Will the real Slim Shady please stand up…

I’m in a quandary….. this quandary Is the genesis to the title of my blog from which I took from a book by Eric Liu, The Accidental Asian.

As I mentioned previously, I’m of Filipino descent but born and raised in West Africa, educated in the United States and currently living and working in Shanghai, China. Now, just in that statement most people would think that I would have some sort of cultural identity crisis. Well that’s not the case, in fact, it’s quite the contrary. I think the vast diversity of my youth gave me the context in which to strengthen who and what I am. That being said, my cultural and ethnic ambivalence did not really manifest until I moved to China a few months ago.

You see, I’ve always been able to navigate through all the different cultures growing up precisely due to the color of my skin. I recall growing up in Liberia and being aware that I was “dark” enough to play with all the “native” Liberian kids and “light” enough to play with the white expat kids.

Moving to Los Angeles was an even easier transition. LA is the epitome of a melting pot. Hell, finding a true California native is difficult task onto itself. Everyone is from somewhere else so needless to say people are just people and they didn’t have huge signs posted on thier foreheads and all this cultural baggage in which to define them. Contrary to popular thought it was easy to be colorblind in LA or for that matter, color and culture blind in the US.

Now fast forward to present day. Living and working in Asia (mostly China) has proven to be very difficult precisely because of the color of my skin and the way I look. I have been judged and patronized more times (on a daily basis) in 8 months here than I have in over 20 years in the US and 13 years in Africa. The irony is that the more I try and assimilate the more negative feedback I get. I guess it’s because the locals think I’m Chinese and they view me as a weak link to the Chinese Culture or a spoiled ABC (American Born Chinese) doing the whole “Roots” thing. After a while it’s become more humorous more than anything. All my friends that are Lawai (foreigners) have a great time with this quandary and it provides great fun and entertainment for them to watch me “sweat it out” with the locals as they cruise on by on their “golden pass” of having blond hair and blue eyes.

I’ve had this experience several times already where I would be having lunch with others that are Lawai but have all lived in various parts of China for a while and can speak fluent Mandarin; I’d be the only one at the table that does not speak Mandarin and the waiter or waitress will walk up to me and ask me to order. I get that part. The part that I’m still trying to figure out is after my terrible attempt in broken Mandarin to explain that I cannot speak the language and after all the Lawais tell the server in perfect and flawless Mandarin that I cannot speak and they will be the one to order, the server will always come back to me numerous times during our meal to ask me questions while the Lawais answer them for me.

Then there is the blatant mistreatment. Through work Christina scored some sweet VIP tickets to both the NBA games and the BMW golf finals. Both times I invited Americans since my co-workers expressed no interest at all. At the entry gates at both events I get hauled off to the side and almost given a full cavity search while Cole, Eric and Jeff breeze right in. While I’m trying to explain that I am the one that gave the tickets to the Lawais they insist on continuing to yell at me in Chinese. Good grief!

Then there's Japan, nothing too bad. It’s just that when we travel there, Christina (who’s half Korean by the way which is more Asian than I am), gets that same “golden pass” when we walk into the plane, store, restaurant (fill in the blank) and I get the local treatment which I must say is much nicer than the local treatment in China. Like I said earlier, I get it but it’s just not some thing that I’ve ever experienced in the States.

Finally there’s my Motherland, the Good ole Philippine Islands. I haven’t been there since 1976 when we were there on a 2 week family vacation. I was sure that this would be the one place that I could count on to feel right at home. Well, I was wrong again, this one is priceless because in my parents own little township, no one believed that I was Filipino. I had to convince my own people that I am one of them and that I have some sort of birth right to be here. Everyone thought that I was Chinese, Japanese or Korean. Fortunately here it worked to my advantage. I could understand the language (which was a pleasant surprise that I will elaborate on) yet not get treated like a local.

Doing the whole “Prodigal Son returns home” thing was an amazing experience for me. I even think Christina was profoundly affected by my homecoming. Although I would not consider myself culturally conflicted due to my upbringing, I’ve always thought of myself as a “weak link” to my ethnicity. My parents didn’t raise us Filipino (whatever that means) and never taught us our mother tongue. I’m still pissed about that but that’s another story. However, my parents did speak Visaya to one another and to friends and older members of our family. Because of that I could understand a little (I think by osmosis, which by the way is how I got through school…but I digress once again) but what I could not do was think of the words to speak the language or differentiate between Visaya and Tagalog (the national dialect) because the 2 dialects were always intermingled in everyday speak.

When Christina and I went to Cebu I had an amazing experience. We were walking through Carbon which is one of the local outdoor markets and to my surprise I understood almost everything that everyone was saying. Imagine, you’re a stranger in a strange land (relatively speaking of course) with a foreign language but you can understand about 90% of everything that someone is saying. I didn’t think I understood my parent’s language but once it is distilled into its purest form and not used with English or Tagalog, I got it!

These new experiences in Asia have really opened my eyes to a whole new meaning of diversity and the relevance of our external appearance. I must give kudos to the West for really attempting (although not perfect) to be color and culture blind. Here, on a side of the world where everyone looks like me, my quandary is “…mmmm…who am I going to be today”….will the real slim shady please stand up….