Growing up in Victoria, a city of people that are primarily of Anglo European descent, I knew my upbringing was anything but vanilla from the moment when I didn’t know what language people were speaking in Kindergarten classes. I’m blessed with having a father as a chef, and a mother who loves to eat. That dish you have no idea what it is or what you ate at that Vietnamese, Japanese, or Chinese restaurant? I’ve probably had that a billion times and enjoy it immensely. I read and speak Cantonese and Mandarin fluently. I also understand Toisanese (regional Cantonese variant) quite well since it is the only language my 97 year old grandmother knows.
Trivia: For a large portion of my formative years, the media I consumed – music, art, film, literature, games; they were all from Asia. Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan. Pretty amazing actually – I didn’t even know who Michael Jackson was until that Martin Bashir documentary came out in 2003, and only recently (04/2011) listened to Bon Jovi for the first time ever. It’s pretty weird and cool to discover hits of yesteryear when all my friends grew up with North American pop culture and seeing the reaction on their faces when I profess “Nope, never have seen/heard of it”.
I’m I am Generation Y ‘Third Culture Kid’ – a by-product of the heavy convergence of eastern culture and values mixed with western modernism. I walk through both the eastern and western worlds seamlessly as I have discovered during my travels.