Why my home, culture, and faith didn’t make sense.

Born and bred in New York City, this was all I knew. There was this green statue on an island called Statue of Liberty, that I vaguely remember going as a kid.  This place has a bunch of tall buildings.  Subways seemed like white noise and I can only remember a handful of times I actually rode taxis. Movies that were filmed in Manhattan never seemed familiar. They looked like foreign country, although in reality, it was only within a 10-mile distance from my home in Flushing.

My Chinese culture also seemed like a blur. I was always around other yellow people.  As a child, our family traveled to HongKong a lot. I remember feeling slightly different there but for the most part, I still felt the same.  To them, however, they immediately labeled me an ABC (American-Born-Chinese).  I didn’t understand why that mattered.

I thought Religion was enslaving. It made me feel guilty about doing “bad things.” Interestingly enough though, as someone who went to Catholic school, sometimes it didn’t feel too different than being at home, where I was reprimanded for being “bad” and I had to do better to please the respective high powers, God and my parents.

That’s not how I see them now. Jesus died so that I could have a relationship with the father. It was not how “good” I was that he loved me, but simply because he does. My parents have also shown me much love and support as I grew up, giving me a lot of freedom to do what I wanted to do. But still, I was one confused kid.

Even after asking Jesus’ into my heart during High School and learning more about who he really is, I still had a lot of identity issues of being a Christian Asian-American New Yorker.  It was only in the last few years I started to ask the questions of why I was made this way.

I did a lot of observing at the Epic West Coast Conference that took place less than month ago.  As one of the photographers of the conference, I had a lot of freedom to walk around, people watch, and interact with students from Hawaii, the west coast, and mid-west even.  Furthermore, the talks given at each session opened my eyes to see why being Asian American was part of God’s plan.

Before I explain why being an AA (Asian American) matters, I want to explain how Hawaiian, west coast, and east coast AA’s are different. During my 2009 Summer Project in Hawaii, I realized, for lack of better words, Hawaiian AA’s tend to be confused like I was. Since the state is the only state in the country that is majority non-Caucasian, and their AA’s are like our Caucasians, where they could be a 6-7^th generation child. Many of them are some super bred mix of Asian descent; they could be a 1/8^th Chinese, 1/4^th Japanese, and etc. This dilution of culture inevitably leaks onto their faith. Hawaiians tend to be very accepting and friendly. Excuse my skepticism, but I think that mindset is only mask of confusion. I have met many students who believe in Christ and Buddha or other “spiritual beings.”

West Coast AA’s are very aware of their cross-culture selves. They recognize that the way they were brought up does affect their behavior and values. I would even call them “ahead” of the game.

Unlike west coasters who see themselves as Asians who tend to be American, east coasters, more specifically New Yorkers, see ourselves as Americans who tend be Asian. We are so use to being diverse that our identity as Asian becomes less important. I know this because I felt this way much of my life. In college, I use to challenge why ethnic ministries needed to exist. Aren’t we all the same? Why can’t we be united and have multi-cultural churches. Don’t get me wrong, I still think multi-cultural churches are great. My real intent however, was not that I wanted a big mixing bowl but it was that I wanted to “Americanize” Asians.

The denial of culture in this urban setting has led many Asian churches in New York to confusion and unbiblical tradition. A Chinese church with two congregations, English and Chinese, could perform acts of service for each other to expect return rather than have acted out of the love of God for each other. This past Christmas, my sister, dad and I, chipped in together to get an iPod touch for my mom. She keep pushing that she give us back the money for it and that she couldn’t accept such a gift. She felt that she was in debt in us and it was hard for her to see that it was a gift. So where does our churches get this mindset? I would like to believe that ethnic culture could very much affect faith culture.

At the same time though, believe that is how God designed it to be. After all, he created all things. For example, Galilee was a place of cross-culture and Jesus was a Galilean. Similarly, AA’s are also cross-cultural people.

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light” – 1 Peter 2:9

As I learn about my culture, I know there are many aspects of it, which God calls us to leave behind, but I’ve learned to also embrace it to use it for his kingdom. Having family values is a great thing. Wanting to do well and excel is a great value. It’s when our family’s calling takes priority over God’s calling that brings trouble. In the same way, it is when we base our identities on how well we do rather our identity in God that our life leads to despair. And… just for the record, I really love myparents

I feel now, it’s starting to make sense of why God chose me to grow up this way. As mentioned in Glennis’ post, a few us will be going to ECAASU. Though it is not a Christian Conference, I believe being educated about one’s culture will strengthen one’s understanding of their faith. Learning about my culture has allowed me to reach and share the love of Christ to specific people. I’ve come to understand my identity much more than I did before. I’m not an Asian American New Yorker. My identity is that I’m a child of God who tends to be an Asian American who tends to live Flushing, New York, who tends to go to a Chinese Church.