Pet <3
As for being 'connected' with chineseness, for lack of better word, i am very much still feel connected to my asianness, because i wasn't born in australia. i suffer terribly at wanting to 'pass' or in a way, to be treated like a white person, for many, many, many years. there was a period of time that i actively made it a point of pride if my relatives back in asia would chide me for being 'so white'. i think my brain was a bit of a mess. (maybe still is a hot mess even now? :thinking emoji:)
Anyway, i grew up (somehow) and now I am coming around and I feel a great deal of shame and regret for that period of time. And I realize I can never wash off the Asian parts in me .... OFF me. It is a part of me and it is a part that I am actually have always been proud of, despite the mindfuckery that I was doing to myself.
I still consume and watch and read a lot of media contents produced in Asia, since I grew up on it. I remember fondly watching the series of the Condor Heroes with my dad and I still gush about it whenever I recollect its details in my mind. I still go home at least once a year, but very likely twice within a 12 month period, and still live and breathe the cultural atmospheres of life in asia. So, one leg in each, so to speak.
I do feel the frustration of being an asian person in a predominantly white people's country. For example, my ex-boss, a white australian dude, thought it was a great idea for him to celebrate his 15th wedding anniversary in the traditional chinese garb (the
changshan) and he shared the photos with me because he thought he was being a cool dude. Well, he was my boss so I didnt flip out but I was really irked internally. I felt that it was kinda insensitive and that he was making me feel as if he could partake on my culture and ornamentalize our icons. ........(im still mad now if i think about this XD;) but then I realize he probably have no idea of what he was doing that he was trying to show me that he wanted to relate to me and this was his way to show that he was appreciative of my culture.
WHICH DOESNT MAKE IT OKAY
but, he was also a good person (mostly) and it was a very conflicting experience for me. I wasn't able to engage him in a dialog about it during my time with that company because professionalizm, but later i did reach out and told him that how he was making me feel. He was apologetic, thankfully.
Anyway, I think I'm rambling now :3 but that's a slice of what my experience was as a first generation Asian Australian immigrant, and thank you to anyone who bothers to read and parse through it.
I will also try to be more active here. To be honest and i guess this is stupid of me, i have been feeling a bit left out since a lot of your experiences are NA centric so I had drifted away. That was bad of me, and I shouldn't have done that. So I'll be around more... but feel free to poke my face if I do wander off again. Just @ me or sommit.
Also, I can't promise that I'd be able to deliver 100% everything of what you all might be after, since people relations across sections and factions and walks of life will remain to be a very complex thing to wade through, but I do promise that I will listen and I will try to carry your voices through, up the ladder of moderation channels. I will fight for my asian bros/sis, but I will also fight for the success of ResetEra as a platform, so uh.... i hope i wont get to be torn apart in the process :D