I am my roots AND I am the flowers that have grown from them.

I am where I’m from AND I am where I am going.

I am my past. I am my present. And I am my future.

Growing up, kids pulled on their eyes to make fun of me. They asked me if I could even see where I was going. They’d yell ching chang chong at me and laugh. So many days, I’d come home crying – wanting to switch schools most days and wishing I was never born on other days. I hated being Chinese. I hated not being white.

To try and fit in, I did what I thought I needed to do to be accepted: I buried my Chinese roots. I refused to admit I spoke Cantonese, I “accidentally” forgot my lunch when it was Chinese leftovers, I avoided befriending other Asians, and I begged my parents for name brand clothes to look like all the other kids. I didn’t believe my first crush when he told me liked me because I thought “Who could ever like a girl that didn’t look like everyone else?” I did anything and everything to forget I was Chinese. And did anything and everything to fit in – even trying to “buy” friends with my mom’s homemade desserts.

I was ashamed of who I was. I was ashamed of my roots.

One of my favorite poets has a poem that I so strongly believed in…until now.

you are not your roots.
you are a flower
grown from them.
-pavana

But here’s the thing. I am my roots. And I am the flower that grows from them.

We can be both. Our beliefs, perspectives, and ideals – while they can change – stem from our roots. The ways we were raised, the cultures we grew up in, the environments and people we were surrounded by. I grew up in an environment that convinced me in order to fit in, you had to look like everyone else – you had to be white. And while at the time, I felt the need to hide who I really was, I’ve come out the other side today more in love with my culture, more confident in who I want to be, and more passionate about the world I’d like to create for myself and my future family.

I don’t blame my parents. They offered me an education opportunity they never had. They put me in a top-rated school district that opened up opportunities for me they never had. They gave me everything. They really did give it everything they had. And I will be forever grateful.

I don’t blame the school. I don’t blame the community. I don’t even blame my classmates. We each individually have different realities. We grow up in different households, with different belief systems, and hold different views on the world. We each define normal in our own unique ways (ironically).

I don’t blame anyone. I don’t blame myself.

Because I am who I am today because of my experiences, my highs and my lows, my growths and my traumas, my triumphs and my mistakes, my lights and my shadows. Every experience in my life has led me to where I am today.

Every root – every crossroad, every decision, every moment – has resulted in the flower that I am today.

My family, my home, my culture have not only given me incredibly weird eating habits but more importantly, the multi-dimensional perspective I have on the world today. They’ve fueled my love for travel and exploration of different cultures. They’ve driven my passion to create a more inclusive world – one in which we are not immediately judged for our roots.

Today, I still get “Ni hao” thrown at me when I’m walking down the street. I still get asked “No, where are you REALLY from?” when I say I’m from the U.S. I even sometimes get people yelling “Chinese? Japanese? Korean?” at me – unsolicited guesses of my heritage. It’s a constant reminder that people are making assumptions about me (and everyone else) based on our physical appearances.

But I can’t control someone else’s actions. I can’t alter someone else’s reality. All I can do is stay grounded in my who I am and what I believe to be true about myself and my reality. I am not responsible for anyone else’s reality. And no one has ownership of mine.

This new year, one of my resolutions is to dive unabashedly into my Chinese roots.

• To see Hong Kong through the eyes of my father 🇭🇰
• To speak Cantonese to strangers on my bus 🈷️
• To learn to make xiao long bao and all the Chinese foods that brought me so much joy growing up 🥟
• To explore Chinatown on my own ⛩️
• To love myself – for both the beautiful roots I’m grounded in and the flowers that have grown from them 🌻

And most of all, to know and believe I am whole with any and every identity I give myself – Chinese or American, photographer or writer, thinker or feeler, traveler or dancer, introvert or extrovert, talker or listener. I am whole. I am complete – roots, flowers, and all.

I am beyond excited to be traveling home to Hong Kong for the first time with my dad, my brother and my sister. I can’t wait to dim sum all day, explore the streets my dad grew up on and dive deep into my Chinese roots. My name is 關凱琪 and this is our year!

新年快樂 (Happy Lunar New Year)

恭喜發財 (May You Be Prosperous)