Becoming Asian

Six months ago, I got on a plane and flew across the world to a land completely foreign to me. I didn’t know the language, barely knew the food, and only had vague ideas of the culture from what I’d heard in history class and seen on television. In a lot of ways, it was the same venture that my own parents made when they each left India for the United States. The only difference, albeit a huge one, was that I knew I’d be going back home and they knew they wouldn’t.

I started in nations that were almost completely homogenous—Japan and China—then moved to nations that appeared homogenous but had deep, underlying conflicts of religion, culture and caste, and language—India and Sri Lanka. Finally, I moved to nations that appeared to be success stories of melting pots and diversity, the beautiful picture I have always hoped for America—Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore. Yet, even with these visions of perfection, there were darker sides to how it was achieved, an unnerving insight into the people who were crushed under the foundation stones of each society. (FYI: Indigenous populations are treated like shit everywhere.)

When I first arrived to the continent, the politics of self-identification were murky. Each time I had to explain that, yes I was born in America and have an American passport and have always lived there, it somehow stung even more than when these incidents happen at home. It was a double-edged sword of confusion. I saw the remnants of colonialism as brains white washed to think that the image of America was one of a psychotic business man running the country, money and power falling from the sky, and beautiful, skinny white people ruling the world. (The other pain was how parts of these beliefs weren’t far from the truth stretched just an inch further.) But I also questioned my own necessity to identify as such; why was I so uncomfortable, so pained to be seen as Asian?

Loved celebrating Chinese New Year in Hong Kong with Cathy, another Bonderman Fellow, and being able to share and discuss our experiences thus far.

As always, the answer to this is also not straightforward. The histories I have with being Asian, specifically Indian, are deep and dark and convoluted. I spent many (subconscious) years hiding my identity and everything about me that made me different. I was ashamed to wear Indian clothing any place that my school friends may see me, I obviously never brought Indian food to school or fed it to my friends when they came over, and I ensured that my knowledge of American pop culture was up to date, even though I wasn't allowed to consume anything besides PBS Kids until the age of 10. Yet, I also had to balance this with working to pursue the dreams my immigrant parents had for me, preserving my heritage in a culture that was all too unfamiliar and willing to erase it.

I learned how to act whiter and, thus, more American. And less Asian. 

But, as I’ve seen over the last several months, being Asian comes in many forms, as does being American. Being an American abroad, and being seen as American, was not so much about nationalism as it was about feeling ownership and prowess when it comes to the English language, being recognized as someone with education and intellect, and as an independent woman who comes from a nation that, ironically, is seen as having a liberal and modern understanding of race, class, relationships, love, and life.

It took me quite some time to come to this realization, and perhaps it only happened in the last few weeks. But I did notice my desire to be identified as an outsider shift once I arrived in India. Suddenly, I looked like those around me and could be part of the group, the first time this has ever happened in my entire life. For those of you who have the privilege to feel this on a daily basis, trust me, it is truly a remarkable sensation to first experience this twenty-two years into my existence.

When I could “pass” as local, I felt a sense of pride. I’m sure there was also a certain elation with paying the cheaper/local prices at tourist spots, but being seen as “one of us” by those around me was a shock. In Japan and China, simply due to the make-up of the nations and my appearance, it had not been possible, and so I chose to identify with what I had been trained to think was the “better” of the two options: American over Asian. But, once I was given the chance to become part of the people, part of a community, my heart and mind took it immediately.

Only a few of the people who have been kind enough to "adopt" me while I was in Asia.

This trend continued as I traveled through Southeast Asia, which houses large diasporas of Indian (and even Sikh) populations who have been calling these countries home for several generations. People, comically, often tried to converse with me in Sinhala, Malay, or a variety of other local languages, so I learned to read body language quite well and give a good enough response through head nodding and shaking to satisfy them. (My accent is still strongly Midwestern, and so I couldn’t afford opening my mouth; it was a dead giveaway.) Although I had felt at home in India, comforted by my ability to navigate the local customs and culture while benefiting from the privilege of being American, I fell even more in love with Southeast Asia, melting pots of cuisines, languages, genetics, and more. I spent significantly more time in the area than I planned—almost triple—and still could not see myself leaving.

In my final days in Asia, my hosts in Singapore summed up my mixed feelings about leaving perfectly. Expats themselves, they had grown up in Malaysia and Sri Lanka, attended school in India, worked and raised children in the UK, and had now been living in Singapore for about five years. In my eyes, the perfect, nomadic existence. But, when I asked how they felt about returning to the UK next year, “going home” in simple terms, I saw anxiety. They told me: “Leaving Asia will be….hard. We never thought we’d leave only to come back. But, in Asia, you’re not the other. You’re simply another. There is no fight for existence.”

Once I was able to let go of my need to be better, fueled by an embarrassment of these identities, and stopped clinging to my American privilege, I saw the beauty in these nations. Their histories run thousands of years deeper than any of the nations by which they were colonized and ravaged, and yet they still strive to succeed despite the ruins that were left behind by greed and desire. In Asia, I saw a chance for many communities to live happily and successfully together with no notion of one deserving it more than the other. I saw the chance to stand in a crowded train during rush hour and be seen and see others as myself, despite physical or mental or emotional difference. After a long time, I saw a chance to be proud in a place that I belong to, and that’s a feeling I hope to hold on to, long after I’ve left.

Asia + Harleen = Bliss :)

Diaspora, Nostalgia, & Becoming Something

“Sometimes we feel we straddle two cultures; at other times, that we fall between two stools.”

— Salman Rushdie

Out of all the questions I get about the Bonderman Fellowship—from “how did you convince your school to give you $20,000?” to “how does your husband feel about you traveling the world alone?”—there’s one that I, somewhat surprisingly, have barely been asked. Why did you even want to do this fellowship?

The only time I remember someone asking me is actually during the interview for the fellowship. I recall the anecdotes I shared of being first-generation American, wanting to work with immigrant populations in my future career, and hoping to understand these identities before I begin my work. I talked about past internships on Capitol Hill and with advocacy organizations, future hopes of a career in policy and education, and a desire to bring together communities who have been separated by their individual and collective struggles in finding new homes. I thought that, through these months of traveling, I could start to string together an idea of what these identities mean and how they are translated across oceans and miles of earth. But, as it often is, even this has proven to be much more difficult and complicated than I expected.

“you broke the ocean in

half to be here

only to meet nothing that wants you

–immigrant”

— Nayyirah Waheed

In my trip to Sri Lanka, I decided to make a small change in how I had been traveling. Rather than try to travel throughout the country and visit a variety of places, I wanted to simply get to know one place, one community, very well. I was lucky to find an incredible host family in the south, in an area called Dharga Town. Part of the Tamil Muslim population of Sri Lanka, they also knew the notion of being a minority in your own home. I also resonated with their ideas of many homes, of being part of the diasporic identities that define so many generations today. Although from Sri Lanka, the husband and wife had spent many years in Malaysia, while the wife pursued higher education. Four of their five children were born there before they returned to Sri Lanka, and the oldest ones have fond memories of their early childhood in Kuala Lumpur.

One night, after dinner, I was speaking with the wife as the five kids slowly nodded off after a long day of school and play. She shared stories of her time in Kuala Lumpur, of her classmates, and all the outings and adventures they would have. She talked about how much she loved the diversity of her school, and all the different cultures she was able to learn about. This, in part, is what inspired her and her husband to start hosting travelers. They wanted their children to continue to learn about the world, even after leaving the melting pot of KL. As she talked, she paused on a story of one of her friends who had moved to the States. “You know, she got married and left, and I never really heard from her again….I guess that’s what happens when people leave.”

Just a few weeks later, my dad was sent to India for a business trip, specifically to his childhood city of New Delhi. I called him a day or so after his arrival to ask how he was enjoying it, particularly because it was also his first time back in 16 years. All he said was, “Everything is different. It’s all changed.” It was enough for me to understand. Even in all my moving around in the States, I’ve never been able to move past my anxiety of change. Because it’s inevitable. As much as our prior hometowns and friends and families change, so do we. And when we “come home” or try to “go back,” there’s only hints of what we used to know.

“The formation of a diaspora could be articulated as the quintessential journey into becoming; a process marked by incessant regroupings, recreations, and reiteration. Together these stressed actions strive to open up new spaces of discursive and performative postcolonial consciousness.”

— Okwui Enwezor

The struggle of diaspora, of immigrants, is not only the struggle to have others understand your identity, but even to figure out how to identify yourself. We are constantly changing through our experiences, defined by the communities around us and the labels attached to us. When someone asks, “where are you from?” they hope to create an image of you based on notions of a country that you simply reside in, whose own history often does not reflect your own.

Above photos: Although not much physical difference in the famous Taj Mahal hotel over the 30+ years since my dad last saw it, the history of it has changed. In 2008, the Taj experienced a terrorist attack in which hundreds were taken hostage and killed inside this hotel, and many others, in Mumbai. Events change things as much as appearance.

As I’ve tried to gain an understanding of the immigrant experience, I’ve seen how varied and intricate identities can be, whether it is that of one community or even an individual. Even a person who has lived in one town their entire life is impacted by the separate parts of their collective identity, and it is all these parts together that shape the way they view their world. Through traveling, I’ve become more realistic about how much I can truly learn about the countries I’m visiting and the cultures that I’m experiencing. Although I can gain small bits of knowledge and broaden my awareness to become more accepting, in reality, I still won’t know that much more about these communities than when I began.

So, then, how can I work towards my goal of creating a better environment for immigrants and their children in the US, particularly given today’s political climate? I think it comes through aiding this journey of “becoming,” and creating an environment that allows an immigrant to fully delve in and start their process of consciousness in a new home. Ensuring that basic measures are taken for the health, safety, and happiness of these communities will allow them to focus on creating their own notion of self and family in a new nation. As we all try to open our minds and hearts to these communities, even though they may be much different than our own, we must understand that it is a mutual process of learning. Diaspora is not just about the country that a people left behind, but also the place that they’ve landed, and the people who embrace you and ask, “how can we make you feel at home?”—rather than turn their backs—make all the difference.

The Colonized Mind

I sat on the crowded, cement bleachers watching school children rush down to the street in their wrinkled, white and navy blue uniforms. Old speakers blared grainy-quality bhangra and Bollywood music as dozens of girls formed smaller circles with their friends, their shoulders bouncing up and down while their hands circled the air above them.  Indian soldiers stood by watching, keeping the boys in the bleachers to form their own lines of friends, making their best effort to show off their dancing skills in the crowded seating area. Keeping the boys separate from the girls was apparently the easiest way to assume nothing too scandalous—or dangerous—happened. After watching for a few minutes, I started to let my mind wander, watching some construction workers repairing the bleachers across the road. One of the worker’s toddler ran back and forth on one of the rows, keeping himself occupied while his father made money for their dinner.

Suddenly, there was a roar from the crowd, and I looked back down to the street. A few white tourists—again, only females—had joined the dancing students, causing excitement for the local Indians. The crowd cheered and clapped while school girls quickly brought the women into their circles, teaching them moves from the most recent Bollywood film. Pre-teen girls fought over the white women, and I watched as one of the tourists stepped back to pull out her iPhone and take a video of her friends with the school girls, then turning around to film the crowd cheering them on. I wondered how she would caption it when she shared it on social media.

Crowd waiting for the daily flag lowering ceremony at Waga border, the only open entry point between India and Pakistan.

I lifted my eyes again, first to the right, where the Indian flag flew in the wind above a portrait of Gandhi, and then to the left where the Pakistani flag flew above a portrait of Nehru. In between stood the metal gate, separating two pieces of land which used to be one. I looked down at the ground where I sat—at the breaking point of Punjab—between portraits of the two men who split an entire people into two.

***

After a delicious lunch at a Himalayan restaurant, I walked through the old architecture along the water in Hauz Khas with a friend from Michigan. She, Indian-American like me, had moved to Delhi after undergrad, and we were spending the afternoon catching up.

We make our way through holes and stairwells, jumping off ledges where a step or two have broken from stone to rubble. A few passerby hear bits of our American English and glance at us, but, after seeing our faces and the color of our skin, most assume their ears have played a trick on them, and they continue talking with their own friends.

My friend talks about living in India and passing as local, I talk about traveling through and passing as local, even though I know less about India than the ex-pats living here. We make our way back to the parking lot where we will go our separate ways. As we walk towards the exit, a group of three Indian boys almost runs into us, as two of the boys hold back one of their friends who seems to be running after something.

My friend and I follow his gaze and see a white girl, walking away, not realizing what is happening behind her. The boys laugh and shove each other playfully and my friend and I share a knowing glance, barely leaving a pause in our conversation as we continue walking.

***

“Aap kahaan se hain?”

Where are you from?

Sometimes I say Punjab, sometimes Delhi, sometimes I say both. Wherever I am, I tend to say somewhere besides there. But, for the most part, I’ve stopped saying America.

If I did, their faces would scrunch up with confusion, and I know they would want to ask the never-ending follow-up: No, where are you really from? Even in India, it seems I can’t escape this question.

Traditional Indian banyan tree, known for large branches that extend down to the ground, creating new roots and thus new trees.

When describing someone who has come to visit, or a person who is from another place, Punjabis will describe said person as “baahro(n) aaieaa,” or from “the outside.” In America, I am also often told that I am an outsider. White tourists in India look at me as if I am infringing on their perfectly manicured vacation and white Americans want me to leave “their” country.

So, although I feel a twinge of guilt each time I lie about where I’m from, how else can I describe everything that happened and continues to happen in the dash between Indian and American? How do I quickly explain that my dad came alone for better educational opportunities and my mom fled from government corruption and genocide? How do I explain in a few sentences that, even with my thick midwestern accent and American passport, I still struggle to find my identity in a nation I call home? How do I summarize that my parents fought battles I cannot even fathom so that I could one day travel the world on someone else’s dollar?

“Mai Dilli se hoo(n).”

“Mai Punjab tho(n) hai.”

I’m from Delhi, I’m from Punjab.

At least here I am.

***

A Nepali man in Goa makes a circling motion around his head, then signals to mine and asks me, “You do this every day? In America, too?”

I realize that all men, whether in India and America, ask the same questions.

***

India may have gained her democratic freedom in 1947, but the minds of the people are still trapped in socially constructed ideologies from the West and fallout from the politics of more than one hundred years of British colonization.

Essentially every Indian I talked to—from a rich business man to a humble rickshaw driver—admitted that India’s government is as corrupt as it gets, despite boasting “the world’s largest democracy.” Yet, it is always in a matter-of-fact tone, as if reporting the weather. Apparently it is something that no one can change, as India has been ensnared in generations of bribery and family squabbles and a never-ending chase to please the Western nations that ruined it.

One of my favorite books I read in undergrad, perhaps for biased reasons, was Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children. Reading it was one of the first times that I felt any sort of nostalgia for India as a nation, or motherland, and when I started to gain an understanding of the meaning of the dash between my two intertwined ethnicities:

“Who what am I? My answer: I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all I have been seen done, of everything done-to-me. I am everyone everything whose being-in-the-world affected was affected by mine. I am anything that happens after I’ve gone which would not have happened if I had not come. Nor am I particularly exceptional in this matter; each “I”, everyone of the now-six-hundred-million-plus of us, contains a similar multitude. I repeat for the last time: to understand me, you’ll have to swallow a world.”

In remembering this quote, I found some peace for my confusion, for why I actually feel at home in a nation that has caused so much pain for my community. Why, as soon as I landed, it felt like 16 years had passed in the blink of an eye. Even in a country whose government would blame me for my own murder, because I decided to be a Sikh, or my own rape, because I was stupid enough to be born a woman. Even here, I for some reason feel like I belong.

Despite all of its wrongdoing and injustice, India has reminded me that I am part of a larger world and a history that started before me and will continue after me. Nations will be born whose names I will never know and other nations will disappear before my eyes, just like my own Punjab has. But my duty is to remember that I am part of this, as we are all part of this world. And it is all of our words and actions together that will create a history for future generations, from which they can create their own version of the world.

Lessons from China (or why museums are the best)

Just like that, another month and another country have passed by. This trip is going so much faster than I expected, so I took the last week to reflect and recuperate in Hong Kong. China certainly proved to be a challenging and trying experience, but I'm excited about all the connections I made, all the personal growth I saw, and, of course, all I learned. Here's what I'm leaving with:

History is Often about Who Discovered It and When

I've always been a museum junkie. Perhaps it's because my childhood was shaped by them. Instead of trips to the movies or arcades or wherever else kids spent their free time, my dad took every opportunity he could—even on family vacations—to take me to a museum. So, whenever there's been a rainy day so far, I had no pause about how I would spend it.

Poly-chrome glazed statues, developed during the Tang Dynasty.

One such day in Xi'an, I made my way to the Shaanxi History Museum, the largest museum in the province. I became a part of the large holiday crowds and snaked through tourist groups, taking extra care to find the few descriptions that had been loosely translated to English. I remember the pangs of jealousy as I saw others deeply discussing the artifacts in front of them, reading detailed timelines and historical contexts. I suppose I could have spent money on a guided English tour, but I'm still very much in frugal college student mode and find it hard to spend on anything more than food and a roof over my head.

What I could read, however, were the titles and dates of all the objects, and this was enough to leave an impact. As I went from one object to the next, I saw bronze vessels from over 3000 years ago, the start of modern-day ceramics, and Buddha statues scraping the ceiling. Although I shouldn't have been surprised, all I kept thinking was how much more vast this country's history was compared to the US, and yet if not for an awesome AP World teacher, I would have heard nothing about it.

Walter Benjamin said that "History is written by the victors," but it's also written by those who gave themselves the power to write it. China's history, as well as India and many other colonized nations, is thousands of generations deeper than the US, but youwouldn't know it by watching our news or asking the average student what they know about the countries on the other side of the globe in their classroom.

I keep reminding myself that all of these issues are deeply intertwined with modern-day problems with immigration and international policy. Western nations' refusal to acknowledge the significance and contributions of other nations started with the first white man that docked a ship on land that wasn't his and will continue with the Donald Trumps and Rush Limbaughs of the world. Until we see that history is more colorful and intricate and deeper than we can ever know, and we acknowledge all the players in this complicated story, we cannot understand the full picture.

The Importance and Power of Communication

China is filled with expats. The opportunity to teach English is not limited in any sense. As someone with a degree in English, and several years of teaching experience, I was pushed even further towards this type of work. Thus, a week of my time in China was spent in the beautiful village of Yangshuo, at an English college for adults.

I had only taught children before, so the idea of having students that were all my age or older was a bit nerve-wracking. I also had very mixed feelings about teaching English, not wanting to contribute to the notion that one must speak English to have success, but also understanding that I have privilege in being able to hold that opinion, too. After all, it is only because my parents were able to leave India that I "speak English like they do on TV," as I've been told time and time again.

Perhaps I let go of these emotions because of how much I bonded with the students and other teachers, or because I couldn't find an answer for my internal debate. But, one day (at yet another museum I should add), I stumbled upon a page from the Canton Weekly News, a paper for the Guangdong region.

Excerpt from the Canton Weekly News regarding the existence of a bilingual paper.

In it, the paper justified its usage of both Cantonese and English, stating that through this bilingual existence, they allowed a link between multiple worlds, and also gave a chance for those learning new languages to practice and understand.

I also thought about the number of times I had felt frustrated or lonely or powerless because of my lack of language skills in Japan and China. How many times I had wished that learning Japanese or Mandarin could happen in a few days instead of a few years. I thought about how much power my students talked about feeling once they had reached the upper level classes, and how much shame came with not being able to speak English for the new students. With language comes identity and with identity comes pride. It is all about a level of self-recognition.

In this, I realized the issue is not that people want to learn English, it is that native English-speakers often refuse to learn other languages. The number of expats I met who had lived in China for years even and could not speak a single word in Mandarin nor Cantonese was astounding. These individuals perhaps felt that (and many unashamedly said this) they did not need to learn another language because they knew the only one that matters. And perhaps in some ways this is true, but only because people continue to state it as the truth. In denying the importance of a language, you deny the importance of a people. By validating communication between all types of people, all levels of literacy, and all different languages, we can open up new worlds, just like the Canton Weekly News hoped to do.

We're More Similar—and Different—Than We Think

On yet another rainy day at a museum, this time in Shanghai, I wandered through more than five floors of exhibits to see as much as I could before the museum closed in a few hours. I knew that I couldn't see everything, so I picked up a museum map and checked to see what caught my eye. Immediately, one exhibit stuck out: the Chinese Minority Nationalities' Art Gallery. I made my way up to the top floor and walked into the exhibit, immediately struck by colors and patterns all over.

I wandered around, taking in beautiful coats, pants, dresses, jewelry, weapons, theatre props, and more—all handmade, as I had to keep telling myself. What was even more remarkable than the the incredible designs and details, however, was how much these things reminded me of others.

I saw a headdress that reminded me of Native American headdresses. Uyghur designs pulled from all parts of the Muslim world, reminding me of both South Asian and Arab designs. The theatrical masks were reminiscent of those I had seen in Japan. The more I saw, the more I remembered other things I had once seen. The diversity of China was not only its own, but also of the whole world.

In China, I saw things unlike that which I had ever seen before, some which I'm sure I did not understand, but I also met strangers with whom I connected within our first five minutes of conversation. I did my best do broaden my understanding outside of what I had been taught of China and I believe that I did, but I look forward to continuing my learning and continuing to move forward.

Traditional outfits showcased in the Chinese Minority Nationalities' gallery.

love letters to china, part iii

china,

i'm quite awful at goodbyes, which you'll see in just a few days now.

what is home really? as a girl who lived in three states and attended school in at least five different school districts before college, i'm not sure that i'm qualified to speak on this. (you'd think this would make me better at goodbyes, too. sadly not.) but somehow, i feel that traveling to more places has allowed me to better realize what this four letter word could possibly mean.

Father showing son around Beijing.

teaching at english to adults a school in yangshuo, i spent my "cultural presentation" night talking about the history of chinese americans. i felt that it would touch on both my students' history and my own. when i finished, a young man asked me, "would you ever go back to india?"

my mind fixated on the idea of "going back," since i had never arrived in india in the first place, but i tried to share—in my simplest english—the current state of affairs. thinking of the bloodshed and the police brutality and the government-mandated curfew and how i could never go back because punjab and especially india were never mine to begin with. but never was america. and so i cannot go back to anywhere.

my first night in shanghai, my dad's old colleague took me out to dinner and remarked how on his recent business trip to mumbai he had realized how similar india and china were. i nodded and tried to say something intelligent, but i had never thought about it before, to be honest. how could i, since i'm not even sure what india is like to begin with? yet i have always been homesick for the land i do not know.

china has been a funny experience because it has both made me thankful for parts of america i did not even think to be thankful for, but it has also made me feel welcome in new places and given me friends and companionship and confidence and strength. it has taught me how to bargain a vendor in a language i can barely count to ten in and how to signal for which fruit or dumplings i want to buy for breakfast and how to pick street food based on photos and semi-familiar chinese signs.

thank you, china, for making me feel home.

thank you for teaching me and reminding me how we are more similar than different. how even in the deepest parts of your history i am reminded of my own—both the american and punjabi parts of it. your rice terraces remind me of farmland in punjab and midwestern america, your neon lights and skyscrapers reminiscent of new york, your tuk tuks and scooters and traffic like the streets in india, and your pride and strength like all people have—or hope to have—of their own home.

Muslim Quarter shops, Xi'an

what is home, really? i think it's the woman doing laundry in front of her house who smiles and gives directions without me even asking, through gestures and laughs, when she sees me wandering lost in the streets. it's the driver who cannot find my hostel at the address i gave him but signals for me to wait in the car while he runs up and down side streets in the pouring rain until he sees it. it's sitting in the lawn of a mosque after friday prayer and seeing all the kurtas and hijabs walk out into the street to the rest of their weekend. it's the street vendor who recognizes me from the day before and that i don't eat meat and brings up the same order for me again. it's the farmer who helps me get my bike out of a ditch when i take a wrong turn and end up losts in the villages of yangshuo county.

i sit in a bus and watch a grandma confidently eat cherries, or some fruit that looks like them, spitting the seeds to the ground without a second glance. i wish that i had the same confidence, to look forward and get rid of what is not needed without a doubt. i see how the sun has wrinkled her skin after years in the fields and happiness has wrinkled the corners of her eyes. perhaps she is going to pick up groceries from the next town or maybe she is going to see family. we make a stop and another woman gets on, they know each other, and they exchange banter lightly with laughs. eventually the second woman goes further back in the bus to sit down. the grandma returns to her cherries, seeds falling to the ground, her eyes never looking away from home.

love always,

h

love letters to china, part ii

hi again china,

how many foreigners have you seen on your country roads, grin plastered to their face, as they felt the wind while they fly across the dirt on their rented bikes? how many tourists have wandered the bund at night, their smiling eyes lit up by the neon lightbulbs that make it feel like day time? how many travelers have trekked with their backpacks across your paved sidewalks and dirt roads and felt as if they were discovering more of themselves than the foreign land they found themselves in?

Cycling around Yangshuo County.

i know i am not the first, but you made me feel like it. i felt like i was new, as i uttered semi-profound statements at late nights in hostels, my "friends" that i had made (not even 6 hours earlier) nodding and sharing their own profundities. we find love in all that is even semi-familiar because none of it is.

i hang out with the white american male who says stupid things with a confident arrogance that makes me want to break out my middle-school tae kwon do skills. but i stay quiet because the nasal way he pronounces his vowels and his familiarity with the great lakes and american politics remind me of home. i wander yongkang road in shanghai, filled with only expat bars, no intention to enter, but just letting the english roll off me. my ears miss familiar words. even as i sit in a much-too-expensive coffee shop, owned by an american, listening to the french girls next to me, i feel at home because the way they laugh and gesture and joke reminds me of it.

people told me before i left that the first time i would truly feel homesick is when i actually fell ill. perhaps this is true. but even as i learned how to vomit into a squat toilet, i felt that i had actually come home. by making me feel pain, i had felt welcome, because this is how america has taught me to understand home. there is not happiness without a great struggle, and my time here has certainly been a bit of both.

i have wondered almost every day when it is right and when it is okay for me to challenge others when they say something i find upsetting. somehow, in this cross-cultural, worlds away experience, it is no longer black and white. the anti-black jokes and privileged statements and debates about immigration and american politics all take a new spin because i am not in america but i am america now. i am part of the problem.

Biking on the old city wall, Xian.

sometimes i pass as someone from a neighboring land but as soon as i open my mouth my words and accent betray me and if it's not that it's the blue booklet of paper in my purse that gives me a ticket to almost anywhere. here, i am part of the problem. i'm the country that can't give up its love of killing machines enough to see that we're killing ourselves. i'm the country whose police are allowed to decide who lives and dies without trial. and i am the country that thinks any country that isn't white enough isn't good enough. because i am part of the problem, i think i cannot speak against it.

but it is good for me to realize this responsibility. as a woman of color in the u.s., i can often get by without claiming any, simply shouting about the discrimination i face and forgetting the ways i benefit too. your people have challenged me to see that i do have a role in all that goes wrong, because simply disagreeing is not enough. i see it in the way people bargain and how they don't stand in line and the manner in which they live. if something doesn't suit you, if something isn't right, you can't count on anyone to change it but yourself.

the first time i felt content in china—in urban china—was when i was pushing my way through crowds in the hutongs in nanluoguxiang during golden week. yes, the week where literally every single chinese person has holiday and all flock to the most famous parts of the country, like this market in beijing. yet, it was in this crowd, with all these people, smelling the food and the roar of voices and vendors shouting out their prices and goods, and families finding each other, celebrating together, that i finally felt why i had come.

i don't think i've ever fallen in love, but i believe that was the moment, if we were really two people to have a romantic relationship together. that was the one i would recall. in that moment i knew that i had come to see a people who had a history deeper than time itself and a beauty that no quality of camera or photo could capture and a culture that no number of blog posts or love letters or words could convey.

i had come to see this with my own eyes so, for the rest of my life, i could close my eyes each night and see it painted across the blacks of my eyelids for me to remember in my dreams.

yours truly,

harleen

New favorite coffee shop—in between a mountain and a farm in Yangshuo County.

love letters to china, part i

dear china,

i know we just met, but i feel that i owe you an apology.

on my first night in beijing, you rolled out the welcome carpet, no expense spared. your smells, your sounds, your tastes, all unfamiliar, wrapped around me, trying to give me a hug, but i'm afraid it was too much for me. you see, it takes me some time to open up to people. your kindness overwhelmed me, like a brown auntie who tries to feed her guests too much food, or an overenthusiastic supermarket greeter.

i did not know how to respond to your welcome, so, instead, i ran.

i wish i hadn't run.

Communist statue in Peasant Movement Institute.

i kept my head down and eyes closed. i ignored your smiles because i only saw unfriendly stares. i did not hear your sounds as signs of life, but i mistook them as indicators of how you had perhaps not understood the ways in which you were destroying it. i felt that somehow my presence allowed me to pass judgement on who you are and this was wrong.

i tried for a few days in beijing—explored the small hutongs with their lively shops, meandered through the sightseeing spots like summer palace and temple of heaven, visited the historic tiananmen square and saw the flag lowered at the end of the day. but on my third day, i went to the great wall, as all of us do, and i felt something else. i felt fresh air and saw a blue sky and i knew that somewhere in china, there was something that would feel like this every day. i needed to find it for my own good, and perhaps for my own comfort, too. i hope you understand.

i moved onto xi'an, where i explored, but i also hid from you more. i felt somewhat grateful when i fell sick, as it gave me an excuse to watch some tv shows on netflix. i used the rain as an excuse to spend more time in bed or at cafés, only venturing out for a few hours a day. i think, in a silly way, i was intimidated by you. it's always awkward to admit that to someone, isn't it? but i was. i saw something in you that i was afraid of. it seemed familiar but also completely new, and it took me some time to figure it out.

Old Buddhist bell near Small Goose Pagoda, Xi'an.

i understand now, though. for after i realized that i was wasting the time away, that our time was passing quicker than a midwestern summer, i entered your embrace. i walked out into the visible air and let myself feel the stares and shouts and smells and all of it. i looked deep into the eyes of your people and i finally recognized it: strength.

in your shouts and relentless horn honking, you refuse to be unheard. in your smells and dusty air, you refuse to be unseen. in your words and walk and manners, you refuse to let the world forget you exist.

to be frank, i think i fooled myself into thinking that simply coming to see you would allow me to break out of the western mentality that had made me think poorly of you in the first place. seeing you, though, was a reminder of how much america has crafted my brain and how hard i must work to reach outside of her.

you've taught me that an american mentality often means i expect the worst and hope for the best, i search for the bad in people because good is only a rarity, and it is a lucky day if i come back to my hostel alive. you also taught me that this is not the way i want to spend my eight-plus months outside america.

it's okay to trust strangers because most, if not all of the time, they will be good too. it's okay to laugh and smile when people stare because they're only curious and don't mean anything by it and it's okay to try and speak the little chinese i learned from my dictionary app because trying is better than nothing.

i'm thankful for the chance to explore a land with such rich history and people and culture. but i wish that i could have spent more time appreciating what was in front of me rather than misunderstanding it.

Temple of Heaven, Beijing.

although i think half of traveling and seeing new things is recognizing that the glasses through which the world told us we must view it aren't that great, and we can see just fine without them. thank you for challenging me to throw my preconceptions away and start new. perhaps, next time, i can see more clearly from the start.

best regards,

harleen kaur