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Jan 17th, 2018
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  1. Dear Rina,
  2.  
  3. Hey! I'm Ching (20f, from Sydney Australia)✌✨
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  5. At the risk of sounding weird or creepy, I've literally just found out about you maybe 48 hours ago and your iD interview already changed my life.
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  7. Your experience of racism and identity was exactly what I experienced growing up, having moved to Sydney when I was 9 from an international school in Shanghai. I struggled with my Asian identity and wanting to be white, and it consumed me for the next 12 years. I am ashamed to say that at one point, I hated my Asian heritage. I was depressed, anxious, suicidal. I have self harmed, and I have had issues with family, substance abuse, and self destructive behaviour.
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  9. I am ashamed to admit that I was a mean to other Asians and migrants because of my own self hatred in a very Asian and a very strict Confucian household that didn't show outward affection like Anglo families have. My only solace was the internet, and that's where I felt I could be myself, hiding behind my screen. It gave me a platform for me to find true connection.
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  11. Wanting start fresh and 'fit in' to Anglo society when I started year 7 high school has deprived me of my confidence in my art, and my interest in music. Because my tastes were weird and underground from the internet, I felt further isolated from others who were into more "mainstream" artists. I felt like nobody liked me.
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  13. It was a dark hole. I wanted to die so bad, so many times. I was surprised I made it to 16, and then 18. Art, music and self expression through writing was the only thing that somehow kept me together.
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  15. My anxiety was through the roof when I started University, and again I felt so compelled to change myself, to hide who I really am, just so people could like me and think I'm cool. All the cool people I knew were boys, so I wanted to be tough and cold and unfeeling like the lonely misogynistic boys I knew from the internet.
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  17. Yet finding like minded creatives and a desire to fit in only put my anxiety to work - in a good and bad ways. Yet it gave me the drive to want to connect to others IRL. I wanted to get better. On the last trip, I found out I know a lot more about Hong Kong than I thought before, and that it's something to be proud of.
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  19. I've been slowly embracing my heritage since, talking to others about my upbringing, my experience of discrimination, and this crazy night when I went out to watch Ghost in the Shell with someone I met at a party talked about our shared experience of discrimination and identity with, while at the same time trying to stunt for a really cute art boi who was genuinely interested in Asian culture I might have been there (who I was so scared to get attached to). He wasn't there, but I did go and pick up weed for the first time, alone. I'm a tiny, I'm 47kg and 5'5, i made all the naive mistakes. The dealer was a FOB Taiwanese who had a very limited grasp of English, who happened to create hip hop and rap. I know so much about my Taiwanese heritage, so much of which I thought I had erased from 12 years in Australia. We talked about family. What I thought was 'normal' for Australian behaviour was incredibly left of field in Asia, a stricter more disciplined society. It was the first time I've had the chance to speak with someone I actually thought was interesting, in Mandarin and actually talking about my experience being Asian here in Sydney. Our very long conversation allowed me to challenge all the stereotypes I had built up in my head. The weed was fucking dope too, i don't feel paranoid at all. It's a sativa, Green Goblin. Daily wake and bakes really helped me function until the month I ran out where I fell apart.
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  21. All this time I've had all this experience talking to other lonely people online, talking to boys who were just as jaded and lonely as i was. I didn't even realise that I was good at talking to people. Why should I think that? They only wanted to fuck me and use me, I thought. They were just as bitter and angry as I was about wanting to have a connection to someone. I'm not worth that much anyway. I'd do anything to have someone care for me, even if it meant if they destroyed me in the process. I've been trying to get better for the last 2 years and it's been an uphill struggle, though the last month things I've had all these amazing experiences. I've completely let go of a mutually toxic, abusive, and unhealthy relationship and my world has opened up for me.
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  23. Everything clicked the moment I've listened to your music, and when I watched your iD interview. I'm hot af, I'm a boss ass bitch, I'm empowered, I'm smart, I can talk to people, I'm independent, and I'm fucking cool, and I'm a GIRL. And I'm finally fucking proud to be Asian. I am so happy that you are here and that alternative 1st generation Asian girls finally have representation, and we are talking about our struggles with discrimination. My sister is 12 years my elder, and she was never around. She was always away somewhere else studying, working, partying and raving while I was still in schooling. While I would have said that you are the big sister I never had, you helped me realise that my older sister, Hoi, is what I needed the most as a role model. I've only realised that I've not only inherited all her hand-me-downs and rad as fuck fashion, and but her music taste, her artistic inclination, and the same experience dealing with strict elite Confucian parenting, her international mindset having lived in Taiwan, Shanghai, Hong Kong, the UK, the USA and having travelled so extensively all over the world.
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  25. Thank you so much. I couldn't sleep last night, because when I would try and fall asleep I'd get these vivid dreams and emotions and I'd wake up. I've only cried out of happiness twice - the first time i was fucked hard and I was super high on MDMA and weed, and the second time was in the early hours of this morning. I am so positive now, I can feel emotions again, sober. The Black Dog is finally fucking gone.
  26.  
  27. Us girls have to stick together.
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  29. Thank you so, so much Rina.
  30.  
  31. Ching.
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  33. PS. I wrote a lot more about my struggle with anxiety, depression and Asian identity on Facebook post where I mention you https://goo.gl/wQ6MnL. I've only had this new confidence on me for 24 hours and I'm still trying to gather everything. Again, I owe you.
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