On Religious America
If there are two things that "everyone else" seems to understand that I don't, they are religion, and America.
On America:
It's kind of scary how impressionable children are, and how much less impressionable we become as we grow older. I wasn't even 9 when I came to the US. To be honest, I only have extremely scattered memories of Canada, and virtually no memories of Singapore. Most of the character-building personality-defining experiences happened in middle school and high school, here in the US. And yet, despite feeling like I can't really connect with China/Singapore/Canada, I feel like I can't really connect to the US either. The concept of American is completely foreign to me. I don't know how to feel pride for this country. I don't know how to wrap my brain around patriotism to the extent that so many other people around me can, and it's just weird that though I relate to everyone around me at a very human level, deep inside, they have something at their core that I don't think I will ever be able to understand. It makes me feel detached.
We were watching the legendarily intense Canada vs. US ice hockey game last week. Everyone around me was screaming for the US. I kept my mouth shut, but I was rooting for Canada. Why? When I've lived most of my meaningful life in the US? When now that I think about it, I've lived more than half my life in the US, which is twice as long as I've lived in Canada (oh man, wow). Why was I rooting for Canada? I have no freaking clue.
Legally, my entire family is Canadian. But my parents, at their core, I think, are still Chinese. And my sister came here young enough that she, in spirit at least, American (and when I realized this, for a while, it bothered me because there was something so disturbing about me not being able to completely understand my own sister). But me? I'm just floating in the middle without any sort of identity and I don't even know how the heck I can call myself Canadian and pretend to identify with Canada when I haven't been back since I left, and I know next to nothing about its politics and history and current events and pop culture. Because I'm not Canadian with a capital C. But I'm also not not-Canadian either. If I had to label myself, I think my brain would explode.
I'm aware that I act everyone in the US. I talk like everyone in the US. I think like everyone in the US. But somehow there is something so basely abhorrent and alien about the thought of labeling myself as an American that I am certain that for the rest of my life, I will never be able to comfortably call myself one. I don't hate America. I like a lot of it. I dislike some of it too. I am just extremely emotionally apathetic towards it to the point where even if I wanted to, I don't think I could feel anything.
(Which is kind of problematic because I'm probably going to end up getting citizenship here at SOME point in my life because I don't know where else I live, but the idea of legally being attached to the term "American" makes me feel really uncomfortable for some reason... and I'm probably overthinking this because this is way too far down the road to worry about.)
On Religion:
Yesterday the Cal-Aggie house came to our dorm and did this program on Religious Diversity. They told us to talk about our religion, and encouraged us to share our beliefs and experiences with others because there's this social stigma on talking openly about religion that they wanted to break.
So we talked. And I guess I was possibly too-honest when I told them that I disliked talking to others about their religion because I didn't believe in religion, and so it seemed like I wasn't ever going to be able to take anyone truly as seriously as I'd like, because there would always be this voice in my head discounting their words and beliefs.
Religion is also something I don't understand. Yes I have close religious friends, but I somehow manage to keep the religious part of them at an arms length away because I don't want to touch that stuff. I don't want to think about they might be right and I might be wrong because that's just baffling and makes my brain hurt and just like how I don't know how to feel pride for America, I don't know how to believe in a God and be so selfless and devote my life to something other than myself.
I think I really disturbed the group leader, because he asked if he could talk to me after the program, and really encouraged me to not be afraid of talking about religion to others. I guess I don't try hard enough. But I don't know. Being atheist, I never realized that religion would actually be worth talking about. I never realized that for some people, to really know them, you have to understand what they believe in too. It was pretty easy at Monta Vista. Our group wasn't religious. It was: okay we all don't believe in anything, so we'll bond over talking about people and places and philosophies and experiences and lives. There just never seemed to be the need to understand someone's religion in order to really understand them.
I didn't realize that before.
... and I still don't feel like I'm going to go up and randomly strike up on a conversation on religion. Because that's just weird. And even though I know that religion is important to some people, it's not very important to me, I'm still not going to feel like I need to understand someone's religion just to know them as a person.
-
Too much thinking.
I realize that Chem H and Calc BC are pretty much carrying my grade in Chem and Calc right now. Even though I got low B's in both those classes, Gupta and DeRuiter must have been so amazing that I still learned a bunch.
Love Monta Vista. (:
On America:
It's kind of scary how impressionable children are, and how much less impressionable we become as we grow older. I wasn't even 9 when I came to the US. To be honest, I only have extremely scattered memories of Canada, and virtually no memories of Singapore. Most of the character-building personality-defining experiences happened in middle school and high school, here in the US. And yet, despite feeling like I can't really connect with China/Singapore/Canada, I feel like I can't really connect to the US either. The concept of American is completely foreign to me. I don't know how to feel pride for this country. I don't know how to wrap my brain around patriotism to the extent that so many other people around me can, and it's just weird that though I relate to everyone around me at a very human level, deep inside, they have something at their core that I don't think I will ever be able to understand. It makes me feel detached.
We were watching the legendarily intense Canada vs. US ice hockey game last week. Everyone around me was screaming for the US. I kept my mouth shut, but I was rooting for Canada. Why? When I've lived most of my meaningful life in the US? When now that I think about it, I've lived more than half my life in the US, which is twice as long as I've lived in Canada (oh man, wow). Why was I rooting for Canada? I have no freaking clue.
Legally, my entire family is Canadian. But my parents, at their core, I think, are still Chinese. And my sister came here young enough that she, in spirit at least, American (and when I realized this, for a while, it bothered me because there was something so disturbing about me not being able to completely understand my own sister). But me? I'm just floating in the middle without any sort of identity and I don't even know how the heck I can call myself Canadian and pretend to identify with Canada when I haven't been back since I left, and I know next to nothing about its politics and history and current events and pop culture. Because I'm not Canadian with a capital C. But I'm also not not-Canadian either. If I had to label myself, I think my brain would explode.
I'm aware that I act everyone in the US. I talk like everyone in the US. I think like everyone in the US. But somehow there is something so basely abhorrent and alien about the thought of labeling myself as an American that I am certain that for the rest of my life, I will never be able to comfortably call myself one. I don't hate America. I like a lot of it. I dislike some of it too. I am just extremely emotionally apathetic towards it to the point where even if I wanted to, I don't think I could feel anything.
(Which is kind of problematic because I'm probably going to end up getting citizenship here at SOME point in my life because I don't know where else I live, but the idea of legally being attached to the term "American" makes me feel really uncomfortable for some reason... and I'm probably overthinking this because this is way too far down the road to worry about.)
On Religion:
Yesterday the Cal-Aggie house came to our dorm and did this program on Religious Diversity. They told us to talk about our religion, and encouraged us to share our beliefs and experiences with others because there's this social stigma on talking openly about religion that they wanted to break.
So we talked. And I guess I was possibly too-honest when I told them that I disliked talking to others about their religion because I didn't believe in religion, and so it seemed like I wasn't ever going to be able to take anyone truly as seriously as I'd like, because there would always be this voice in my head discounting their words and beliefs.
Religion is also something I don't understand. Yes I have close religious friends, but I somehow manage to keep the religious part of them at an arms length away because I don't want to touch that stuff. I don't want to think about they might be right and I might be wrong because that's just baffling and makes my brain hurt and just like how I don't know how to feel pride for America, I don't know how to believe in a God and be so selfless and devote my life to something other than myself.
I think I really disturbed the group leader, because he asked if he could talk to me after the program, and really encouraged me to not be afraid of talking about religion to others. I guess I don't try hard enough. But I don't know. Being atheist, I never realized that religion would actually be worth talking about. I never realized that for some people, to really know them, you have to understand what they believe in too. It was pretty easy at Monta Vista. Our group wasn't religious. It was: okay we all don't believe in anything, so we'll bond over talking about people and places and philosophies and experiences and lives. There just never seemed to be the need to understand someone's religion in order to really understand them.
I didn't realize that before.
... and I still don't feel like I'm going to go up and randomly strike up on a conversation on religion. Because that's just weird. And even though I know that religion is important to some people, it's not very important to me, I'm still not going to feel like I need to understand someone's religion just to know them as a person.
-
Too much thinking.
I realize that Chem H and Calc BC are pretty much carrying my grade in Chem and Calc right now. Even though I got low B's in both those classes, Gupta and DeRuiter must have been so amazing that I still learned a bunch.
Love Monta Vista. (: