thilly thenny

I just did my first speech at Toastmasters, a nonprofit group that bring local people together to practice their oratory skills.  It was pretty nerve racking, buT apparently everything went really well.  The evaluator said that the only thing I needed to change was not to grip onto the podium for dear life.  He commented that I had good rhythm and a natural.

The reason I bring this up is that I watched a show recently on PBS called the Slanted Lens. The program participants discussed Asian Americans in film and the struggle for representation. I’ve been wanting to blog about it for a while and just haven’t found the time. So to kill two birds with one stone (if that’s how the saying goes), here’s my speech:

Boo! As children were afraid of the unknown, the supernatural whether it’s monsters under the bed or a creaky pipe in the basement. When we become adults, our view of fear transforms. Some of us dread failure or commiyment, some social acceptance. Mine centers around the last.

A mixed childhood in china, Germany and the US leaves confused about my identity. Am I more Western or more Eastern? Why do I seem to shy compared to my American counterparts but so outspoken around other Chinese?

The media in the US certainly doesnt help. A program on PBS cslles the Slanted Lens the other night examined Asians Americans in film. Too often they’re overlooked for staring roles, pushed aside as extras, character actors or simply part of the background like in The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo drift.

Instead movies cast primarily white or black protagonists, partying thief way through high school and struggling with dating and social interactions. I couldnt really relate.

I never dated in high school and most of my socializing was done during the school day.  My high school days focused around piano, bass, Chinese school, dance, extracurricular clubs and getting into a great college. Summers were filled with activities too.  I went home to visit relatives that I hadn’t seen since I was four yeas old or was taking math classes at Rice University to beef up my analytical skills. Some afternoons I volunteered at my father’s hospital providing assistance to cancer patients and their coping families.  My junior tear I toured The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania as part of the Leadership in the Business World program. It’s the best business school out there and I was determined to get in.

During college, tired of being the Asian stereotypes, I did the reverse, going out and having fun with friends or pairing my classes with an abundance of internahips. I was dead set on living the antithesis of my stereotype and in doing so lost even more of my identity.

At graduation, my fear was not the real world but how I fit into it. My high school friends couldnt figure out how I’d changed so much, and most of my college friends categorized me as a parties. In fact, I wasn’t either.

To counteract that. I did the natural thing. I ran. I ran all the way to the West Coast, where I knew two people and could start fresh. There were no preconceptions here, and the abundance of Asians guaranteed that I wouldn’t be typecast at my job or anywhere else.

But now what? Where do I start? And the question that kept burning inside me: who am I? Should I restrict myself to my ethnic roles or rise above that to define myself?  I honestly don’t have an answer, but what the Bay Area afforded me is a chance to find out.

(written from an iPhone)