Identity Crisis.

Some late night, post-shower, lying in bed blogging.

What is identity? The typical definition is that idenitity is what makes us, us. It's our values, priorities, and the effect the environment has had on us.

The sort of identity that I'm specifically talking about is race. I have a feeling that a lot of people who have immigrated from another country can associate with this pretty well, particularly those who have been here for a while.

A bit of background. I first came to NZ when I was a month old. My parents had booked the flight ticket before I was born haha. As I grew up, I spoke Chinese at home, English at school. Until year 4 I was the only Asian kid at my school, and only met Taiwanese classmates in Year 7. I've been back to Taiwan four times, during which I was put in a completely foreign environment full of noises, dialects and smells so alien to me.

Since I spent all of my primary school life with Pakeha, and never knew any different, naturally I became like one of them - running around without shoes on, preferentially speaking English, rather extrovert.

Now by the time I got to college, there were Asians. So many of them. I was surprised and pretty happy about it - I could actually speak to people in Chinese at school! But for some reason that always had an awkward element that I couldn't shake off. I always felt disjointed from them, like I was one of the earlier leaves to fall off in autumn, while the rest will still attached. And yet with my upbringing and mere physical appearance, it's not like I completely fitted in with the white people either.

third form

It's not all bad though. Because of this weird mashup of cultures, I have a different perspective on things, and I've made so many friends from different places. As one Disney girl would say, I have had "the best of both worlds." (did I really just make a reference to Hannah Montana?! T.T) Not to mention that if there's someone in my class who can speak Chinese, I can just talk to them in Chinese and no one else will understand =D. In a few of my friendships with Taiwanese kids that have carried through my high school life, we developed a sort of mash-up language. In a single sentence we would switch between Chinese and English a minimum of 4 times.

As written in my pervious post, last night was the Dragon Boat Festival. This year I've really shrugged off the Taiwanese part of my identity. Even with those friends that I spoke "Chinglish" to, we now mostly just talk in English. I often feel too self conscious to order food in Chinese at restaurants/bubble tea, because I'm so sure that I'll mess up.

The Dragon Boat Festival made me realize how much I've lost touch with my Asian culture, and that's a pretty scary thing. It seems to be pretty impossible to keep both going though. You could describe it like being in transit, in an inbetween.