Talking after the event with a few peers of mine, not everyone immediately understood what the title implied. A white classmate almost took it offensively before she heard him speak. However, me, as well as other Asian-American classmates, knew precisely what the topic was probably going to touch on, and cultural identity definitely had to do with it.
While cultural identity was a large topic inside this guy's book, the overall theme was love - as depicted by the title. He talked about how a lot of (not all) Asian parents don't really display love or affection in ways that the Western world does, and how all these traumatic events in his life were influenced by that and how he has become the person he is today. I must admit, he has gone through some pretty traumatic stuff... his book is definitely rated somewhere around a PG-13. He has gone through much physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual molestation, and gang life. He talked about one moment where for 30 years from his childhood, him and his father never really said "I love you" to each other. Once they did, after the author was basically nearing his 40s, it was a very uncontrollable feeling and he broke down in front of an audience of people listening to him speak about his book. That made me cry, haha - but that's not what I'm here to blog about.
The one thing this author said that probably stuck with me the most was "Maybe I'm all three people". He asked us if we felt like we were living double lives, because this author acts differently around his biological family, around his bi-racial American family, and at work (yes, I'm aware that's actually three roles). He said something around people wondering why he doesn't just find himself, and his response went along the lines of well maybe I'm all three of them! I guess I've been dealing with this and thinking about this for a long time - about how I'm too American to be Asian or to Asian to be American, so I don't exactly fit in anywhere. And while I have seemed to grow to hate my own culture because of various reasons such as this author's life demonstrates, for some reason I don't seem to hate it as much anymore. I mean, I still loathe and despise my Asian culture exceedingly, since in general it's such a closed-minded and inexpressive culture.
Now going off on a tangent again - I remember since my sister and I basically were born into a super American community in suburban Ohio, we obviously acted like the children there. At our daycare, we would make cards and always tell our parents "I love you" and such. We would give our all trying to show affection, because we would think they would have the same reaction as our white kids' parents. However, our parents merely let our cards sit on tables or throw them away, or let the "I love yous" hang in the air. On top of that, it was kind of difficult to say "I love you" after being beat up by your own parents. So once we moved to California, there was never any more signs of affection from either parent or child.
My mother finally realized how uncivilized, unethical, and immoral it was to use physical punishment on her own children after she began attending church. My father, on the other hand, still used violence to deal with things. But nevertheless, even with minor changes while coming to California, this household is still rather cold. My mother definitely does have a mother's love, which is shown through her simple actions of waking early to cook or tending after our illnesses - but that's all she displays, which I'm okay with. I don't even see my father a lot so I don't really understand how he displays a father's love. But either way, 'love' is a very intangible and inaccessible word for me to understand and use.
The only times I'm comfortable with using the word "love" are times like "I love photography", "I love donuts", or "I would love to get a snack with you" or something like that. For all my years, I have never actually said or written to anyone - "I love you". I'll use "Love, Tiffany" at the end of a letter. Expressing love for me is like ... well, remember when we were little kids and would just fuss around with other little kids and the other kid got hurt and we would have to say sorry so we would but it would feel really awkward? Yeah, it feels like that. The undeniable feeling of guilt or of love is definitely there, but it's just feels very strange to do so. It's almost like a foreign language, like you have to learn how to do it, since I was never "taught" it when I was young, nor did I see it anywhere in my own family. I also think if I ever get a boyfriend or something, it would be really weird to say "I love you" to him. For some reason, I'm comfortable with saying "I love my friends" or if I ever, "I love my boyfriend", but I just can't actually verbally get it across when I'm actually in front of someone that I say I do love.
And I don't know if I like or dislike this cultural aspect of mine. I mean, I definitely find it very interesting in France where the French are extremely affectionate, and I don't mind it, even if I were to take part in it. But here? Even though I am in America and the typical family is very loving, I am only a first generation Asian-American, so expressing affection is a very difficult thing for me to grasp. At times I do wish I were more expressive of my feelings, not just in affection - like how I used to be when I was younger. I don't know what suddenly triggered my introverted personality to take over, but it did. I actually am very satisfied with the way I am now, but at times I wish I could be better. Then again, once you have the world, you'll still continue to desire more.
Speaking of love, Valentine's Day is coming up. While people will be celebrating with their significant other or becoming even more conscious that they're single, I will be celebrating life - because valentine's day was the day exactly a year ago where I began to have the mentality of someone who knew they were going to die. Just thinking about it again at this time of year makes me really depressed - about all the things I never said to anyone that I wanted to do, about how I realized how extremely young the age of 17 actually is, and how I was constantly crying my eyes out, yet I felt ready to die. I can't even believe it myself. I actually felt ready to die! I felt that God has given me a very nice life, with the best friends I could ask for while nearing my death, and that I could accept, hopefully, seeing God in Heaven soon. It's funny, though, that as I began to realize that I was still given the chance to live, my mind began to revert back to a 17 year old teenager again. While I, inevitably, think like an 18 year old, some of my thoughts that I had during that week in February are still retained in my head. I am a lot more open-minded now and I like being around people more than I used to be.
I'll talk more as that day nears, but I will just end this post with : God doesn't cause everything, but He has His reasons in anything!
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