As a child trying to deal with the feelings of disorientation that come from the input of multiple cultures and the social alienation that comes from living in a culture not her own, Emily Chu responded as anyone might: by separating herself from the source of her “Otherness” as much as possible.
“I pushed away a lot of my Chinese culture as a kid … I barely acknowledged it,” Chu says.
A Chinese-Malaysian kid living in Australia, she quit Chinese school (stopped learning to read and write Mandarin) and asked her parents to pack “white food” in her lunchbox.
“It hit a point [in early primary school] where I would come home from school with a full lunchbox still in my bag,” she says. “Being the only one eating Chinese food made me feel alien.”
The implication is clear: hungry is better than bullied.
“Eventually, my parents started packing Aussie lunches, like sandwiches and spaghetti,” Chu says.
Yet Chu says she did feel a part of Aussie culture growing up.
“I felt a part of it because I knew all those little things like the National Anthem and just like little mannerisms that local Aussies have.”
This knowledge was a byproduct of being surrounded by Australian peers and a result of her purposeful mission to “fit in with [her] Australian side.”
However, Chu says Australia’s multicultural atmosphere played a big part in her growing up feeling at home there.
Being the only one eating Chinese food made me feel alien.
“There’s a lot of Asians in Doncaster [a suburb of Melbourne]. East Asians and South Asians specifically,” she says. “It was really nice to not feel like the only one here. And going to school with a lot of kids from different religious and cultural backgrounds helped to diversify my worldview and made me feel not so alone in this country.”
OTHERING LANGUAGE
As the conversation turned to Chu’s many visits to Hong Kong and Malaysia growing up, she states: “My Chinese aunts and uncles would call me ‘ABC’ — Australian-born Chinese — and ‘banana’ — yellow on the outside, white on the inside.”
Her extended family referred to her with such othering language gives one the impression that she also felt like an outsider in her home countries.
The terms highlight that Chu was different no matter where she went. Despite this, many times, particularly during her “angsty teen years,” she wished she had grown up in Malaysia.
“It was so different there,” she says. “The people were so different there, but I just felt like I had a connection with them. It went beyond actions. I just felt a connection to the place.”
Had Chu entirely pushed away her ethnic cultures in an attempt to become fully Aussie, or had she longed for the intrinsic familiarity of Malaysia and Hong Kong? In the end, it was impossible to discern — at least by her body language during the interview — because no one emotion or viewpoint dominates Chu’s memory of her childhood. She felt “Othered” in both Australia and Malaysia.
At the same time, she felt a connection to both those places, too.
Chu wished she had grown up in Malaysia, but she considers her multiculturalism an asset to her diverse worldview. She feels like she belongs to Australia and Malaysia, and neither — entrenched in both cultures, yet utterly rootless.
“I think a lot of immigrant kids feel this as well,” she says.
TELLING HER STORY
In retrospect, Chu can see she isn’t alone in these experiences. In our modern world, where traveling across countries, continents and even hemispheres can be as simple as boarding a plane for hours, third culture experiences like Chu’s and the confusing mess of emotions accompanying them are all too familiar.
As with most things in life, Chu cannot relive her cross-cultural experience with all the wisdom she’s gained from doing it the way she did. What she can do is tell her story: share her experiences so that others can learn from them and live their own stories without facing the same regrets.
In light of this, when asked what she wishes she had done differently as she looks back on her childhood, Chu responds: “I wish I hadn’t cared what other people thought. I wish I had taken more of an interest in my parents’ cultures. I wish I hadn’t quit Chinese school.”
The young woman that Chu has become is undeniably a product of these experiences. She has changed even since this author last saw her over a year ago. She’s grown. One can see it in the way she looks and holds herself. One can see that she has matured. It suits her.
As a young teen, Chu was surrounded by Caucasian friends at school and by Caucasian social media influencers online. She learned makeup, fashion and hairstyles suited to people and faces that looked incredibly different from hers.
I wish I had taken more of an interest in my parents’ cultures. I wish I hadn’t quit Chinese school.
Since then, this version of Chu dresses and does herself in a way that suits her so well and looks incredibly comfortable in her skin.
“It was [so freeing],” she says, “learning makeup, clothing and colors that suited Asian faces and hair and skin color.”
ACCEPTING HER CULTURES
One senses that Chu’s newfound sense of liberation, of self, can also be attributed to her complete acceptance and embracement of her ethnic cultures.
“Being a multicultural kid, a Third Culture Kid, has affected and will affect every area of my life,” she says, adding that she now considers it an advantage and has helped her to open up her worldview and not have so much judgment or prejudice.
Chu says she now has a much fuller understanding of the world because of her upbringing.
“Studying media, like film, photography and cinematography last year, I discovered that a lot of the stories I’m interested in consuming and creating are the ones like mine: the ones of Asians, of immigrants and of Third Culture Kids,” she says. “And this year, switching into Ethics and Technology, I think a lot of my interests will be based around discussion of culture.”
Even as Chu mourns for who she could have been, she knows she still has the power to shape who she becomes. Her childhood experiences have become her inspiration, motivating decisions in all areas of her life.
Chu’s past attempts to deny her ethnic cultures, to deny a part of who she is, have given her an appreciation for them, for an identity she now embraces that might otherwise have been lost in the familiarity of never having known anything else.
