Being a Good (Conflicted) American Citizen

Forty eight days back and three interviews later, I am an Americorps IT VISTA for the Phoenix Charter Academy in Chelsea (Boston), Massachusetts. This wouldn't be nearly as interesting if I stuck to the rules regarding no blogging about work, and just didn't mention any of this. However, I will be discreet enough to use only initials and no physical descriptions of people at all.

Also, this still does fit into the mission statement of this blog, because America is very clearly a part of the international community. Just because I grew up here doesn't necessarily mean there are no new things to see; these places are local to me - but maybe not to many people who come here to see what's up with Lily.

Americorps is a program run by state governments to give qualified citizens two year-long contract jobs in their lives, in service to grassroots organizations, local communities and the state. I imagine that rules differ according to state. In return, I get experience in my chosen field and a medium sized stipend; it's a good amount of money that's not enough to live off of. VISTA stands for Volunteers in Service to America.

Chelsea is reachable through some bus lines running from the Orange Line Haymarket Station. I take bus 111 everyday. The Phoenix Charter Academy is a semi-privately funded, publicly run school for students who, for some reason, don't fit into the normal public high school system. Sample scenarios are that they are English Language Learners, were truant at other schools, or need some help with teen pregnancy or small children. Our current recruiter, JC, goes around recommending the school to kids in churches, on street corners, in rehab centers, counseling centers, hospitals, and other places (wherever people may need a good education to get their lives together, but don't know where to look).

We have our own team of counselors. The teachers are especially trained to discipline and educate inner city kids. There is a daycare center, complete with training for new parents, available on campus. The rules are strict. The curriculum is intense and aided by technology. There is a government subsidized meals program. Grassroots organizations like this really, really give me hope.

My role in this organization is less than clearly defined. While it means that I am generally a government funded volunteer for the Academy who works with information technology, my supervisor LS can lend me out to whoever needs a spare hand. Because of the special student population, I am also a part of the training that Fellows (think teacher assistants), teachers and administrators go through, which means that I function as half a teacher and am expected to enforce all the rules and enable this life-turnaround politically correct culture. There is a whole sociological approach and positive language (all in English, ha ha) that go along with this.

It sounds very philanthropic and awesome, right? Of course. Then why am I conflicted?

Despite having been a teacher in a foreign country, and maybe wanting to continue in the educational field, I wonder if I am actually capable enough to reach out to these children, when sometimes I can't completely break my own mental barriers regarding the way I think another person is when he starts describing himself with a label. I am also unsure of the meanings behind my own labels - Chinese, American, female, educated, writer. It must be only human to think about and redefine oneself daily.

I believe I have to take care of myself (I need to stop taking mid evening naps, for starters) to have enough energy and reevaluate what assumptions I hold about other people, and let these assumptions go. It's hard to know exactly how to do this. I could very well have been one of these at-risk kids. Whenever I don't yet know what to do, it may be best just to be quiet for a while and listen.

Enjoy the Respite

I can't speak Korean. My students really need to stop getting their hopes up. This time, it wasn't because I felt compelled to throw around a few words of Korean in class to control the students, but because we teachers were commanded to administer speaking tests through the phone (so the parents can see our dedication). In order to actually get whoever answers the phone to give it to the student, however, requires a few phrases of Korean. However, there are still two students who are very resistant - one who never picks up the phone, and the other whose mother prattled at me in Korean for a while curiously (and I, of course, could answer none of her questions, and when I said I'd call back tomorrow, she was all too eager to hang up. Was she just giving me a hard time?)

The other instance I had to speak bits of Korean was about two weeks ago, when my vice academy owner came to observe my youngest class three days in a row. I didn't mind letting her see that I used little bits of their language to control the classroom. The students also expect me to speak Korean more than the other foreigner teacher - he's married to a Korean woman so he actually Can speak Korean - because I look Asian. I run into this on taxis a lot, when they ask where I'm from, and I reply "American" and then they gesture to my face or say, "Oh, but you're Asian..."

This week is madly easy, though. If this job were this way all the time, I'd stay here forever and ever. There are no middle school classes, because they are taking some time off to study for their midterms. While administration gave us those phone calls to make so that we'd have something to do, plus all those meetings about how to teach TOEFL and NEAT (the standardized tests to get into middle school and college, much like the U.S. MCAS and SATs). Today I even had to quickly design a test for the youngest classes, because the academy owner felt that they should be inundated into the standardized testing system early.

Before we all left work today, the academy owner came around to pass out little plants to everyone. I stared and was like "What is it?" The head teacher says "You Eat it" so I immediately bit into it and chewed. Perhaps it was good for you, but one of the other teachers says it is bad for pregnant women. It tasted really bitter, and I forgot to say Thank You, but I appreciated being given the spice and having had the chance to taste it nevertheless.

Occupying Seoul (Yeoido)

America always has a lot of media attention from every country in the world, mostly because our international policy is to stick our nose in for what we think is right and sway the other members of the United Nations on various issues and movements whenever possible. This is old news. So it's no surprise that the entire world also has an eye on our economic and financial troubles; everyone knows that the American unemployment rate is at an all time high.

As per the power of the internet, I had first heard about the Occupy Wall Street movement through a lot of pictorial jokes on Facebook, which probably came from some graphic designers and people on 4chan. I knew that many people have been angry with Wall Street and Obama since the U.S. government organized the bank bail-out, but it wasn't until one of my Facebook friends posted a link on my wall about the movement that I connected the two and really started looking into it. I didn't understand it, because that particular link didn't give a very good representation of why people were protesting, and that the speaker sounded like he might have been high on weed didn't help either.

This link, however, clarifies the picture quite a bit and was far more persuasive, but I only saw this article after I went to the Occupy Seoul (at Yeoido) protest to do a little on-the-spot journalism to see what it was about. For a disclaimer, I will say that this is the first time I've ever been to a protest. I was a little nervous about participating because I realized this was a controversial topic. I also wasn't sure what the entire ramifications were for a Chinese American foreigner like me to contribute to this cause in this country, even though I agree with the core gist of the message, which was that financial inequality is everywhere so we as a citizenry rely on our governments to regulate giant banks and CEOs and stem the corruption.

In addition, I am aware of the counterarguments against protesting against financial institutions and the entire Occupy Wall Street movement as a whole. Here is one example. This argument states that everyone should take personal responsibility for their money; the American economy is so terrible right now because the majority of people go into debt from overspending and neglecting their bookkeeping. My friend Amy also has another perspective here.

My opinion is that, while this is true, it is nearly impossible to do if you didn't start out healthy (like if you had some genetic disease or disability) or have a family, in which case spontaneous events may keep you from saving money. I am lucky enough myself to have been born healthy, and I worked since the age of fifteen and went to a state university, so I had saved up enough money to become debt free roughly a year after graduation. Second disclaimer: I had a lot of help from my immediate family and one of my ex-boyfriends. (We're still good friends, but that's a whole other story.)

I went with my friend Mary Garcia (not her real name) and she had this green paper sign that said, "American Citizen + American Education + American Student Loans + A Lack of American Jobs = Sad American". She also participated in a handful of interviews. I refused to say anything in an interview to any of the reporters because I am not protesting any Korean financial institutions, and as I've said before, I am not sure what the full ramifications for a Chinese American to be protesting on foreign soil are. I went to the protest because I agree with the core message of the Occupy Wall Street protesters, want to support those people back home (as is true with my friend Mary Garcia) and wanted to see how this event would happen, because I'm pretty sure this will be a memorable moment in history. Citizens in a handful of different countries banding together to protest the same thing is something that I haven't heard or read about before.

 It was drizzling, but a large crowd of Korean people were there. They were chanting "We are the 99%! Occupy Yeoido!" both in Korean and then in English. Many people had signs. Though a majority of them were in Korean, a few were in English. Some even had on Scream or Vendetta masks, to protect their identities. At times, there was a man rapping in Korean. A woman's voice was leading the protesters, and a bunch of old Korean women were kneeling under the cover of the entrance to a building. Between these women and the doors of the building were a line of riot control Korean police - just in case, I guess. There were some other foreigners there too, mostly Americans and a few from other different parts of the world. Reporters from several different news stations were going around interviewing people. There were more foreigners interviewed than Korean people, so I was all the more suspicious about what the Korean press was going to say about this event and movement.

One reporter, after interviewing Mary, asked for my phone number so she can follow up on the interview, since my friend lied and told her that she had no phone. I gave her my phone number with an "Don't make me lose my job now..." but asked to be anonymous and refused an interview myself on the basis that I don't know what my employers would think. There was also one man who pointed a video camera at me without asking first, so I very warily said hi and then basically waved him away. I assumed he only got the end of what I was saying when I explained to another man - who was a reporter, but wasn't taking notes - that I agree with this movement because there is classism all over the world, and government regulation may help every country's economy a little bit.

We didn't stay for the entire time but I'm sure many Koreans are still there. When we were eating dinner back in Daejeon at a fusion Japanese noodle place, we saw on tv that the protest at Seoul Station was much larger, and it is still going on. I have my photos from the Yeoido portion of the event, which I uploaded to Facebook and may upload to my DeviantArt as well. This was Lily, reporting not-live on her blog at a friend's apartment in Daejeon, South Korea.

An Intersection of Culture in Everyone

DISCLAIMER: If I stereotype people or sound racist at any time during this post, I'm sorry and I don't mean any harm. It's just to get a point across.

Taking a taxi cab ride back from Shihwa Emart, I had yet another conversation with another driver - probably because driving a taxi is not the most exciting job on the planet, so they enjoy talking to their clients when there's something interesting about them, and when their language skills are up to par. This time it was because I had in arm a box of cleaning supplies half my size, so taking the bus to downtown Daebudo would not be enough to get me home even though I have a bike parked there at the moment. This driver, like a handful of other drivers, asked me where I was from, and then whether I was Korean American.

Conversations like these happen to me a lot. I hypothesize that, aside from a few key areas in Seoul, there aren't that many foreigners in Korean daily life - especially not out here, in the countryside, and they're curious. So after I tell them, no, I'm Chinese American, I get a range of reactions. Usually, it would be disinterest, and then the conversation would be over. I never knew why until today. This driver told me that he felt Koreans judged the Chinese based on the few handful of them who have immigrated here to South Korea for a better quality of life. The Korean Chinese people he's met, he told me, didn't seem very intelligent.

You can imagine why this was a very odd thing for me to hear. I didn't debate with him because I lacked the communication skills and didn't want to offend him, but I really didn't understand how the Chinese in mainland China would be all that different from Korean Chinese people if all they did was immigrate here. Let me take a moment here to clarify what I think are the key differences in Chinese culture and Korean culture today. (All Asians look the same! It's such an old joke, really.)

The old Confucian beliefs in ancestor worship, bowing and the idea that elders know better are rapidly dying in China now, whereas they seem to be very much alive in South Korea. While the Chinese government has been carefully monitoring the internet for fear of dissension, internet freedom is so free here that there are almost no copyright laws, which means that most international media creators won't allow a lot of their work here for fear that it'd be stolen. The feminist movement is far more under way in China than it is here in South Korea. The Chinese trade industry focuses on whatever it can get its hands on, whereas the South Korean trade focuses on computers, cars, televisions and small electronics. Chinese cooking is very varied, and there aren't nearly as many side dishes. So these are a few differences. (I can't tell the difference between Irish, Scottish and Swedish either, honestly. Sorry, Europeans.)

Swinging back to what the taxi driver was saying, hearing that he thought Korean Chinese aren't very bright is a huge contrast to back home where Asian people - the majority of which are Chinese Americans - are the model minority. The stereotype probably came from wealthy Chinese families who kept the academic culture of severely pushing their children to achieve high grades because they believe in the value of education. This still exists to some extent today (further extrapolated on in Amy Chua's Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother). However, most Chinese American parents I've met are more like mine - there's a lot of nagging to do well in school, but rarely are there beatings, and the parenting style is moreso an overwhelming - overbearing? haha - concern rather than a domineering strictness where failure is met with punishment.

My parents, unlike most Chinese American parents, however, are still starkly Maoist-Communist. It's an odd ideology to come home to, when the chapter in World History from eighth grade was mainly about how (before China was invaded by Japan and millions of both Korean and Chinese women were made into comfort women) Mao Zedong was rapidly destroying China through his Five Year Plans because he didn't actually know anything about mining or that kind of technology, and millions of people were starving because they were trying to keep up with his quotas. Or the way he grew old and senile and paranoid, so he killed a lot of people who he thought was trying to wrestle power from him.

What my mother grew up in, however, was a beautifully engineered propaganda program where people's lives were great and prosperous because of Mao's ideas, and furthermore, most importantly, they were united with strong family values. Family is family, and a bunch of families together form a community, and these are the things that people relied on, in a fast-paced world of industrialization, Westernization, communism-to-capitalism ideology and globalization. This is similar to the way I grew up being told that I can be whatever I want to be, life is going to be easy because I'm an American, and that all I really need to do is be curious, learn, and do a lot of soul searching. (How's that economy holding up, America? If the rich still refuse to pay taxes and help, and there are still no jobs being created, some Robin Hoods are going to start popping up everywhere.)

This cab driver wasn't interested in America, like most of the other drivers were. He told me he really respected the Chinese, because they are a strong and humble people. (I thanked him, but is that really true? I'm not mainland Chinese enough to actually know?) He thought that my parents must have had a strict upbringing, therefore I must have had one too. (I said I did, but not really - I was never beaten, and my mother's main concern was that I don't starve. I eat! Why doesn't anyone believe me?)

My mother probably had a strict childhood, though. She was the only girl among three brothers, so while she can take rough and tumble like any tomboy, she was the designated secondary caretaker in the family when my grandmother was ill or otherwise absent. The oldest son was allowed to go to London with my grandfather to get a European education and get interested in computers. So my mother did all the yelling and screaming and disciplining, which means that she must have had to have been the model child. The humility part might have been true of my mother - she accepted everything life threw at her, wrapping her mind around everything she couldn't understand or change; the only place she would have things absolutely her way was the kitchen.

This is as opposed to the American international policy, where we must have our way everywhere because we must know better. In my country's defense, Americans have really good intentions to the point of almost being naive. Or opposed to the South Korean policy towards all foreigners: our country, our rules, and we don't really care if it doesn't make sense to you, as long as it makes sense to us. But your army still needs to stay here to protect us from the North Koreans, because we can't talk to them when that crazy man is running things over there. Or even the Chinese international policy: did you want to buy something from us? If yes, fabulous, if no, well what did you want? We have a hard enough time dealing with our factories, pollution and overpopulation as is, we don't care about your country's take on how we're doing things, screw off. Shut up about human rights, worry about your own like Walmart and Microsoft and McDonalds first. We don't want to hear it.

I'm Chinese American. When most people look at me, they see an Asian woman. When they talk to me, I find that they tend to emphasize one of my cultures over the other. When I look at myself, I see an American heavily influenced by Chinese ideas in a small, moderately active Southeast Asian body. When I talk to myself, I think I should learn Mandarin - I speak Cantonese - and write the language so that I can either become an interpreter, a teacher or a cutthroat businesswoman.

(Said in an old lady's voice with mock Chinese accent - One More Thing: We might have talked before, I can't remember ...)