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The Whiter Side of Lifeby Stephanie LeungI recently spent a long weekend with my best friend and her family. We hung out by the pool, ate together, played cards. It was fantastic. And not just because it was so much fun. It was also fantastic because I'm fascinated with the "white" lifestyle. This facination may have come about because I grew up in a predominately white neighborhood. Or maybe it was because I only had white Barbie dolls. Or maybe I watched one too many sitcoms. Who knows? All I know is, that for some reason, I've always been fascinated by what it's like to be white. Growing up, I loved going over to my friends' houses and just take it all in. Everything was just so different compared to mine. Meatloaf, soccer games, church - I thought it was so neat to have those regular things in your life. We certainly never had those things in my family. If I really think about it, part of my fascination could be because I thought that was how things were supposed to be for families. Perhaps I just wanted to live vicariously through my friends and hope that what I took in would help me fit in that much more. I guess I felt I had to learn about how I thought families functioned since that wasn't what was happening at home. The fascination continued as I grew up, moved out west and even after I found others with similar upbringings to mine. And it still continues to this day. It sounds like I should be in therapy to get over my self-loathing, right? I don't see it that way. I feel that part of the reason that I'm so proud to be Asian is because of my facination. From being over at my friends, I learned that siblings are going to fight over who gets the last drumstick, whether it's Shake n Bake or soy sauce chicken. Parents are going to bicker over how much things cost whether it's in English or Cantonese. It was reassuring to know that even though me and my family were different in many ways, we were as American as our blonde-haired, blue-eyed neighbors. |
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