The Two Selves

Leo Huang
Leo Huang
Nov 3 · Unlisted
Photo by Laurenz Kleinheider on Unsplash

There are two selves in me: the Chinese self, who stopped growing after college, and the American self, who never had a childhood.

I am a first-generation Chinese immigrant in America, and I have been living here for almost two decades, which is almost as long as the time I spent growing up in China. Like many Asian Americans, I struggle to find my identity. Rather, I feel I have two identifies: one who counts numbers in “ten thousand” and cannot live without white rice; and the other, who sleep talks in English and prefers to read books in the original English rather than the Chinese translation.

The American self came to the New World with two big suitcases, struggling painfully with English. In the suitcases, there was a high-pressure pot and a pair of Ping-Pong paddles — the classic belongings of a Chinese family. He joined Microsoft after getting his master’s degree, and has spent his entire career so far with American companies. To his Chinese family, he has achieved the typical American dream: he owned his first house with a yard at the age of 28, and he has traveled all over the country in his own car. He loves American pop culture — the music, Broadway, Hollywood, and American TV shows. He does business with American people of all colors. He can even come up with a joke or two in English, which he considers a breakthrough in mastering a language, although he still does not swear much in English. He voted for the first time, as a US citizen. After almost two decades, this is his second hometown. He feels home when he is greeted by the US border officer with a “Welcome home, Mr. Huang!”, coming back from Europe. He feels home when, landing in Seattle, he sees the evergreen-covered land from the airplane. He feels home when he sees people of different colors walking on the streets of downtown.

The real Chinese self is usually dormant. Even when he speaks Chinese with his family, it is still the American self, just speaking Chinese. What can trigger the real Chinese self to emerge is hearing a Chinese pop song, watching a Chinese talk show, or tasting a lychee (his favorite fruit from his hometown). All these make him nostalgic. When it happens, he misses China very, very much. He misses being surrounded by people of the same skin color. There he feels a sense of belonging and “safety”. It is a psychological sense of safety. It comes from the cultural conformity that he can find only in China. There, he swears comfortably in Chinese. There, he is funny in the Chinese way — he may have become rusty in improvising jokes in Chinese, but he used to be pretty good at it and it can come back naturally. That’s how the Chinese self reveals himself slowly at a Chinese party. Going home after the party, the American self takes over again.

The American self can write many things in English, but never poems. The Chinese self loves writing poems in the traditional Chinese form. Here is one he wrote titled Nostalgia that perfectly portrays the dilemma of immigrants. The first half of the poem talks about the American identify sleep talking in English after living too long in the alien land. In the second half, the sight of a white cabbage butterfly brings joy and nostalgia to the Chinese self.

乡愁

侨居北地他乡久,

呓语洋文睡梦熟。

忽见白蝶嬉戏舞,

喜眉笑眼为乡愁。

I wonder whether the two selves are two sides of the same coin, or maybe they are two “persons”, like twins? It is almost as if the Chinese self stopped growing after college, and the American self never had a childhood. Think about that. After reading the enlightening book Incognito by David Eagleman, I start to believe Chinese and English, the two very different languages can shape one’s personality differently. It took twenty years to wire my Chinese brain. It should not be a surprise that it can take up to twenty years to shape the American self. Transformation from translating Chinese to English while speaking to really thinking in English was a breakthrough that happened only in recent years. I can believe that one part of my brain is wired in Chinese and another part in English, and they are distinct. My colleagues at work never see the Chinese self, just as my old friends in China cannot imagine the American self. Isn’t it interesting and, at the same time, somewhat sad that for many first-generation immigrants, nobody gets to see the complete person?

With the two selves, I wonder who I am. I used to question whether I would ever become a true American. Julie Zhuo said in her “Letter to My Younger Asian-American Self,” she still does not feel that she is “good ole’ American”; nor does she feel “quite as understood as when you’re surrounded by yellow faces and dark eyes.” If Julie, who immigrated to the US at the age of six, does not feel good ole’ American, I am even farther off. I can never get all the jokes in the Hollywood movies or told by stand-up comedians. My relationship with good ole’ Americans is mostly casual or business. I still don’t enjoy American cocktail parties. I have slowly come to the realization that maybe there is no “pure” American. Americans have always been immigrants, no matter whether they are the first generation or the hundredth generation. I am both an American and a Chinese, fundamentally. That’s who I am. When I travel in Europe and people ask me where I’m from, I answer proudly after a slight hesitation, “I am from Seattle”, and I add, “and I am from China originally.”

Unlisted

Leo Huang

Written by

Leo Huang

An engineering manager who loves traveling, reading, and writing down his reflections on management, life, and culture. Writing is leading.

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