Week 2: My Heritage

I'm in Essay Project, listening to Allegra speak about her respect and appreciation, as a second-generation immigrant, for Australia--the country that granted her Russian side of the family safety and hope.

My dad is from Vietnam. His family immigrated to Australia when my dad was a child, somewhere between the 70s and 80s. I would hear about the Vietnam War in pop culture as I grew up, particularly American pop culture. I never heard the dates. I never put anything together.
My realisation has been gradual, and even now, I don't even think I fully understand what my dad went through.

I don't feel a strong connection to my Asian heritage. I have never been to visit my mum's family in Indonesia, or visited Vietnam. I can't speak Indonesian or Vietnamese. People my whole life have approached me and started speaking Chinese and every time I have to explain, with my very Australian accent, that I don't speak Chinese.

I met my best friend online, through a game called Overwatch. He asked about my nationality, I told him I was Asian. He said I didn't sound Asian.

I don't think I sound Asian in my writing either. Last semester, I wrote an autofictional piece about tarot, astrology and reinventing myself as a writer. In it, I casually mentioned that the character representing me, Sunday, was Asian. On workshopping feedback from Nhu, she wrote (paraphrased from memory): 'Is Sunday in touch with her Asian heritage? Because tarot and astrology are very Western.'

One time, my mum said I was a banana--yellow on the outside, white on the inside.

For most of my childhood and adolescence, I couldn't use chopsticks.

I feel bad sometimes. Like I've erased a part of my past. But at the same time, I don't feel a strong desire to remedy this. I don't feel incomplete. I feel confident in saying I prefer pasta over rice.

But I think I forget how much Asian I have in me. Even though I don't speak my parents' languages, there are Asian elements in me that are so ingrained, I forget they exist.

Always having rice in the fridge. My mum saying 'you've got wind in your tummy' when I have a stomachache. Having so many seasonings in the fridge and under the stove. Mum massaging my sprained ankle even though it goes against what I learned in injury care.

There are most likely many more that I'm not conscious of.

Right now, I have a group of friends I met through board gaming and D&D, all of which are from Asian heritage.
I think they help me get more in touch with my own heritage.

Maybe one day I'll write about my experience being Asian. But right now, I don't feel qualified. I don't feel Asian enough. Maybe that's my problem. Maybe I'm feeling like I need to have more Asian qualities--language fluency (or even basic understanding) for one--to really qualify as an Asian person. Maybe I'm allowed to be Asian even if I think chopsticks are quite impractical.

But what it really comes down to, in my head, when I look in the mirror, is 'I'm me. I feel like me. And that's enough.'