Life as an Asian Expat: Feelings

Written on 7 March 2017

This morning, I woke up and glanced out of my window. It’s been raining the whole night and grey clouds covered the sky – I won’t be able to see the snow capped mountains today. No worries, I thought, there’s always tomorrow, or next week, or next month. After all, I live near the Austrian alps now. For a moment, I felt fortunate to be able to call such a beautiful place home.

Getting ready in the bathroom, I did not feel like going to work. My mind took a sharp turn to consider the negative aspects of being a foreigner in Austria and it is not encouraging. I remembered a brief exchange I had this weekend:
“So how long are you visiting Salzburg?”
“Oh, I’m not visiting. I live here now.”
*look of disbelief* “In Salzburg? Really?” *pause for thought* “You must be a student. For Violin?”
“No, I work here.”
*look of disbelief, again* “Really? Do you work in a restaurant?”
“No… I work in advertising...”

Sadly, variations of this conversation happened so often with strangers in my three months here, I don’t even remember who it was I was conversing with.

I am from Hong Kong and I look East Asian. At one glance, most people I’ve met here dismiss me as an alien to their home.

I know the strange looks I get from bus passengers every morning as I get on from my very residential neighbourhood. The stares tell me that they’re not convinced that I belong here, even though I’ve taken this same bus route for easily 100 times now. Yep — this is the day ahead for me.

For a moment, I was so fed up of being judged like a book cover— I wanted to live one day without this exterior. Just to see how it’s like, for one day. Is there something other than a paper bag that can hide my features? Does it even matter how I dress or how I put on my make up, how I speak, or how I act? I think not, because no matter how I dress, I am treated as an alien before I even open my mouth to reveal that I don’t speak German. That or I must be an exchange student studying music; At most, a low-income worker in a Chinese restaurant.

It seems to me that people around me — apart from the diverse and international group of colleagues I meet via my work – simply could not imagine a world where people of colour are coming to Europe as highly skilled and educated expats.

A while back, I read a piece from The Guardian titled “Why are white people expats when the rest of us are immigrants?” It triggered some emotions— to say the least. Back then, I have been working in New York City on a skilled-worker visa, and never considered myself or any of my fellow visa-holder friends an immigrant. After reading the piece, I understood how important it is that we outwardly identify ourselves as expats — regardless of our country of origin or our income bracket.

Luckily, I lived in a society where everyone else around us understood one concept: A New Yorker’s a New Yorker, regardless of if you moved here 1 week ago or 65 years ago, make 7$ an hour, or handle millions per minute. That was my favourite part about being a New Yorker: it’s an identity available to everyone.

Here in Salzburg, Austria — a city with less than 150k residents — things are a little bit different. There was one time, I took a phone call in fluent, American-accented English, on that same bus towards my residential neighbourhood. Out of my peripherals, I saw the visual expression of shock on almost all of the passengers’ faces around me, wondering “Is she an American expat or a Chinese immigrant?” But how pointless is this confusion and differentiation? The only thing that matters is that I live here now and will try my best to integrate into your society.

Every day, I board my bus home registering the concerned looks from fellow passengers (or occasionally, whispers/snickers from pairs of Austrians teenagers) that I must be a lost tourist intending to take the bus to the opposite direction, to the touristic Old Town centre. It annoys me. It annoys me so much, that this little city is full of people who have assigned one unchangeable label to a whole race of people— tourist.

It’s as if I saw a stranger and at one glance decided that they must be a yoga teacher because of their race. It’s super offensive to everyone present, absolutely absurd, and just plain illogical — there simply can’t be so many yoga teachers around. But logically, all Asians you meet must all work in a restaurant.

All things considered, I know perfectly well that I am in a unique position to make a change. Being one of the few non-stereotypical Asians Salzburgers meet, how I act matters. Every time I meet a new person who learns of my background, I’m creating an opportunity for stereotypes to be broken.

My own discomforts aside, the more close-minded people meet me personally, the more people will understand that Asian people, Chinese people, and Hong Kong people are as diverse as their circle of acquaintances: working different jobs, making different income, have different beliefs, at different stages of their lives, and present in their country for different purposes.

Background Info: “Where are you from?”

Short answer: Hong Kong.
Detailed answer: I live in Salzburg, Austria now. I grew up in Hong Kong, got a Canadian education, lived in Los Angeles and New York City before taking a 15-month sabbatical to experience cultures that are foreign to me. I’d like to visit Iran, Jordan, and the UAE soon.