A Key to Fitting in

By Leo Luo

Growing up in an ordinary Chinese immigrant family,surrounded by Chinese friends and always enjoying Chinese cuisine, I had never questioned my cultural and ethnic heritage.1. Chinese cuisine： 中国菜；ethnic heritage： 民族遗产。Even though my familiarity with the language,especially with more eloquent means of expression,2. familiarity with： 熟悉，精通；eloquent：流畅的，口才流利的。was lacking,I still saw myself as Chinese, and proudly so. With this mindset driving my naive grade-school self, I felt the need to defend my culture against those who did not appreciate it.3. mindset： 心态；defend against： 保卫。Yet when my horizon was finally expanded with the start of university, I realized that being Chinese was far more than simply wolfing down chive dumplings.4. 但是随着进入大学后眼界的开阔，我意识到了作为一个中国人不只是狼吞虎咽地吃韭菜饺子那么简单。horizon： 眼界；wolf down： 狼吞虎咽地吃；chive dumpling： 韭菜饺子。Instead, my experiences have enlightened me to how language plays an enormous role in not only building a cultural and ethnic identity, but also integrating into a community that can eventually become a home.

Fifth grade was the first time I started to bring lunches from home, instead of eating at the school cafeteria5. cafeteria： 自助餐厅，食堂。. Normally, my meals were quite tame: sandwiches, some pasta, perhaps some fried rice on occasion.6. tame： 简单的，平常的；on occasion： 偶尔，有时。But one day I brought the traditional Northern Chinese style dumpling, stuffed with pork and chives. I had just lifted the lid of my Tupperware to breathe in the dumplings’ familiar aroma when I heard a loud groan from the back of the class.7. Tupperware： 特百惠，一个塑料保鲜容器品牌，这里指午餐饭盒；aroma： 芳香；groan： 抱怨。I turned and saw the Caucasian kids all grimacing and holding their noses.8. Caucasian： 白种人的；grimace： 扮鬼脸，作怪相；hold one’s nose： 捏住鼻子。In a massive herd, they scrambled over each other to sit as far as possible from me.9. 他们一大帮人，互相推搡着坐在尽可能远离我的地方。herd： 人群；scramble：争抢。“What is that? It stinks10. stink： 发出臭味。!” Raising my eyebrows,I shrugged11. shrug： 耸肩。and replied “it’s just dumplings.” Big mistake. From that moment onwards, no matter what kind of food I brought, those Caucasian classmates would screech12. screech： 尖声喊叫。“Hey Leo! Did you bring dumplings today?” For a while, I brushed them off.13. brush off： 不予理睬。But there was only so much taunting I could endure before I cracked.14. taunting： 嘲弄；crack： 崩溃。When the shrill “Hey Leo! Did you bring dumplings today?” rang out for the umpteenth time, I leapt out of my seat and slammed the table as I started screaming.15. shrill： 尖叫声；ring out： 突然响起；umpteenth： 第无数次的；slam： 猛拍，猛击。“Hey! Will you stop it?! There is nothing wrong with my dumplings!” Silence fell over the classroom. My teacher glared at me and told me to sit back down.

国内的经济发展催生出了少年留学热，这一现象在最近两年正呈井喷之势。中国已经成为美国海外高中生源的第一大国。那些远赴异国求学的孩子们将会面临什么样的文化冲击和挑战？我们的专栏作者Leo告诉你怎样才能融入美国的生活。

That was my first experience of being discriminated against16. discriminate against： 歧视，排斥。based on my cultural identity. Granted, this was only a minor incident, and cannot compare to the level of discrimination that some of my peers and classmates of other ethnicities experience.Nevertheless, this incident could represent the difficulties of Asians integrating into Western, or primarily American, culture.This process is perhaps the most difficult during middle school,when kids begin to label themselves and their peers according to societal stereotypes.17. societal： 社会的；stereotype： 固定模式，成规。The Asians, especially those who were not born in North America, become divided into two subcategories that overlap: the nerds and the FOBs, otherwise known as the “Fresh off the Boat.”18. subcategory： 子类别；overlap：部分重叠；nerd： 呆子；FOB：Fresh off the Boat的缩写，新移民。While the nerd label is household knowledge for most people, perhaps the FOB terminology may be confusing, precisely because what is considered FOB behaviour is simply everyday life in Asian cities.19. “呆子”这个称号对多数人来说司空见惯，可能FOB（新移民）这个词会令人感到困惑，恰恰因为“新移民”的行为就是亚洲城市中（人们）的日常行为而已。terminology： 术语；precisely： 恰恰，正好。With hair swept up and dyed like Korean pop stars for the boys and short skirts and layers of make-up for the girls,these FOBs are regarded with derision for their showy lifestyles.20. 这些“新移民们”中，男孩们的头发像韩国歌星一样进行打理和染色，女孩们穿着短裙，画着浓妆，他们因为这种炫耀的生活方式被人嘲笑。sweep up： 收拾干净；derision： 嘲笑；showy： 炫耀的，显眼的。As a result, they usually gather together in their own packs21. pack： 一群，一伙。, not interacting with the native students. Personally, I fitted into the nerd category, since I always walked around with my nose in a book. My image was not helped by the jars of Chinese traditional medicine I would bring to school that would always make my friends’ eyes bulge at the blackish-brown liquid.22. bulge： 突出，这里指“瞪大眼睛看”；blackish-brown： 棕黑色。Yet I revelled23. revel： 陶醉。in this identity, for it differentiated me from the crowd.

Yet this confidence in my identity faced a challenge when I went to boarding school24. boarding school： 寄宿学校。, and even more so when I entered university. When people from all over the world come to learn in one place, we inevitably have students from China. For some reason though, I could not fit in perfectly with them. Be it the language barrier, or simply the culture, I was in short, the most American of all the Chinese there. I may know how to speak Mandarin, and have been working on my reading and writing over the past few years. But without a mastery over the language,I can only smile blankly when native speakers spin the wordplay that comes only with a life spent in China.25. mastery： 掌握，精通；blankly：茫然地；spin： 精彩地讲；wordplay： 双关语。I faced the question of where I belonged, if I was not Chinese enough to be truly Chinese,yet too entrenched26. entrenched： 根深蒂固的。in my heritage to call myself American.

美国华裔家庭剧《初来乍到》剧照

Upon reflection of my own plight27. plight： 困境。, I realized that perhaps the same situation applies with Chinese teenagers who have just moved to North America. Thrown into a world where the two accepted languages are English or silence, they congregate amongst themselves in an effort to find an outlet to express their culture.28. congregate： 聚集；outlet： 发泄的途径。Despite being away from China in the spatial realm, they replicate their home environment in almost every other way, as their friend groups are primarily other immigrants who feel just as out of place.29. 尽管离开了中国这个空间范畴，他们仍然方方面面都按照在国内的方式生活，他们结交的朋友们也主要是那些和新环境格格不入的移民。spatial： 空间的； realm：范围；replicate： 复制；every other： 所有其他的；feel out of place：（因环境生疏）感到不自在。Since they huddle together everyday, they have no incentive to speak English,30. huddle： 挤成一团；incentive： 动机，诱因。or even learn the language properly. Not only that,they barely venture31. venture： 冒险。past the boundaries of the Chinese community.Perhaps it’s because they also do not have a mastery of the local language. Without a mastery of the English language, they can easily be tricked: something they spent their entire lives preventing against in China.32. trick： 欺骗，哄骗；prevent against： 预防。

Although I have detailed the times I felt out of place, I would like to end on a happy note33. note： 音符，这里比喻“结局”。. Last summer when I visited Beijing, I finally felt like home. Even though at first I was completely out of my comfort zone, the environment forced my Mandarin to improve by leaps and bounds.34. comfort zone： 舒适区；by leaps and bounds： 突飞猛进地。Thus with a better grasp on the language,especially when I could express myself with more than just a fifthgrader’s vocabulary, I walked the streets filled with more confidence than ever before. Perhaps the best advice to those coming to America,or any other English-speaking country, would be to take the leap and throw oneself into the community. Just as Alibaba’s founder Jack Ma practiced his English by talking to any foreigner he could find, I encourage anyone hoping to integrate into Western culture to jump at any opportunity to practice the language. After all, embarrassment is only temporary, but the knowledge of how to fit in to any foreign environment is forever.