Youth Talk: Uprooted
By: Megan Liu, 11th Grade Student at Dulwich College Shanghai
Peering out at the masses of faces from behind the thick vermillion curtains, I put down my script, and wrung my hands together nervously. It was the opening night of our school production in front of approximately 300 audience members. Glancing over my shoulder, my classmates’ faces heavily caked in makeup were likewise a blur to me in the adrenaline. I couldn’t help but feel part of the scene, but removed, all at once. Upon reflection, I couldn’t help but feel that I’d felt a similar emotional experience to this some time before – when I first arrived in China eight years ago.
Due to my ethnic Chinese nationality, many of the friends I made when I first arrived here had expected me to understand Chinese based solely on my exterior appearance. It was difficult initially to carry through with my daily routine, due to both the communication barrier and new environment. I regarded this foreign language as faintly reminiscent of the buzzing of a bee, both perpetual and alien to me, and was at first overwhelmed and terrified when people began speaking it to me, not knowing how to reply.
My parents had two cultures: Chinese and American intertwined within them, having lived in two separate countries, and their philosophies of 'tough love' combined with moments of leniency helps me prepare for my future overseas at university. One of the prominent Eastern philosophical influences that reached me was Confucius, whose beliefs instruct that we should continuously work towards our future goals. This may sound bizarre to most people from Western cultures because we are told to “live in the present”, but I believe that there is a very fine balance between the two for which both people from Western and Eastern cultures alike should aspire to obtain.
When I first came, I was in my own bubble, the ‘expat bubble’. I would, like most expatriate children, step out the car with the door held open for me, the ayis at my beck and call, and order meals completely disregarding the price tag. And when I saw that beggar on the street a block down from my compound, I didn’t give much regard at first. Would you stop to ask him his story, instead of walking past, only to go into the towering skyscraper next door? Still, Shanghai’s multi-faceted culture encouraged me to open my mind and accept the unfamiliar.
In a performance, characters grow and learn. Their development process is based on their own life experience. Even though sometimes things can still be difficult, when I can’t talk with my grandparents fluently, or when I need more time to rethink my answer in Chinese when someone asks me a question, now I recognise that as well as being an American, my Chinese part is an integral part of my identity. I have grown to appreciate, and at times, love it. Uprooted and implanted into a new environment, I have begun to develop my burgeoning cultural identity.
