i AM asian

Well, more specifically, I am Chinese, born in Hong Kong and spent the first quarter of my life there.

At the conference, I attended a focus session titled Asian American Identity. I can't say I have an American identity but I definitely have an Asian identity. The first question we were asked was: What are the gifts to being Asian (aside from the food)?

The room was silent for a moment. As a majority of the women in the room were raised in America, none could really think of anything good about being Asian aside from knowing great food. But slowly, things which we saw as curses came under a different light. Things which Asians are typically stereotyped as were viewed as gifts...

Smart - Asians are smart people. Not that ALL of us are genius but we do highly value academics. We are pushed to excel in school by our parents and even by ourselves. While it can get a little extreme (95%?! Where's the other 5%?!?!), it's also a positive attitude to drive us to seek excellence and knowledge. While the American culture might be simply to "try our best" and that it's ok to be mediocre, the Asian culture says we must strive to be the best. It's also biblical - "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." ~ Matthew 5:48.

Quiet - Asians don't rock the boat. We don't question authority, we don't talk back, we listen and obey. How many of you were the quiet Asian kid in your class? Or the quiet Asian employee in the corner? Challenging authority is not encouraged as we were raised to honor our elders, no matter how wrong or ridiculous they might be. While this might turn us into push-overs, there is something to be said about respecting authority. This is also biblical. The Bible talks about obeying our masters, to turn the other cheek, to honor our father and mother, to work as unto the Lord and give to Caesar what is Caesar. There is a great series of talks by Andy Stanley called "Taking Care of Business - Finding God at Work" in which he discusses the biblical principles of working hard at our jobs even if it's not the most exciting thing in the world. To honor and respect our boss even if it's difficult to.

Dependence - Asians stick together. Grown children still live at home with their parents. Some don't move out until they get married. While I shake my head at that because I value independence from my parents, there's something to be said about having a close-knit family who you can always rely on and where the parents are still willing to care for you. The American culture is to move out of the house the moment you go off to college. I have Caucasian friends whose parents were not willing to help them out with school or rent because they wanted their children to learn independence. It was a battle for me to not let my parents help me out financially. Sometimes I'm jealous of friends who are close with their family. And having moved away, my natural tendency was to find a group that I can connect with like family. Interesting that my close circle of friends have always been Asian. We stick together because we value support and community. Just like the believers in Acts who supported one another and depended on one another, each giving to anyone who had need.

We talked about so much more in that session. I'm sure there are a LOT of gifts to being Asian and I can go on but just thinking about these things in different perspectives makes me especially proud and glad to be Chinese. These are great values to hold on to and pass on to the next generation. Of course, anything taken to extreme can become a curse... so I guess I'll stop trying so hard to be a genius :P