Dear Rina,

Hey! I'm Ching (20f, from Sydney Australia)✌✨

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.

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 middle class and 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, deeply suicidal. I have self harmed, and I have had issues with family, substance abuse, and self destructive behaviour.

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, middle class families have. I had to be perfect. 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.

I had to be perfect.

I was made to play piano, and I had to play it perfectly.

Wanting start fresh and 'fit in' to Anglo society when I moved here deprived me of my confidence. All I had was a shitty dialup modem, and my sister's 10 year old Sony VAIO laptop she passed down to me. I got all her hand-me-downs. I was different, weird, I didn't fit in. My first love was My Chemical Romance, embarrassingly enough. Because i was emo as FUCK, I felt further isolated from others who were into happy Anglo pop artists.

 I felt like nobody liked me. It drove me deeper into my depression. I needed to be perfect and relatable. I needed to be a good Asian daughter, but I wanted to fit in so bad into Anglo society, where everyone partied, went out clubbing, doing exciting things. It drove me into further social isolation and internet. Image-based social media (facebook, on instagram), people were perpetually having fun, being happy, going out with friends, having crazy experiences, cool outfits, being skinny, having perfect skin, amazing makeup, being beautiful.

My social anxiety was through the roof when I started uni, now that I didn't have friends from high school to fall back on. 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 and angry misogynistic boys I knew from the internet. I wanted to steal, fuck around, skateboard, fight, mosh, get completely shitfaced. I'm pretty sure I have ADD. Dexamphetamine made me productive at last. All my role models were men - Kurt Cobain, Sid Vicious, FIDLAR. Depression memes are relatable af.

The underground artists and drugs - hippies and week, heroin and punks,  cocaine of the 80s, ketamine with the clubkids of the 90s, MDMA and the ravers of the 00s. then emo kids, then indie heads, then now weed and xanax and anti-anxiety drugs.

Yet finding like minded creatives and a desire to fit in only put my anxiety to work - in a good way. It gave me the drive to want to connect to others IRL. I wanted to get better. I want to meet new people, despite my insecurities.

I've been working on my relationships offline and online, and having meaningful conversations with people I genuinely love to get to know and talk to. Talking to people with the same issues as me, from the US, from the UK, from Europe. Talking to people to people with any kind of struggle and trying to empathise, trying to understand them. Facebook is engineered to make you feel like shit. We want that instant validation, instant gratification. People care about what you, not about how you present yourself.

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. I was going through withdrawals and i was fucking miserable having to be around my family all hours of the day.

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 a UK6, 47kg and 5'5, i made all the naive mistakes. The guy I got it off was a 'fob' Taiwanese who landed here a few weeks ago, and had a very limited grasp of English, who happened to create hip hop and rap music. This was the first time I spoke Mandarin to someone just like me. I know so much about my Taiwanese heritage, so much of which I thought I had erased from 12 years in Australia. I ID'd more with Hong Kong, being so international, and having so much British influence. We talked about family, and how I come to fit into Australia, and actually talking about my experience being Asian here in Sydney. 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. Our very long conversations challenged all the stereotypes I had built up in my head. The weed was fucking dope too, it's a head high, and i feel energetic. I don't feel paranoid at all. It's a sativa, medical grade Green Goblin. Daily wake and bakes really helped me function for a while.

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? Girls were mean and gossipy. Boys only wanted to fuck me and use me. I'm fucking trash. 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 reciprocally toxic, abusive, and unhealthy relationship and my world has opened up for me.

Everything clicked the moment I found your music and 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,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 tomboy 00s Asian fashion, and but her music taste, her artistic inclination, and the same experience, her international mindset having lived in Taiwan, Shanghai, Hong Kong, the USA and having travelled so extensively all over the world.

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 finally have an appetite. I haven't dreamed in years. I've only cried out of happiness twice - the first time I was super high on MDMA and baked and fucked out of my mind, 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.

Us girls have to stick together.

Thank you so, so much Rina.

Ching.


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.