Finding our Self in our Family

From the seasoning on the shelf in the kitchen to having the Chinese bakery 包s as an after school snack on the bus, "包" truly captured the complicated experience of growing up as an Asian kid beautifully. When I heard about this Pixar short film, I was so excited for this particular cultural struggle of being an Asian kid in a Western society to be recognized, written as a story, crafted and shared in the cutest way possible. Besides Mulan and Kung Fu Panda, there hasn't been an animated film that tells a Chinese cultural story on the Western cinema screen, much less one I could relate to on a very personal level. I felt proud that our story could be shared on the big screen, and hopefully people from other backgrounds can understand our internal conflicts. 

I was born and raised in Hong Kong where I had a stay-at-home mom who devoted all her time and energy to raising my brother and I. Obviously there's a shiny side to that, but with the heavy focus on us, it was easy to feel overprotected without much room for error. There's no doubt I grew up very sheltered: no video games, no PG-13 movies, no Harry Potter, no sleepovers. Mom made sure we brought home good grades, had after school lessons every day, went to church and were "good kids". Without giving too much credit to ourselves, I'd say we gave our parents a pretty easy time - never slammed a door in their face, shouted back or intentionally disobeyed (didn't we mom and dad??) Trivial stuff aside, my parents tried to carve the best path for me to have a happy and successful life and I owe any form of "success" achieved to them. When it came to going to college, they took a big risk in letting me out to explore NYC, a million miles away from my safe bubble in Hong Kong. On one hand they want me to go explore the world, be independent and grow on my own, but at the end of the day still hope that I'll come home for dinner. 

Back home we're taught to always keep your family in mind, to fulfil your responsibilities as a (grand) daughter/sister, to respect tradition and always maintain a strong unit as a family. Through these 4 years, I've struggled with finding the balance of adopting the Western thought of prioritizing self and one's own happiness, and integrating it with my deeply rooted familial mentality. Western self-help books are filled with phrases like "Find yourself", "Listen to your heart", "Love yourself before others", "Follow your passion". Though I don't necessarily disagree with this advice, it doesn't sit well with me when I know I should also consider how my family will be affected from my decisions. Listening to my heart could mean being in a relationship with someone who may one day cause me to sacrifice proximity to my family; finding myself could mean spending more time away from my ageing grandparents who I used to see at least twice a week. 

Thankfully my parents and grandparents are much more familiar to the Western thinking than most Chinese households. They've lived abroad and know what's out there, what's drawing me away from Hong Kong. So I'm not saying they're trying to deprive me of happiness and forcing me to come home (though I would be lying if I said I didn't feel a little guilt tripped into saying Hong Kong will be my eventual end game). I'm just airing out the internal conflict I have when someone asks me "Do you want to stay in NY or go home?" It's the maternal bone in me and my tendency to want to please them that understands their resistance for us to stay abroad, and this attitude of “just wanting to make things easier for everyone" works against my newfound sense of independence, freedom and diverse culture that I've learned to appreciate. 

As I'm in this weird nomad stage of my life when I only know what I'll be doing 6 months at a time, I question who to be loyal to, how much of my life is mine and how much is theirs? They gave me this life and everything I have, but to what extent can sacrifice be justified by culture? I simply don’t want to look back one day and regret the decisions I made because I was too scared to take risks or stand up for myself.

Don't think I'll figure that out anytime soon, so in the meantime I'll just live each day to its fullest and savour the time I have as a young girl finding her dream in the most magical city of all.