I feel like I have just been pushing my Asianness and always being like: “I’m Asian! I’m Chinese!”

In part because I love it, and the older I’m getting the more I appreciate it and how it has shaped me, like growing up doing Chinese dance, eating Chinese food, celebrating Chinese New Year and Mid Autumn Festival (a little, just eating mooncakes). So then, I assert my Asianness. I feel like it has defined a lot of who I am in the past couple years. But of course, I'm also still discovering what it means. (Hence the blog.)

Going back to that question of “am I othering myself?”: sometimes I think yes, sometimes I think no. It’s kind of like the elephant in the room. We all know it's there so why try to ignore it or run away from it. Not that every room I walk into I scream “HEY! I’M ASIAN!” But you know. I can’t try to be something else. I don’t want to try and be something else. So I embrace it and it’s so much a part of who I am. It’s part of my culture. If I’m already being othered by people mixing me up with figure skater Michelle Kwan then what’s the difference? I’m already being othered. Asians are already seen as “perpetual foreigners” so there’s that too.

COVID time has been such a moment to connect with other Asians and to see all these Asian communities come together. A lot of it has felt like there isn’t anyone, there isn’t a greater community to be a part of, but there totally is. I guess, similarly, one of the first communities I found growing up was the YouTube scene with NigaHiga and Wong Fu Productions. That was huge and still is. So… that. That has been a big influence on me.

But I guess I’ve just been wondering if I’m othering myself. Making myself “different”? Taking myself out of groups and putting myself in another minority group? But that’s also the nature of humans and life. We want to be unique, we want to be different. We don’t just want to be the same as everyone else, with the same personalities and interests. That would be boring. And within these minority groups, there is a different sense of community and learning and sharing. Even just talking to other POC in similar situations to myself, there is a sense of shared community or shared experience or even just empathy and understanding. It’s different. It’s these smaller bubbles within these huge bubbles. They’re special and valuable. So I guess my point is yeah, I am “other”, but this is all framing it in a racial perspective where whiteness dominates. That’s one perspective. I’m “other” by being a musical theatre major, I’m “other” by being a huge nerd who loves research on the regular. Everyone is individual and one of the things I’m thinking about and unpacking for myself is my racial and cultural identity, and right now, it’s really exciting and fun and new for me. So here we are. On my blog. With some ramble posts and some things that are actually super informative. So thanks for reading.