My Experience Growing Up As a White American Kid In China
Moving is hard for everyone. Settling into a new environment can be overwhelming and stressful, as it was for me. Though my Parents are both American, I have grown up overseas my entire life. I was born in India and lived there till I was 5, then moved to Africa and lastly moved to China from Africa at 11. When I moved from a bustling city in India to an isolated bush environment in Africa, my whole world felt upside down. For the first few weeks, I couldn’t sleep because I was so used to falling asleep to the sounds of honking cars and the busy night market I lived above. Eventually, though, I did settle in with time and enjoyed Africa even more than India. I had finally settled into my new home until it was time to move again to a mega city in China, and this move would be the most drastic change of scenery and culture I had experienced so far.
The First Day in China
I remember the first day I landed in China as if it were yesterday. We were picked up at the airport by my parent’s employers and brought to our new apartment, which was right above a supermarket in a local Chinese neighborhood. I remember stepping out of the van and almost immediately feeling eyes on me. We were the only non-Chinese living in the apartment complex, so we stood out. The first night, I cried in bed, missing my backyard, the open bush, the smell of nature, and all the friends I’d left behind in Africa. I remember walking into the bathroom of our new apartment for the first time to find a squatting toilet, which I had never seen before; my mom immediately called the property manager and thankfully got a change to a sitting toilet. I also remember turning on the TV for the first time to check out what channels they had; all of them unsurprisingly were in Chinese, until I stumbled upon Spongbob, which excited me for less than a second after finding out it was dubbed into Chinese with no subtitles.
Living with a Chinese family
Shortly after arriving, my parents sent me to live with a local Chinese family for a week so I would better understand Chinese culture and learn some basic Mandarin. When I arrived, they showed me to my bedroom; the bed was a slab of wood with no mattress and a “pillow” filled with beans. I acted thankful and smiled at them because I couldn’t communicate with them. That night and the rest of the time I was there, I slept on the tile floor and used my blanket as a mattress and pillow because it was genuinely more comfortable. Our first meal together was at a sushi restaurant with revolving plates. Each of them had maybe 3 or 4 plates while I was on my 6th and still felt hungry, but they were shocked that I could still eat more. This was when I realized that it’s not normal in China like it is in the US to stuff yourself until you can’t eat anymore, so I reluctantly stopped eating out of embarrassment. Overall, it was a good experience, but I was definitely ready to go home and be with people I could communicate with.
Struggles of standing out
Standing out was one of the hardest, if not the hardest, part of growing up in China. China is very closed off to the rest of the world, so the people have little to no exposure to foreigners, making people very surprised when they saw me. The staring was constant; everywhere I went, I felt eyes on me, never really in a negative way, more of a curious way, but it was still uncomfortable for me as a young kid. When I first moved to China, I avoided leaving the house because I didn’t want to get stared at; it was that distressing. But over time, I learned to accept it and barely noticed. However, this changed after a few years because I learned Chinese and could now understand what people who stared at me in the streets were saying. No Chinese person ever assumed I spoke the language, so they felt they could talk about me in front of me, and I wouldn’t know, but I did. Typically, I didn’t say anything and pretended I didn’t speak Chinese. It was still distressing, so I listened to music whenever I walked or to the mall. It made me feel like I was in my own little world, and it didn’t matter if people were staring or talking about me because I couldn’t hear anything.
not being able to speak the language/ learning Chinese
I moved to China in 2012. At that time, you couldn’t just converse with someone using Google Translate. It was a very different time. Unlike many other Asian countries, the vast majority of people in China don’t speak English, and I didn’t say a word of Chinese. Everything was confusing, and hand signals were how I got around for the first year or so. I wasn’t motivated to learn Chinese until one day; I was out with some friends, and one foreign girl I was with started speaking almost fluent Mandarin to a Chinese person. I was so impressed and jealous that she could communicate with people. That night, when I got home, I immediately went online and started teaching myself Mandarin and trying to speak it more and more each day. I also befriended Chinese people to help me practice. Over the next few years, my Chinese was at a level where I could converse with people and feel comfortable going out with friends who didn’t speak English. Learning Chinese was the best thing that helped me cope with life in China and immerse myself in the culture.
Having no identity
Since I’ve grown up overseas my entire life solely in countries where I am the minority and don’t speak the language, it would be an understatement to say it hasn’t been difficult. When people ask me, “Where are you from?” I immediately get anxious because, in a way, I’m not from anywhere. When I went to college in America and lived there for the first time in my life I got this question pretty often, I would always tell people I was from San Diego, I even looked up a school in San Diego to make my story more believable. Until one day, Someone I told I was from San Diego was also from San Diego and asked what High School I went to. I told him the one I found on Google, and he happened to go to that school as well and asked which teachers I had course, I had no response, and it was one of the most uncomfortable situations I’ve ever been in. Since then, I have just told people I grew up overseas, and if they ask more, I’ll tell them the truth. Thankfully, I’m actually proud of my upbringing and told I really have a problem being honest with people who ask me. My main problem is that I feel like I’ll never have a “home.” I’ll constantly be moving around trying to find a “home” that doesn’t exist, which is something I find very stressful.
Resentment towards my parents for raising me with no identity
When I reached my teens, I started resenting my parents for the way I was raised. I felt that it wasn’t fair of them to raise me and my sister with no identity and constantly have us moving around. I remember going back to visit family in the US and seeing my cousins have the same friends they had in kindergarten and high school. I would cry to my mom because I craved that so badly. I have made and lost so many friends throughout my life because of constant moving. I felt like my parents were living their dream of traveling the world without any thought of how it would affect me and my sister when we grew older. But that being said, I wouldn’t change anything if I had the option. Even though I don’t have an identity, living overseas my whole life has made me who I am today. If I were born and raised in a small town in the US like my parents, I wouldn’t be the person I am and who I love.
Would I raise my future children how I was raised?
Short answer: no. Though I have been fortunate to live in many amazing countries and travel to over 40 countries by the age of 20, I still would not raise my children overseas. I want my children to have a sense of identity and a stable place they can call home. I want them to have friends they can keep and not worry about moving all of their childhood. I want my children to feel normal and not feel as though they stand out and don’t fit in where they live. Growing up and experiencing so many cultures has been amazing and makes me who I am, but I don’t have my own culture, which I don't want for my future children.
