My dad sat me down one day during the frenzy of preparing for finals and applying for the program I want to talk about my career. I believe that up until that point, I’ve exhibited a preference towards art and acting. The genes from my mother’s side. In Taiwan, I excelled at it and was reinforced by my peers that I am very good at both. I believed in that fact myself. You can see the same result from my grades. I wasn’t that good at math like your stereotypical Asian guy.

What he told me was this: “You are an immigrant and that is a fact. You cannot plan your life ignoring the biggest change that has happened to you so far. You need to ask yourself, what can you do that is naturally better than the people who were raised here so you are not always playing catch up.”

“Lawyer? Actor? Can you out-talk a local in French? In English?”

My father showed me some of his frustration as well: “I learned a new word today at the age of 40, it’s called conspiracy (Excruciating and slow attempt at pronouncing the word, we are not good with words that have more than 3 syllables). People here grow up knowing what that word mean. How can you expect to beat them at their own game which they’ve been playing far longer than you?”

“Let’s say that you can. What do you think will happen when a white CEO is trying to decide between a white and an yellow guy when both are equally qualified and with the exact same background? White of course. Wouldn’t you choose your own kind as well? Don’t you think it will be even worse in other fields where the results are more subjective?”

That, is what I call “shattering of dreams” in my life. The moment when I realized the difference and admit that it exists. This “difference” continued to co-exist inside me on a day to day basis as I see the other world’s reality whenever an event happened in the wrold I live in. This “other world” of the yellow culture that continues to give me insight to what could’ve happened differently and provides ironic comedy to what would’ve been otherwise a perfectly normal assumption on normality.

Early on, I realized that the only people I can rely on from now on are friends

By the time I earned enough money to be able to afford the plane ticket back home, a wall had already formed between us. The last time they saw me, I was a 10 year old naughty boy who chases the chicken around for fun. Now, I am a stranger in suit who showed up at their wedding dinner. We speak formally to each other because we recognize each other as someone we don’t know. My heart cried out in pain.

Fact of the matter is, once you immigrate to a new country you lose all the connections that you had built up and will forever be at a disadvantage when it comes to tapping into your network of people. There are less family gathering, less weddings to go to and generally less opportunities to get to know new people, or call up a relative in a particular field of interest that you know nothing of.

Not only are you missing these advantages, you are also doubly hindered by the fact that you are constantly reminded of it. It’s true that we complain about our family and they present a source of problems for some when they are unhealthy. The truth of the matter is, we often don’t know how useful they are until you are completely stripped of one. There are bad apples and good apples in any tree, but what’s more important is to have the connection and to learn from it. Just because a family member is a good apple doesn’t necessarily mean that it is good for growing up. They may pamper you for example and prevent you from learning how to deal with something.

So, what do I do? I turn my friends into my family of course. Someone once asked me what’s so important about that blood tie between family members. I remember thinking that there’s nothing special if only for the fact that we were put in a position to be forced to know each other and spend the major part of our lives together. Now I understand it better. It’s the connection in your brains that are formed based on the interactions you had together. In a more general way of speaking, someone you can trust that doesn’t intend you any harm. Someone you can trust to hide you for one day when you become a fugitive. That for me, is family.

My parents didn’t help me prepare for it, they were as clueless as I was since the administration only speaks French and scoffs at anyone who tries to communicate in English. “Apprenez la langue” they’d tell them.

Back to the topic at hand. It was my first day of school. So, there I stood, in the school yard envious at the crowd of people who knew each others from the year before, smoking, joking and generally merry making. An alarm bell rang and people all went inside. Not knowing what’s happening, I simply followed. I followed them until I realized that they were all going to their own classes. That’s when it dawned on me that I don’t even know my class schedule.

A class where the students dominate the teachers? That defies the very definition of a class.

At that moment of desperation, shame and despair overwhelmed my senses. “Am I going to get punished? What tools do they use to hit their students? They look bigger than the theachers from Taiwan, their slaps must hurt more. I don’t want to get slapped in the face on my first day of school.” Luckily none of my thoughts materialized and a nice secretary, seeing my despair, took me into her office and looked up my file. I was then escorted to my proper class and the rest of the day was a blur. I was just content that besides the initial embarrassment of getting to my class late, everyone seems to be ignoring me.

Later, to my amazement, I watched as the students disrespect their teachers in anyway imaginable and wondered why the teachers don’t call them up front and exercise physical punishment? You probably already know the answer, but to me that was the strangest idea ever. A class where the students dominates the teachers? That defies the very definition of a class.

I felt my smile freeze, then fades into a frown.

That sums up my dilemna with humour. After the incident, I stopped trying to pretend that I understand their jokes and resorted to stating the fact outright when people ask why I was being so serious. Simply put, I did not experience the same childhood that the locals did. I did not watch the same cartoons, listen to the same radio stations nor participated in the same activities as a native born north american.

Things like a “Kramer moment” or references to “The Simpsons” are usually completely missed by me, thus leading to the subsequent misunderstanding of all jokes that followed. To not feel out of place or destroy the group dynamic, I usually laugh along with people while storing away another reference to “Google” when I get my hands on a computer. This is probably why I am so good at faking genuine emotions on my face when Asian guys are known for their stern faces.

I hope people can understand that it is not because I am too serious or are trying to put them down when I don’t even pretend. It’s usually because I completely missed the fact that it was supposed to be a joke. I want to fit in really, but I also understand that those 16 years is half a life of difference in experience. I can’t expect myself to realistically be a 10/10 on all three languages. If anything, I can only say that I wish I could get to know you in Mandarin. But you don’t know that language and I just happen to know yours.

I’ve lived in a Western world for half of my life and the other half in Asia. Even though I’ve successfully integrated myself and speaks the language fluently, I still find myself in these awkward moments of silence. It leads to revelations of our differences in culture. I am a guy who’s half way in between and I wish to show you the realities of why we sometimes behave the way we do.