It’s hot. So extremely hot and sticky outside. I can feel my hair follicles sticking to my scalp. As I’m walking in the streets around my campus in search of food, all I can think about is my makeup melting away.

I’m standing next to my friend. She has fair skin, a quirky smile, and a slight accent from where she’s from.

We look at each restaurant and see what tickles our fancy. They’re all pretty small, and lacking air conditioning, but we just stop at the busiest looking one.

As we reach an empty table, right away they look at me for some sort of response. I hear a bombardment of Chinese words. In my head I’m thinking once again they are assuming and mistaking me for someone else… 

And it is true. Each person that speaks to me in Chinese is thinking of me as someone that I am not. Just because of my appearance. Just because of my hair. My face. My little Chinese eyes. But as you probably guessed, I’m an American born Chinese. Raised in New Jersey. I took a couple classes to learn Chinese, but to be honest I took Spanish for 5 years instead. Yet for me, going to China was my chance to jumpstart my language growth, and to be more at one with my roots.

But it is a challenge at times having people already have an impression of you even before you speak. It’s even worst when they realize their impression of you was wrong and they get disappointed.

I look up at the server speaking to me. I just wave my hands and say “Duibuqi, wo bu shou zhongwen”, which translates to “Sorry, I don’t speak Chinese”. Sigh, once again I use the only sentence I know in Chinese. But with time I hope to see things change. I hope to grow from this and take the shame I feel and use it to my advantage. To be stronger than I am now.

Stay tuned,

Jessica