Where to Start - The Urge of Finding My Voice

It has been almost two years and three months since I moved to Minnesota. In a way, I stranded myself from all kinds of familiarities from the day I moved, almost intentionally. At that time, I grew tired of the never-changing, almost toxic sunshine in Northern California, the self-segregated cultural circle, and knowing that I would never become the best researcher in the lab, I was happy to escape.

What I was going to embrace excited me. I was going to become a breakfast cereal developer. This sense of excitement is hard to explain: For one, I did not grow up in a culture eating cereal for breakfast. For the other, we all know cereal industry has passed its peak (at least in the US). But the excitement trumped my personal reality and industry reality. I knew I could make something impactful in the "mainstream" American culture and lives, as an immigrant, as a non-citizen, as a hot/savory breakfast loving Chinese.

Two years after I landed in the North Star state, a hard reality started to hit me. I realized I could not find my voice, or to be exact, a group voice sharing my thoughts, my experience, and my perspective. Having lived in a country for 18 years that groupthink dominated the daily life almost too comfortably, and spent 6 years in Ivory towers on both East and West coasts finding like-minded peeps too easily, I started to struggle to make myself easily understood in my Minnesota life.

In all honesty, I love Minnesota. People are nice, cities are clean, life is affordable, industries prosper. I feel it home. However, I find myself always trying very, very hard to fit in this new home, paying more effort than ever before. I started to call soda "pop", using "you betcha" a lot, affiliate myself with "the U", pronounce bag as "b-ei-g", sketch State Capitol and got reposted by State Senate, cheer for the Vikings, join people in the brewery, and make sloppy joes. I even bought a Minnesota Wild hat, with the risk of bearing the side-eyes from my fellow Chinese friends because wearing a green hat means your significant other is cheating on you in Chinese culture. This is a real effort.

But I grew up as a rebel. Since young, I have rebelled by attending school away from my home school district, I have rebelled by standing up against teacher's propaganda; I have rebelled by confronting the military officer who used improper language at the military training; I have rebelled by moving to a 30,000-people town for college after having lived in the center of a mega city for 18 years; I have rebelled by entering an industry where Chinese immigrants felt hard to strive due to culture difference; I have rebelled by refusing to relocate to places where there is a large Asian population. Ironically, I escaped a certain type of mainstream, only to find myself trying to fit in another type of mainstream. 

I used to think the identity crisis is a first-world problem, and growing up in a third-world country (or at least it used to be) has immunized me from this problem. The truth is, I chose the definite path of having an identity crisis, by almost always choosing to stay away from familiarity. It is amusing that the most recent time I found a familiar and amicable voice was from the book Americanah, a novel traces the path of a Nigerian woman moving to the US, shuffling in and out from her Nigerian community and culture root. For most of the time, the lack of "my voice" bothers me. But I also realize it might not be an identity crisis, it is just an identity void. No one speaks my language doesn't necessarily mean I am confused,  it just means that I need to speak louder so that the other can at least have a starting point to understand me. I need to create my own voice.

This is why I decided to start this blog. The profound risk of using a second language to catch the personal feelings might cause some confusion, but I come here seek to be understood. If any questions, ask me.

Let's start here,

Shan