patty hou is my biggest role model.

i have been vaguely ashamed of my chinese americanness for most of my life. i was not white enough to have the perfect blonde-haired, blue-eyed look that appeared on all the covers of the magazines i read and that all the boys described as their ideals, and at the same time, i was not asian enough to reject it completely in favor of completing my sentences in '-la' or '-wa' and write my statuses and emails in chinese. what, really, was being asian american? we were expected to be some sort of hybridization of the two cultures, western and eastern, but as to what exactly that meant, nobody knows. we wear ralph lauren polos and abercrombie henley tees, play lacrosse and have a white boyfriend: we're rejecting our asian heritage. we watch asian dramas and practice our mandarin slang and dangle obnoxious cell phone charms from our mobiles: we're fake. there is no perfect combination of two cultures that are in essence so different, especially when the asian minority is so polarized and self segregating in dominant american society, and conversely when people of our own skin color see us as foreign and on par with the White Man.

when i speak chinese, i have a slight americanized accent; when i'm in china and i go out with my family or my friends, i'm pointed out as being the american. shopkeepers don't speak to me if they can because they don't think i can understand them. family friends who meet me for the first time use simpler words, shorten their sentences and speak slower like i'm a child. in america, none of the teachers could pronounce my legal name during role call. the food i brought to lunch was weird and smelled funny, we didn't have traditional holidays at home, and i was sorted into esl because of how i looked even though my english pronunciation and grammar was perfect starting from kindergarten.

you live through that, and tell me how easy it is to feel comfortable in your own skin. through trial and error, i've come to the conclusion that i currently identify more with being white, but i am almost desperately on the path to discovering and wanting to be more "asian". i have never been so sure of my dream of wanting to live in asia, and to work in taiwan doing something native chinese and taiwanese haven't trusted me to do all my life: speak. my job will be to talk to people in mandarin, yes, in my slightly accented, slightly white-man sounding, mandarin. as somebody who has always been a dreamer, i have been overly confident with this plan for most of my college career, rattling it off to anybody who wants to know what i am planning to do with my life. but as graduation draws nearer, the gravity of the situation and how much left i actually have to learn means i am essentially panicking inside while trying not to show it. because, HOW THE FUCK AM I, i who may look chinese but personality-wise am at least fifty percent something else, GOING TO GET ANYWHERE NEAR THIS DREAM?

(because patty hou did it first.) southern california girl, usc-attending, taiwanese american patty hou came from america, started out as an anchor on the english channel, and now is so successful she has her own show (in mandarin) on azioTV as well as cohosts several other programs in taiwan. in every single article that mentions patty, the words that precede her name include titles like "american" and "whitewashed" and instead of rejecting it, she has decided to not give a flying fuck and embrace her double culture for all it's worth. she has the same exact american tinge to her voice when she speaks in mandarin, still slips up and speaks in english sometimes when she can't think of a word, and every mandarin sentence out of her mouth is simple, conversational, mandarin i already know and understand.

some critics say she is not a "real taiwanese" because of patty's perhaps deliberate efforts to stay partially american, but they're not the ones with perfect english who can utilize their bilingual abilities to interview international superstars like johnny depp, and antonio banderas, and scarlett johanssen, without having to call an interpreter and make the process stilted and awkward. they don't have another set of skills built in already where so many others struggle to get the basics down. they aren't able to understand and connect with both cultures and in the process understand so many other people and settings and situations that the average american - or taiwanese - would not.

patty hou attended usc, started out at the english-speaking channel in taiwan, and now is one of taiwan's most famous and successful hostesses and video-journalists. the journey she took to get to where she is, and the one i want, is uncannily alike, and she has become an inspiration and a motivation for me to know that as somebody who is neither really chinese nor american, i can still go and be where i want to be. i don't have to pretend to be ten thousand percent authentic asian to do so, nor do i have to be okay with asian people assuming that, because of the difference in how i dress or where i'm from or the slight lilt in my voice, that i am only american and merely observing their culture from the outside.

it's taken me almost twenty-two years to figure it out, but, look:

1. i'm both chinese and american.
2. i can embody either culture to the extent of how i want.
3. i can do this without feeling like i have to fit perfectly into a mold that society expects of me.
4. whatever i end up doing, wherever i end up and however i identify myself, you do not get to call me fake.

it's time to start embracing who i am, all sides of who i am, and love the incredible way i have experienced this world.

{ thanks, patty. :) }

mood_ thoughtful
music_ what ever happened? - the strokes
crave_ chipotle :d

Labels: contemplation, figuring things out, good things, just me and i, life, public declarations