From Shame to Pride

May 18, 2023

From Shame to Pride

(This blog took me longer to write because it is quite personal and difficult for me to process. Amazingly, the topic for this blog came to me at a fitting time, during AAPI Heritage month. Thanks for reading 😁)

About ten years ago, when I was still in college, my dad visited me in Chapel Hill, traveling all the way from China. I take him out to eat at a Japanese restaurant, Kanki, just down the road from my apartment.

Sitting at the sushi bar, I start studying the menu and translating it for my dad, so we can agree on what to order. To my surprise, instead of studying the menu with me, my dad shakes his head and says (in Chinese), “No need! Let’s just get the waitress to come and we will let them know what we want!”

A bit confused and caught off guard, I ask, “How do you know what you want… if you don’t study the menu?”

“Just tell them the type of fish and items you want!” Before hearing me out any more, he proceeds to wave his arm loudly, making eye contact with the waitress to get her attention.

My heart drops, and I brace myself for the confusion that is about to come from our waitress who is now heading over to our table. When she gets to us, she inquires politely, “Hi, what can I get you?”

Stumbling to find his English words, he replies, “4… Salmon, 2 handrolls, fish下巴 (what my family likes to call fish collar)…”. The waitress begins furrowing her brow, looking at my dad, then at me, then back at him. I quickly try to hush him, saying, “that’s not how you order, you have to look at the menu and order from their menu.” He shouts, “no, no, no, that’s not how it’s supposed to be.”

Suddenly it feels like all eyes have turned toward us in the restaurant. I want to bury my face under the table. I give the waitress a look asking her to come back later, and to my relief she understands me.

After she leaves, my dad looks at me, dumbfounded, “why did you send her away? I wasn’t done ordering.”

“Ba Ba (Dad), that’s not how you do it,” flustered and impatient, I say, “you have to look at the menu! You’re being really loud…”

Noticing I was getting upset, with an embarrassed chuckle, he says, half-jokingly, “Yeah, you’re all grown now, you know more than me. You’re ashamed of your old man now that you’re grown.”

I attempt to comfort him while still defending my own actions, “No, Ba Ba, that’s just not how you order at this restaurant. You have to look at the menu and order from there.” He brushes it off and we move on quickly from the conversation.

I didn’t think more of it at the time, but this memory resurfaced recently after going to another restaurant with him. I wondered, did he really think I was ashamed of him back then?

And, what’s more, was I ashamed of him?

Fast forward to today. My uncle treated me, my parents, and Jeff to a Michelin guide Italian restaurant in Taipei. It was quite a fancy restaurant 👀 Their dinner is intended to be enjoyed as a three to five course meal, each dish coming in small and delicate portions. Without this knowledge, my parents ordered one dish each, thinking it would be an entrée sized meal, especially given that the price was already high. I wish I could show you their faces when their food came… “What?!” they exclaimed, “這連塞牙縫都不夠！” (Meaning: this is not even enough for the spaces between your teeth!)

Their astonished expressions and comments were comical to me, but at the same time a bit heart-wrenching.

Jeff has taken me to quite a few nice restaurants such as these by now, but my parents are so clueless when it comes to high-end European restaurants. And it’s not that they had no money to come to such a restaurant, but every penny they had, they saved up and gave to me and my sister so that we could have what they couldn’t. They were too busy earning a living, and too preoccupied with their children’s wellbeing to enjoy their own lives.

My parents, like many of their generation, lived in extreme poverty. Their parents worked 12 hours a day, sometimes more, and even still there were many days when some of the children (in a family of ten) didn't have a bite to eat.. Last week I asked my dad and his brother how they were able to start a business and get to where they are today. They answered, “we just had to keep going and try different things, we had nothing to lose.” We had nothing to lose. Having come from a place with nothing to lose, my dad took on a sense of great responsibility to provide the best for his own family, for us, so we could have a better life than he did as a kid.

10 years ago, I was ashamed that my dad was so ignorant when it came to western culture. It is only now that I am beginning to realize that I am the ignorant one, getting caught up in glorifying white culture, forgetting and denying my own roots and culture.

Growing up, my dad always told me, “Don’t forget you’re Chinese.” But I ignored him every time, thinking, “you have no idea what it’s like to be ‘Chinese’ here." Facing endless discrimination and bullying, I blamed my Chinese-ness for my suffering in high school in a small town in the south. Denying this part of me was my survival mechanism.

To be “normal” and to not stand out means to eat quietly with my mouth closed, it means to eat with fork and knife instead of chopsticks, it means to eat sandwiches and pizza (instead of rice, chive and shrimp dumplings, fish, pickled radish, stir-fried pork) for school lunch. I pinched my nose often so it wouldn’t look so flat. I lied about being half white, and sometimes about being Jackie Chan’s niece just out of spite. The funniest part is how many people actually believed me 😂🙄.

It’s not that I consciously believed the white American way was superior, but growing up in western culture, I was subconsciously taught and trained the “right” way to eat, talk, and think. I am finally starting to see more and more clearly that my self-hatred, as well as so much stigma around certain cultures is a result of our western society setting white culture as the “norm”. With this "norm", any other behaviors or cultures are often seen as uneducated and uncivilized. This was the lie I had bought into and that is still deeply ingrained in me.

Even in Taiwan it follows me. The reality is that even in Taiwan, and many Asian countries, people often see whiteness as something to idolize, to achieve. If you know how to dine in Italian restaurants, if you’ve been to Europe or the U.S., if you have prominent facial features like westerners, you are considered more “high class”, more “in” and more liked.

10 years later, something clicked in me at this “fancy” Italian restaurant.

Maybe it’s having done some soul-searching after becoming a Christian, maybe it’s the racial tensions which surfaced more recently that made me reflect on the concept of whiteness, maybe it’s being more secure and grounded in my identity in God which allows me to see the world more clearly. God is beginning to open my eyes to see the beauty in all cultures.

Instead of being ashamed of my dad at this restaurant (like I was at Kanki), I am filled with pride and thanksgiving. For the first time, I find myself joyfully and proudly embracing my heritage, embracing my people who love me deeply and sacrificed for me, feeling honored to be a descendent of my ancestors who paved the way for me and showed such resilience despite their cruel and ruthless world. It is only for their and my parents’ countless and quiet sacrifices that I can be who I am today.

I am proud of their love and their hearts for their ancestors despite their hardships. I am proud of their rootedness in family and their heritage. In a way, I am proud of their unknowing of western culture. I am proud of their unashamed complaint at how much food they received at this restaurant. I am proud of their preference for a cheap large bowl of 牛肉麵 over western food. I am proud of who they are and proud to be their daughter. I love them fully and proudly.

I am really grateful for this opportunity to be here in Taiwan, to reflect on my heritage, my roots, and to love and to build meaningful relationships with my family whom I’ve had to live apart from much of my life. And lastly, to learn to accept every part of me, including the social and cultural locations God has placed me in. I know that on this earth, no culture is perfect. There are harmful systems and practices in them all. But, at least now I can embrace what is good and discern what is not out of a desire for truth and not out of shame, out of faith and not fear or insecurity, in love rather than hate.

Here are some moments I've been able to cherish as a family :)

Celebrating my dad's birthday and treating them to a dim sum restaurant: