Up until age 19, I was a Chinese-American homework robot. My “tiger parents” made it clear that playing outside was for losers who didn’t get into UC Berkeley. Other than working on extra-credit math problems and practicing piano, what else was there for an obedient brainiac to do? Quietly and secretly, I was writing down all the quirky and weird things you never hear about life in a Chinese-American body.
In my first novel, The Dim Sum of All Things, I revisited many of the awkward social situations I endured at Berkeley: trying to make friends with other Asians with mixed results and dating guys who, unbeknownst to me, had their own ideas about me because of my Chinese looks. Even in a place as politically correct as my college town, pop culture had permeated the minds of otherwise smart people who expected me to simper, “I love you long time,” or bark, “You want broccoli beef with that?”
To which, I wanted to say, “WTF?”
Now it’s about 20 years later, and I wish I could say, “We’ve come a long way, baby.” But have we?
For the past decade, I have been writing books about modern Chinese Americans. It’s been tricky to write for a general audience that might not know much about Asian traditions while simultaneously representing Chinese experiences authentically. Readers can be both eager to learn and belligerently hypercritical. Between you and me, it has been a slippery slope to depict not-so-sunny subject matter with honesty at the risk of angering my family, friends and other Asians who are genetically averse to publicly airing our collective cultural dirty laundry.
For instance, in my new book, Tiger Babies Strike Back, I say that Chinese people are not No. 1 all the time. And as a result, Chinese people are severely displeased. They point to Chinese students earning top grades and accolades in every field and brag to me about Yo-Yo Ma, Lang Lang and Michelle Kwan as if we are all BFFs because of our shared country of origin.
Seriously? Am I the only one to notice that the emperor has no freaking clothes? What about the other hundreds of thousands of us who didn’t play violin at Carnegie Hall when we were 8 years old? If you are ranked No. 77 in your class instead of No. 1, no one ever brags about you, but does that mean you have no value as a Chinese son or daughter — or as a human being?
I wrote Tiger Babies Strike Back for the other 99 percent. For us. And I wrote it for the me I was back in 1988, when I was a student at UC Berkeley. Back then, to get to Cal in the first place, I had to scratch my way to the top of the heap, but once I was among thousands of other No. 1s, how was I going to form an identity beyond my GPA?
I took Physics for Poets because it was supposed to be easy. I didn’t want to risk taking any classes in which I might not get an A, because the world already seemed so competitive. I was too petrified at the possibility of failure that I didn’t want to participate in any race I wasn’t pretty sure I’d win. And guess what? I got a C+. I cried for a week. But at the end of that week, the sun was still shining, and I still had all my limbs.
Knocked down a bit from my academic perch, I wondered, “Who were these straight As for, anyway?” It was the first time I had ever questioned why I went through the motions. My life had been an unexamined one up to that point.
I then turned to writing in private for my own enjoyment and edification. Writing became first my sanctuary and then, gradually, as a means to speak up for myself and others. After graduation, I wrote small phrases on scraps of paper and bus transfers for 10 years until I finally sewed all those bits together into my first book. I was a different kind of Sewing Woman. I sowed words, and then I sewed them together. Writing for myself taught me to think for myself. I broke out of the locked Chinese box of what was expected of me. I jimmied open the lid with a roller-ball pen.
Everyone needs to be sustained by something other than perfect grades or test scores. Even after you get into your first choice of graduate schools or get that great job, then what? We’ve all got to find something that belongs only to us, and for me, that was writing. What is that thing for you? You are already super smart. Now it’s OK to find out what else you are.
Kim Wong Keltner is a UC Berkeley alumnus and the author of “Tiger Babies Strike Back.” Contact the opinion desk at [email protected]