Microaggression

This week, at school, one of the Chinese movie star’s son was enrolled. She came to have a pre-visit before the first day of his son’s enrollment. Expats did not know who she was, and just bet she was one of the new moms to walk around the school. However, Chinese working and teaching staff, they all recognized her, and went up to her to talk to her. You could tell the excitement that they would have. While people walking by, especially expats, you can tell from their facial expression and eyes that they were actually saying: You Chinese just block the corridor, yelling and making nonsense. Some expats even asked about what happened and why Chinese were also getting together, talking in such an excitement. I feel the disrespect and misunderstanding among two different cultures when I was observing it. In Chinese culture, people believe that it is important to show your happiness by smiling and talking to people with excitement, and socialization is significant in our lives too. We are close to all of our family members, as well as to our friends, and colleagues. However, expats are more willing to keep the distance with others, and talk and smile in a quiet and gentle way to show the politeness and manners. I do believe this micoraggression happens due to the misunderstanding of how people express their happiness in different cultures.

This is the microaggression that happened in our school. Chinese staff, as local staff, are not paid or respected well enough in our school environment. Sometimes, expats just do not know that why Chinese people always stick together and talk in an excitement. 

From the observation, I feel that discrimination, prejudice, and stereotype on people will hurt people’s feelings, especially will make people of subculture feel they are inferior. I believe I would be more careful about the word choice when I am talking to a person who is different from me, and I would like to get to know more different cultures and traditions. At the same time, I feel like if people do not communicate about their confusion or what upsets them and really get to know each other, the misunderstanding will just continue, and microaggression will not be able to eliminated in our community. 

Microaggression

This week, at school, one of the Chinese movie star’s son was enrolled. She came to have a pre-visit before the first day of his son’s enrollment. Expats did not know who she was, and just bet she was one of the new moms to walk around the school. However, Chinese working and teaching staff, they all recognized her, and went up to her to talk to her. You could tell the excitement that they would have. While people walking by, especially expats, you can tell from their facial expression and eyes that they were actually saying: You Chinese just block the corridor, yelling and making nonsense. Some expats even asked about what happened and why Chinese were also getting together, talking in such an excitement. I feel the disrespect and misunderstanding among two different cultures when I was observing it. In Chinese culture, people believe that it is important to show your happiness by smiling and talking to people with excitement, and socialization is significant in our lives too. We are close to all of our family members, as well as to our friends, and colleagues. However, expats are more willing to keep the distance with others, and talk and smile in a quiet and gentle way to show the politeness and manners. I do believe this micoraggression happens due to the misunderstanding of how people express their happiness in different cultures.

This is the microaggression that happened in our school. Chinese staff, as local staff, are not paid or respected well enough in our school environment. Sometimes, expats just do not know that why Chinese people always stick together and talk in an excitement. 

From the observation, I feel that discrimination, prejudice, and stereotype on people will hurt people’s feelings, especially will make people of subculture feel they are inferior. I believe I would be more careful about the word choice when I am talking to a person who is different from me, and I would like to get to know more different cultures and traditions. At the same time, I feel like if people do not communicate about their confusion or what upsets them and really get to know each other, the misunderstanding will just continue, and microaggression will not be able to eliminated in our community. 

What I know from the people I know

Amanda, my Chinese colleague and friend, she believed that culture is where a person comes from and what religious belief that person holds. She thought diversity means the mix of different cultures, and as a teacher, diversity means to use various strategies to meet children’s various interests and needs.

Chris, my husband, he told me that culture means the daily practice of people, and what has happened in a country’s history. His point of view about diversity is that diversity is happening everywhere around us. Race and language are the only two basic diversity that we can tell, but diversity means that anything makes a person different from others.

Grace, my childhood friend. She thought about it for a while and said that culture is about the festivals, food, and dress-up. It is also about the ways that how people feel comfortable to live. The answer of diversity was that diversity is why people are different from each other, and the different social identities that each person carries with them.

Reading through the answers, I found out that the talked about the surface culture differences like festivals, history, language, and races, social identities like where they come from, religious beliefs, and daily practices, and early childhood educators responsibilities for diversity at school, such as how to meet various interests and needs of children from different cultures. 

The aspects that I have learned from the course, but not included in the answers are deep cultures about culture diversity, culture discontinuity and continuity about culture diversity. They did not include the equity in their definitions either. When they were giving me the answers, they did not think any further than surface culture diversity that we can see. At the same time, they were talking about diversity, but they did not think of the consequences of culture discontinuity, and actually culture discontinuity happens quite often in nowadays.

The answers that they gave makes me realize how I thought about culture and diversity before I learned this course. I probably only saw surface culture as well, and I did not realize the culture discontinuity happening around me either. The definitions influenced me on having a deeper thinking and better recognition of diversity. I also realize that I should avoid some bias and assumptions that I would have before, when I am facing or working with children from various culture differences. Children are all different and we should treat them as the experts in their own world. What’s more, no matter where children come from, they should be treated equally.

What I will take with me

I will take those three items with me. The first one is a Chinese doll, the second one is a puzzle that I made for our first year anniversary, and the third item is the computer. 

I chose the Chinese doll, as it was my favorite toy when I was a little girl. I talked to it, played with it, and slept with it for a long time. I made her clothes and did make-up for her. It is not only a doll to me, she is my friend that I can tell her all my secrets, happiness, and sadness. She will always smile back to me, which makes me feel relived after talking to her. I cherish her accompany, so I will take it with me.

The puzzle was made by me, and it recored all the places that my husband and I went together in the past year. We visited some places in China and in America, and we blend in two cultures well in our lives and in this puzzle. It witnessed our happiness in the first year of our marriage, so I will take it with me too.

The third item is the computer, as I would like to know about people who have the same experiences like us, and how they are doing in another country. I would like to know what is going on in the world as well. Computer will keep me in touch with the world, so I will take this item too.

If I could only keep one personal item with me, I would feel I am not a whole. My Chinese doll is the memories from my childhood,my puzzle is the witness of my current family, and the computer is the tool that I can keep in touch with others in the world. I would be very upset and sad, if I only could keep one item.

I feel like I am going through a transition from a pure culture to an international culture. I should be open-minded to accept the differences happening in my life. Things and people are different in the world, and we all share various diversity of family and social cultures. What we can do about diversity is to accept it, face it, and adjust ourselves to it. One more insight that I have gained is that diversity is changing by time and place, we should realize and respect the different forms of diversity around us. Sometimes, we are among the dominant culture, but sometimes, we can be out of it. No matter if we are or not, we need to remember who we are and blend in our unique family culture into the dominant one.