I’ve decided to change the subject of my passion blog, and as such I believe I should provide an explanation of the particulars of my new blog topic.

To start, a bit of background.

I’m an ABC. For those of you unfamiliar with this abbreviation mostly used within the Asian-American community, “ABC” stands for American-born Chinese. I was born and raised in Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, and all my life I’ve lived in a two-story house on Fresh Meadow Drive. That’s my home.

But if you were to ask me where the place is that’s second dearest to me, I would say the third room on the fifth floor of an apartment in Haidian, Beijing. That’s where my grandparents live, and that’s my second home. Because although I’ve never lived there for more than a week or so, it’s where my family is, and it’s my home base in the country that I’ve visited five times and counting– the People’s Republic of China.

My parents immigrated from China to the United States as students to attend graduate school here. They knew English, but of course their mother tongue was the most natural for them. So after I was born, the language I was surrounded with was Mandarin — my mom’s teachings, my grandma’s old folk songs. That’s why I think Mandarin Chinese sounds the most comforting to me, the most “home-like,” even though English is my primary language.

When I started going to school, I began to learn the nuances of the society in which I lived. I learned about diners and T.V. dinners and long hair and Bratz. I also met other ABCs like me.

But there was a distinction that I made between them: those who were “white-washed,” and those who weren’t. Because even though I was American, I was also Chinese, and I believed that I needed to balance both even back then. To speak English and Chinese, to eat pasta and noodles, to talk to Julia Williams and Julia Zheng. I felt a strange sense of disappointment in my fellow ABCs who acted as if they wanted nothing more than to have blonde hair and a pointy nose. Yet, I could understand where they were coming from, since I too felt the desire to be accepted by my peers.

From a young age, I’ve been trying to balance American and Chinese culture in my life. However, it can be challenging, especially since the two  seem inherently opposed to each other. One champions democracy and rugged individualism, the other, community and familial duty. They’re as different as night and day, as East and West.

There’s a unique dissonance between the two cultures, a dissonance that grates my senses and throws me off balance when it comes to deciding which I should follow in certain circumstances. It’s a dissonance that I don’t think has had much of a voice, which is why I’d like to detail mine. By doing so, I hope to give some perspective into the lives of others who experience a similar kind of dissonant harmony.