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Part 1: I Didn't Know I Had a Culture Until I Lost It
Part 2: On Immigration and Double Standards
Part 3: Because of an Idea
Part 4: Culture, Objectivity, God, and the Real Reason I Moved to China
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I always heard Americans say this about immigrants: "If you're in this country, you need to speak the language." And I agreed with it.
And then I prepared for my short-term mission trip to China. I tried to learn as many Chinese words as I could. I was quite worried about "what if someone talks to me and I can't understand them?" Because I believed "If you're in this country, you need to speak the language." I reassured myself that I wouldn't be traveling in China alone; I would always have a Chinese-speaking friend with me to explain to strangers that I didn't speak Chinese.
Because, I thought that would be something strangers needed explained. The idea of meeting someone who's "in the country" but can't "speak the language" just felt so unbelievable to me. Like it would be something astonishing and ridiculous to be walking along in China and meet a white person who can't understand Chinese.
And now that I've lived in China for 6 years, I've met A LOT of white people who live here but can't speak Chinese. A lot of white people who have a "*shrug* why bother?" attitude toward learning Chinese, who don't feel weird at all about telling people "I don't understand Chinese" and attempting to communicate with strangers in English instead.
And there have been so many times that some stranger talks to me in English. I used to get angry about people assuming I don't understand Chinese- I do! I've worked hard on this! But then I met all these clueless white people, and I understood why Chinese strangers often speak English to me. Because most white people in China actually can't speak Chinese. So it doesn't bother me any more if a cashier says "for here or take away?" Whatever, I'll answer in English. But if we're going to have a long complicated conversation then I'll let them know I can speak Chinese.
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When I was in college [which was in the US], sometimes there would be a group of international students talking to each other in their own language, and the American students would say "Why don't they speak English? They CAN speak English, so they should."
And then I moved to China, and I thought because I CAN speak Chinese, I should, with everyone, all the time. I remember very early on, I was meeting some American guy at a Starbucks in China, and when I called him on the phone to ask if he had arrived yet, I asked in Chinese. I didn't even check beforehand to see if he could understand Chinese or not- I just reasoned that he lives in China long-term so he should be able to speak Chinese. And even though we are both white American English speakers, I thought that since we are in China, I should talk to him in Chinese.
At Starbucks, he talked to the cashier in English to order his drink, and that confused me.
I was working as an English teacher, and I felt like of course at my job everyone should speak English, because this is an English school, but in public in China everyone should speak Chinese. I did not at all try to seek out other international people and make friends- I thought, that would be pointless. I would just be speaking English to them, and I didn't come all the way to the other side of the world so I could speak English. For the first couple years I lived in China, I purposely avoided places and events where I could meet a bunch of international people speaking English.
I thought that the "correct" way for me to live in China was to speak Chinese to everyone. Because, as all the Americans always said about immigrants in the US, "you're in this country, you should speak the language."
There was even a period of time when I was going to therapy, and my therapist could speak both English and Chinese, and I felt bad about the fact that I always talked to him in English. Immigrants aren't supposed to do that, I thought. It's only because I'm not good enough at Chinese that I'm stuck here talking to my doctor (privately! confidentially! no Chinese people are even hearing this!) in English. I don't know enough Chinese vocabulary to talk about emotions and abstract thoughts in nuanced detail. And I thought that was a less-than-ideal situation and I should change.
Anyway, all these years later, I do understand why those international students in the US didn't "just speak English" even though "they can." Yes, they could, but it's easier to speak their native language. It's always easier. And I couldn't understand that before- I thought it was binary, you either "know English" or you don't. But now, I'm fluent in Chinese but it's just easier to speak English. For me it'll always be easier to speak English.
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My high school health teacher [in the US], Mr. B, liked to ask "bonus" questions whenever we took a quiz. I now see that they were questions about American culture, but at the time I didn't really understand that I, a white American, had a culture.
I was always astonished by how "easy" the questions were. If there was, say, a question about the game Monopoly, the answer would be "Monopoly"- you just had to know the game Monopoly existed, and you would get it right. It wasn't anything more complicated than that. All the questions were like that- very basic-level trivia about classic American games, movies, etc. Mr. B seemed to just be making up questions on the spot for his own amusement after we finished the health quizzes. Every quiz would have 1 or 2 of these "bonus questions."
There was one student in my health class who was an immigrant from Africa, let's call him Ryan. He never got any of the bonus questions right, and I didn't understand. I didn't realize they were "American culture" questions. I had no awareness of the fact that I had a culture, so the only way I could label them was "easy" and "obvious." They weren't things we learned in school, they were things that everyone just knows, right? So "easy" and "obvious" that we don't need to learn them. And so I was always astonished when some of my classmates didn't know the answers.
It wasn't until I had lived in China for 6 years that I thought about Mr. B's questions again and realized they weren't "easy" and "obvious" questions; they were "American culture" questions. (And they weren't really fair to Ryan, were they?)
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I met a lot of international students when I was in college [in the US], and I was extremely impressed. They left their own country and learned to live in a whole new culture and speak a whole foreign language (English). Wow, what a huge challenge! People who do that are amazing! And I wanted to be like them.
I wanted to move to China, just like I had seen students from China come to the US. I wanted to learn how to live my life in China, adapting to the culture and all the little daily-life things, just like they had to learn how to live in the US. I wanted to get an engineering job in China, just like all the Chinese engineers who come and work in the US.
So... I did.
I did. I learned Mandarin Chinese- speaking, listening, reading, and writing. I initially came to China as an English teacher, but later changed to an engineering job at a Chinese company, just as I planned. I did it.
And after I did it, I realized... people don't really do that. I've met a lot of international people in Shanghai, and only a few are working in, like, "normal" jobs that a Chinese person can do. Most of them are working in something related to teaching- teaching English to Chinese people, teaching normal school subjects (in English) at an international school, offering training programs for business skills (in English with a Chinese translator).
You guys, I went on Chinese job search websites, read job descriptions in Chinese, went to interviews for engineering jobs and talked about robots and algorithms and software in Chinese during those interviews.
Of course I did. It never would have occurred to me that, as a white American, it doesn't make sense for me to search for jobs in this way. I live here, I should use the same system as Chinese people do. Right?
And on a few occasions I got job offers. And that's how I got my job.
At some point I realized that those companies were also interested in my English skills and ability to communicate with international customers. It wasn't just about my engineering ability, the way it would be for Chinese job applicants. I tried to ignore that reality though. I didn't want to be treated differently.
Lots of Chinese engineers come to the US and work there. I wanted to do the same thing, but in the other direction. I've now realized that there are economic, political, and cultural reasons why it's so common to see this happen in one direction but not the other. But back then, I had no idea. It seemed so simple- I met a lot of Chinese international students in the US, I admired them, and I just wanted to do the same thing.
If I had known back then about the reasons this happens in one direction but not the other, that what I've done is so rare that I don't think I know any other international people in China who have done the same thing (I know international people who speak Chinese and use Chinese a lot in their jobs, but still at international companies where mostly they speak English at work) ... if I had known, would I still have done it?
I'm successful, and I'm proud of that. Maybe it's good I didn't know how unusual this was, because it might have made me too discouraged to try. Or maybe the "economic reasons" that this happens in one direction but not the other are important things I should have taken into account, and I should have just gotten an engineering job in the US.
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The first time I got sick in China, I went to a Chinese hospital. (Note: In China the doctors all work at hospitals; you have your normal doctor's appointment at a hospital. It's not like in the US where you only go to a hospital for some VERY SERIOUS problem.) I knew some of the other international teachers at my job talked about going to an international hospital, finding a doctor that speaks English, etc. But I thought... Well I thought that sounded sort of racist. It sounded like "yeah, sure, Chinese people can go to Chinese hospitals but I'm TOO GOOD for that, I'm more special than them so I need to get more special health care."
I thought, I can speak Chinese, so I can go to a Chinese doctor, no problem. I couldn't imagine there would be any problem, since I'm able to speak the language. What other problem could there possibly be? Yeah sure they do some things differently, and maybe in some ways the quality of the health care might not be as good as an international hospital, but if it's good enough for Chinese people then it's good enough for me. To believe otherwise would be racist. Right?
So I went to Chinese hospitals, had bad experiences a bunch of times, went to international hospitals where everything went much better, and then decided I'm not doing Chinese hospitals any more. Nope. I'm done. Only international health care for me.
I couldn't comprehend why things had gone so badly at Chinese hospitals. I thought in terms of just one dimension- in terms of medical expertise being better or worse. Beyond that, I thought the only differences would be some superficial things like language and some organizational or administrative procedures, things that weren't really a big deal.
I thought that when I, a white American who speaks Chinese, walk into a Chinese hospital, it's the same as when a Chinese person walks into a Chinese hospital. And the international people who wanted to find an international hospital were bigoted because they didn't want to be "the same" as Chinese people; they felt they were superior.
I was wrong.
See, it's not the same, because Chinese people have something I don't have: knowledge and experience with how Chinese hospitals work. Back then, I had all these assumptions about how doctors and nurses are supposed to treat patients; basically I expected I just make an appointment and then show up all sick and helpless, and the doctors and nurses would ask questions and listen to me and take care of me. They would help me not just with my medical problem, but would be emotionally sensitive and I would feel their kindness and compassion. I guess that's called "bedside manner."
But I guess Chinese hospitals are more like, you just go in and get your treatment and that's all. Nobody comes to help you along and make sure you're doing okay emotionally. I guess because there are just too many people in China- too many patients. You have to advocate for yourself.
For example, one time when Hendrix took me to the hospital, we checked in and Hendrix said the next thing we do is go see the doctor. So he started walking down the hallway, opening doors to find a doctor. Apparently that was the correct thing to do.
And on another occasion, I was lying on a bed getting an ultrasound, and some random people just opened the door and popped in. Like, not hospital staff- just random patients. And that was normal. Apparently nobody really cares about privacy.
And none of the doctors or nurses at Chinese hospitals asked if I had any allergies. At the international hospital, they ask ALL THE TIME. So I guess in the Chinese system, it's my responsibility to confirm they're not giving me anything I'm allergic to.
All this left me feeling very vulnerable and unsafe, and so after enough experiences like that, I made the decision that all my health care would be at international hospitals from now on. At the time I made that decision, I still didn't understand. I still thought when I walk into a Chinese hospital, it's the same as a Chinese person walking in. I didn't understand why it had gone badly for me but was fine for a billion Chinese people; I just knew that my needs weren't met, so I was unwilling to put myself in that situation again.
It was because of my expectations about how health care is supposed to work. I want to be treated like I matter and like the hospital staff really cares about me.
It was because Chinese people have something I don't have: an understanding of how to navigate the Chinese health care system.
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All those years ago, I decided I wanted to learn Chinese, so I signed up for Chinese 101 class in college [in the US]. After about a week or two, our professor, Mr. Wang, said, "Some of you should drop the class, because you already know Chinese."
I didn't really think that much about it. Just that yeah, obviously, if somebody already knows Chinese then it doesn't make sense for them to be in Chinese 101 class.
Months later, I happened to be talking to my friend Alice, who is an American-born Chinese (ABC). She mentioned Mr. Wang and said "he's racist." She said he didn't treat the ABC students fairly.
Personally, I had a great time in Mr. Wang's class. He LOVED me. He always told me I was the best student. Actually, Chinese 101 class was just one small part of my efforts to learn Chinese; I was also regularly meeting with Chinese international students to practice (which I would say is the most effective way to learn a language). So I was learning much faster than our Chinese 101 curriculum, and so I always got everything right in class and Mr. Wang told me I was the best ever.
Also I'm white.
Alice said "he's racist" and then I thought about when Mr. Wang said "some of you need to drop the class." At the time I didn't get it; I thought you either "know Chinese" or you don't. But the students that Mr. Wang was referring to weren't just there for an easy A because they "already knew Chinese." They were ABCs that could understand and maybe speak a lot of Chinese because their parents spoke it at home, but maybe they couldn't read or write. Or maybe they didn't know much vocabulary besides whatever their parents talked about at home. They were there to fill in the gaps in their Chinese language ability, but Mr. Wang wouldn't let them.
Wow, that was messed-up, and I never noticed or cared because everything went so well for me in that class.
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White people in the US tend to think that the ideal is to "be colorblind", to "not see race." Treat everyone the same. Feminism has taught me that there are actually a lot of problems with this "not seeing race" concept. Basically, race does matter, and you can't correct the problems caused by racism if you pretend race doesn't matter.
But most white Americans see that as the ideal. Treat everyone of all races the same. And in one's normal day-to-day interactions, that is the right thing to do.
In China, that's not the ideal. Chinese people think that, in order to be polite and welcoming, you should NOT treat white people the same as Chinese people. No, when you meet white people, you should talk to them in English, not in Chinese.
(And of course I have met international people of other races in China too, but their experiences with race in China are different from mine, so I can't really speak to that.)
There have been times where I'm walking up to buy something at a restaurant, and I see the cashiers scrambling around, trying to figure out who among them remembers the most stuff from their high school English class and can therefore talk to me. And then they apologize to me because their English "isn't good."
No, I haven't seen any Chinese equivalent to "if you're in this country you need to speak the language." Or "not seeing race."
It was surprising to me, though, how my whiteness affects every single interaction I have with ANYBODY AT ALL in China. From strangers, to Chinese friends, to American friends, to my husband.
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American high school kids travel to all sorts of countries all over the world for mission trips. American colleges proudly advertise their study-abroad programs, where students can go spend a semester in another country. Americans post their international vacation photos all over social media. And unqualified Americans have ESL job opportunities all over the world. (Yep, I was one of them- I totally moved to China on a work visa in an ESL teacher job. Which I was unqualified for.)
I always took it for granted that I could travel wherever I wanted. And when I set my goal of moving to China and living there long-term, I totally 100% believed I was entitled to just go to any country I wanted and live there. Of course there were some practical concerns like finding a job, language barriers, adapting to a different style of food, but those were all things I would deal with on my own, as I encountered them. I never, ever, for a minute, even considered the possibility of "maybe the government won't let you in, and that's that." Americans don't really think about that.
But look at it from the opposite side: A lot of people want to enter the US, but can't. One aspect of this is people who want to live in the US long-term: refugees trying to cross the border, people waiting years and years for a green card, undocumented immigrants overstaying their visas. But in certain circumstances, the US also denies visas to people who just want to make a short-term trip, maybe for a vacation or academic conference.
In order to get a US tourist visa, you have to bring enough evidence to convince them that you're not actually planning to be an immigrant and overstay the visa. If you can show that in your home country, you have a good job, close family, and a good amount of money in your bank account, then the US visa official will believe you're really going to go back home after your little US vacation.
I remember when my husband Hendrix (who is Chinese) was applying for his US tourist visa- he joked about "if a woman says 'I have no job and I am going to visit my boyfriend in the US', no chance they're giving her that visa." A friend actually advised us to make sure Hendrix got his 10-year US tourist visa before we got married- if we were already married, they might look at his visa application and be like "you're married to a US citizen?" and deny the visa.
I always felt like I had the right to just go wherever I want. It never occurred to me to wonder if a government would refuse to allow me to enter. I was in my 20s when I realized "You know all this stuff in the news about illegal immigration? What that actually means, in terms I can relate to, is that some people- depending on what country they're from- can't just take a trip somewhere just because they want to." And that astonished me, because I had always taken it for granted that I'm entitled to go travel or live long-term wherever I want. Everyone should have that right.
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Because I moved to China, I understand culture and privilege in ways I never could have if I had stayed in the US.
I left my own culture to live in a new culture. That means there are so many things which I always felt were completely normal, so normal that I never even thought about them, and now I'm surrounded by people who don't know anything about them at all. Pancake syrup, football teams, going through the drive-thru. I've lost so much that I never realized I could lose.
I knew I would be learning a whole new culture, but I didn't know I would be losing my own.
And let's talk about privilege. I always thought it's just one-dimensional: the US is better than other countries. More money, more resources, etc. I thought by moving to China, I would be moving from an easier life to a harder life. In China we don't have a dryer for our clothes, so we have to hang them up. In China we can't drink the water from the sink, so we have to boil it. In China I get paid less than if I got a job in the US.
I thought I was moving from "living as an American" difficulty level to "living as a Chinese" difficulty level. But no, I was actually doing something harder than that. Because what I actually gave up wasn't money or convenience; what I actually gave up was privilege. The privilege of being a native speaker vs speaking my 2nd language. The privilege of being in the majority culture and majority ethnic group. The privilege of being a citizen rather than an immigrant.
In other words, me living in China is harder than a Chinese person living in China. They have something I don't. They know the culture. They know the language better than I ever will. They don't stand out as different and foreign because of their race. They don't have to jump through all the bureaucratic hoops related to getting visas renewed, and handle all the logistical things that work differently for me because I don't have a Chinese ID card.
And in the same way, if a Chinese person moves to the US, that doesn't mean their life is the same as my life in the US. It's not just "the US is better"; no, if they don't have the knowledge and experience about how to do things, then it's not better for them. This, again, is all about privilege.
I thought of it as "I spent the first 20-some years of my life learning American culture, and now I will learn Chinese culture." But it wasn't like that; I didn't simply "learn Chinese culture." Instead, I learned Chinese culture from an immigrant's perspective. My own identity is the lens through which everything happens to me. It's not possible to experience Chinese culture from an objective, outside perspective.
And I'm thinking about all this, about what I learned about privilege, and I realize that even in this, I'm privileged. I chose to become an immigrant. I'm not a refugee. I'm not fleeing some dangerous situation in my home country. I didn't come here for better economic opportunities. No, nothing like that- there was nothing wrong with my home country that pushed me to leave. I came to China to live as an immigrant just because I wanted to.
And my life in the US is still there, still available, I can go back any time. Sometimes literally- I know I can go stay at my parents' house and not pay for food or housing, any time I want. I'm so privileged... I'm writing this blog series to say "well it's been 6 years and here are the things I learned about the world, culture, and being an immigrant, well that was a fun experience but I'm ready to be done, gonna go back home now" and then I can just go back, simple as that. A lot of immigrants can't do that. A lot of immigrants don't have a choice.
I chose to give up all that privilege- majority culture privilege, native speaker privilege, citizen privilege- and now I've decided I want it all back. And I'm able to do that. That, too, is privilege.
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Next: Because of an Idea
Related:
Feminism 101: Privilege
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