After five years of Chinese immersion school and ten years of weekend Mandarin school, I could reasonably have considered learning a new language in college. However, I surprised myself in choosing to continue learning Chinese, even majoring in it, dedicating another four years to learning more about the language and different areas in the discipline. This decision gave me the experience to meet people and expand my worldview to become more accepting of myself and to spark an interest in possible career routes post-graduation.

I grew up in San Francisco, a city with a predominant Chinese-American population, in an immigrant household. The community I grew up in was also mostly Chinese, from schooling to places I frequented with my family. My mother has emphasized the importance of preserving Chinese culture and language by sending me to bilingual schools and transferring me to a Chinese immersion school where I was able to learn Cantonese and Mandarin. In those formative years, I was lucky enough to have those opportunities to learn more about part of my Chinese-Vietnamese American identity. Although I made sure to do well in my studies at school, a part of me also rejected my identity and culture. I was only learning the Chinese language and Chinese culture for the sake of doing well in school and not entirely for myself.

One might think that being part of the majority of the demographic in classes or in school would allow me to be comfortable with that identity. But, because San Francisco is still in the U.S., Chinese culture is still considered weird to the kids. While we all generally loved the cuisine and the fun activities during traditional holidays, we were also striving to seem “American”. Even in an immersion school, there was a clear divide between the students in the class. The kids who adopted more “American” behavior and tastes were considered “cool”, others who seemed more in-touch or embracive of their Chinese culture were looked down upon. Seeing the dynamics already in place ever since elementary school, has shaped how I viewed myself and my distance from Chinese culture.

I wanted to fit in with my peers, so I have let the stigma of being “too Chinese” affect how much I wanted to associate myself with it. There were parts I did not mind much like food or holidays, but to the public, I just wanted to seem “American”. To prevent myself from ever possibly being “too Chinese”, I would not engage in any Chinese media, TV shows, or movies, purposefully in my own accord. That was my fool-proof way to just be disengaged and focus on American or Western media.

There started to be a breakdown of that mindset and barrier as I grew older. Some of my friends in high school started being more interested in Chinese shows and some pop songs. It did not seem as strange to outwardly like these media. But, I was still not inclined to watch or broadcast any interest in it even by the end of high school. The internal struggle of embracing something that once would cause ostracization at school was still strong. Although once I arrived at St. Olaf, that stigma I attached to being interested in Chinese culture began to loosen.

My journey in the Chinese and Asian Studies department of St. Olaf started in Chinese 301. There, I saw classmates that chose to be there and major in Chinese, and fellow first-year students that were familiar with Chinese popular culture. I started to meet more people and learn that they were very much interested in learning about Chinese culture and the language. It was not something to be ashamed of. People were proud and very enthusiastic about pursuing their studies in Chinese.

I was pleasantly surprised by that finding but did not think to continue in the Asian Studies department. However, spurred on by the need to balance my STEM classes, I started to take more Asian Studies classes. Each one carried an interesting topic that allowed me to learn more about other aspects of learning language and other disciplines in Asian Studies. Subsequently, these classes allowed me to explore my interests and my identity. Many class choices came from me being curious. For example, one question that has always bothered me, why was I not improving my Chinese level?  This led to me taking Second Language Acquisition in Asian Context. The active deprivation of consuming Chinese media for pleasure was contributing to my lack of input. And without supplementary materials outside of class, there was less exposure to the language; Meaning, I was also not outputting enough, I was not speaking or producing works to practice. The same year, I was enrolled in Asian Conversations. During the trip to China, I found myself being frustrated...with myself. Although I was able to communicate with people there in a basic level, I was not fluent enough to know the certain nuances of some phrases like 对不起 and 不好意思. Both translate to “Sorry” in English, but the former is reserved for a bit more formal apologies; the latter is the casual, in-passing saying. I still remember the startled look when I used 对不起 to apologize to an elderly man for accidentally bumping into him. If my clothing choice didn’t suggest I was not from Shanghai, my word choice did.

After the Asian Conversations program, I was reinvigorated to improve my Chinese proficiency and increase my knowledge of different cultures around Asia. Through the classes, I was able to learn about different disciplines within Asian Studies—linguistics, history, literature, etc. It was fun to see connections between them. The exposure to the different disciplines gave me plenty of opportunities to ponder about different issues, like how some events can be interpreted differently through different lenses: historical vs artistic, or how narratives can be rewritten since older ones were written by the influential victors. It has allowed me to discover a new side to how Chinese or Asian Studies could be intriguing, giving less room for the doubts I had about wanting to distance myself from a part of my culture.

Studying in the Chinese and Asian Studies department for the past four years has given me the friends, professors, and knowledge to help me grow from the insecure person I was. My love for learning about different subject areas in Asian Studies and Chinese has made me more interested and willing to be comfortable with my identity. I now want to reinforce this important facet of my history with a desire to engage in Chinese culture. I know that I will have the skills to connect with people in the future with whatever career I decide to pursue. The interdisciplinary studies have taught me to be more empathetic and open-minded to ideas. Also, it has motivated me to be more active in maintaining, if not, improving my Chinese language skills.  I am happy I chose this path and decided to continue in Chinese studies. This unexpected major choice gave me support from people and subject material that inspired and compelled me to revise my identity in a more positive and accepting way.