A Tale of Two Worlds

by Anna Harris

On my seventh birthday, I requested my two favorite foods for dinner: Kraft macaroni and cheese and Peking duck. In my mind there was nothing wrong with pairing the two dishes, one a cheap, from-a-box American staple, the other a rich Chinese delicacy. My mouth watered as I envisioned the cheesy pasta- fun shaped, of course- alongside the greasy, smoky tenderness of the duck, which would be served the traditional Asian way with its head still intact (picture the final scene from A Christmas Story). My mom raised her eyebrows but willingly complied, smiling as she set the table with both forks and chopsticks.

I can’t think of a better way to illustrate the two worlds in which I grew up and my attempts to make sense of and reconcile them. Born in Seattle, I moved to China with my parents when I was only two months old. I lived the first few years of my life in Chengdu, a city known for its grime and smog, in the heart of Sichuan province, which is famous for its mouth-numbingly spicy food. While my parents taught English at a nearby university, I spent my mornings and afternoons with my beloved Po-po, who took me on outings and completely coddled and spoiled me. When I was old enough, I went to school at the neighborhood kindergarten. I don’t remember much aside from music time, when my teacher churned out tunes from a rickety old pump organ. I think I must have been about this age when I began to notice that I looked different from everyone around me. Whenever my parents and I were in public, everyone gawked at us, and perfect strangers clustered around to glimpse my blue eyes and finger my blonde hair. “Piao-liang!” (pretty) they’d comment on my Caucasianness.

I recall being put on a stage at the last minute with a group of girls from my kindergarten. We were all dressed in blue and white outfits and had red lipstick dots on our foreheads. It was parents’ night and we were doing some type of dance involving oranges. But I hadn’t learned the dance, and I felt incredibly awkward the entire time as I looked at the girls around me and tried to copy their movements. I couldn’t understand why Chinese people were so fascinated by us foreigners and why my teachers seemed to give me extra attention.

Grocery shopping was another event that always drew gazes to my mom, my tow-headed sister and I. Mom would wheel my sister’s stroller through the narrow aisles at the neighborhood market and balance her bags on the handles. Everyone would stare; some people offered us candy and practiced the few English phrases they knew by calling out “Hello! OK!” I thought they sounded ridiculous. The market was a mixture of pungent smells and hawkers sold strange items like huge black mushrooms and ginseng roots. I always wrinkled my nose at the sight of raw meat hanging from hooks with flies buzzing around. The butcher would weigh the meat on an old fashioned hanging scale and grind it by hand in a filthy meat grinder. On one of our shopping trips I spotted a tall woman with long grey hair and light skin. “Look Mom! An American!” I exclaimed, so rare was it to see a white person who wasn’t one of our missionary friends.

And then there was life in America, where we returned for a short furlough every few years. I loved summers at my grandparents’ Tennessee farm, where I would walk around barefoot in the grass and pick up my cousins’ southern drawl. We did our shopping at Wal-mart where everything was shiny and clean and conveniently packaged. We went everywhere by car, not by bicycle or taxi like we did in China. And we looked like everyone else! But here I was different, too. Once people found out I was an MK from China they pummeled me with questions and demands of “Say something in Chinese!”

Yes, I was a part of two worlds. In one I longed to dye my hair jet black and wear sunglasses in public; in the other I wanted, like a participant in the Witness Protection Program, to keep my past a secret and to be normal. Ordinary. To blend in. When we moved back to Washington for an extended furlough, I enrolled in a private Christian academy. It was my first experience in an American school. Throughout that first year, I avoided telling people that my parents were missionaries. In fact, I was a little embarrassed by the fact. Here was my chance, I thought, to be average.

I loved America: it was cleaner, I looked and talked like everyone else, and there were libraries! We lived in a roomy house with a huge backyard to play in; so different from the tiny concrete foreigners’ compound we’d just moved from. But a squiggly journal entry from this period shows that I was not completely content: “Today was aful. I miss all my friends in China.”

People often asked me which I liked better, America or China. They might as well have asked me which of my feet was my favorite, right or left. Both were a part of me. I could never choose one over the other. I wanted with all of my heart to somehow pick up America and drop it in the center of China. Then I could live in both of my homes and have everything and everyone I loved in the same place at once.

In a way, I’d say that I began to go through an identity crisis. Who was I really? I’d always defined myself by where I’d lived, the cultures I belonged to. That’s what had always dictated what I did and how I acted. In China I could spit wherever I wanted; in America that was definitely taboo. In China we had a nanny who cooked for us, cleaned up after us, and took my sister and me to the kiosk to buy bubblegum whenever we wanted. In America we had to keep our rooms clean and perform the duties on our chore lists.

I had always depended on my background to give me the assurance that I was special, and, although I often tired of being different, it could also be a good thing. But what if I had never been to China? What if I had only spoken one language my whole life? Would I still be unique? Did people really like me for me? What was my personality like, and did I even have one?

My mom always says that children under 12 aren’t mature enough to be left home alone, that you don’t get common sense until you’re 21, and that it wasn’t until she reached her thirties that she truly knew who she was and had confidence in herself and in God. I think I may have inherited that from her. I thought that after coming to college I would find myself; that once I knew my calling, my questions would be answered. However, while I’ve received some answers, I have also found many more questions. And once again I’m torn between two countries, two worlds. A country called “Home” and a country called “College.” A world called “Adulthood” and a world called “Adolescence.” Once again, the worlds are struggling inside me.

Over the last two years, I have gained confidence and picked up some responsibility. But a look at a recent journal entry will reveal that I have a ways to go: “God, who am I? Sometimes I really have no idea. I don’t know if I’m being myself, or copying people around me and trying to be someone I think they’ll like. I’m so complex! But I’m so glad that You know me, the real me. You know me better than I know myself, and You deeply love the real me, so she must be pretty OK.”

Published in the 2009 issue of the Lee Review.