Taiwan - Beijing - Shanghai - Santiago - Phoenix - Philadelphia - Paris - Barcelona - San Francisco - New York
I think one of the novelties of being in a foreign country is that I feel twice removed from my Chinese heritage. It is very a surreal and disorienting "out of body" "out of character" "out of comfort" state. It puts into perspective for me what it means to be Chinese. What it means to be the child of immigrant parents. What it means to be the child of Taiwanese-born Chinese parents. What it means to be American-born Chinese. What it means to be an American in a foreign country. A Chinese-American in a foreign country. A tri-lingual Chinese-American in a foreign country. And it makes me wonder how much or how little the people in that place understand this layered identity. How do they process me? All the nuances, the politics, the prejudices, the social constructs, my multi-cultural values, the pieces of my heritage that I choose to wear and the other pieces I've chosen to shed-- They can't they possibly understand any of that, but what do they see instead?
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