rlee03's blog

Last Friday my friend and I went to Philadelphia, as we were walking down the main road of China Town we stopped to wait for the red light. It was then when a Chinese man looked at us and turned to the woman next to him; he pointed at us and said in Mandarin “Look, that one’s Japanese and that one’s Korean.” with a very stern tone too. I guess he probably didn’t think I understood Chinese, and I actually thought it was kind of funny and wanted to respond to him in Chinese and ask him why he thought we were Japanese and Korean. But of course, I didn’t. I think sometimes just as people, we are easy to judge and make assumptions based on looks, the way one dresses, and a lot more physical features. 

When I think about it now, it is like we always talk about microaggressions or racism and direct them toward whites. Yet, it happens so often between ethnic groups too. From smaller examples like I’m from the South and you’re from the North so we’re different, to issues more related to one’s “color.” This also reminded me of what we focused a lot on in my Asian American Community class, how we say Asians, but a lot of us naturally refer to East Asians, and sometimes don’t consider others as part of the “Asian” group.

One of my favorite meetings of ASA was when we were helping make posters for the ASA Culture Show. We all wrote quotes on papers referring to something memorable that happened to us or a stereotype that we wanted to disprove. When we were sharing these quotes that we made, someone talked about something that happens a lot. It’s when people ask us “where are you from?”

It's a difficult question to answer, and my answers vary depending on where I am and who I'm talking to. At Bryn Mawr, I always answer this question by saying “I’m from Taiwan,” just because it’s simpler than explaining how I’m American but moved around a lot growing up. But it’s also funny when people say “wait, but you don’t have an accent when you speak English…” 

My friends who is Japanese American grew up her whole life in California. She’s never been doubted for being from California until she came to Bryn Mawr. It’s happened multiple times where people ask her “where are you from?” And once she answers “I’m from SoCal.” They say, “no, where are you really from?” It always frustrates her when people doubt that she’s American, or when the question isn’t clear enough.

Are you asking where I grew up in? Or are you asking what’s my ethnicity? It sometimes feels like being denied of our own identity.

Throughout the time I lived in Beijing, my mandarin has always been known to have a Taiwanese accent, and I sure thought so myself too. Yet, when I moved back to Taiwan for high school, I’ve had multiple times experiencing people asking me where I come from by the way I speak. I remember the very first time it happened was when I bought something at a shop and just happened to talk to the cashier for a bit. In between our conversation she asked me “you’re not from Taiwan aren’t you?” I paused for a bit and said “well, no I grew up in America and I learned most of my mandarin in China.” And she commented “Oh that explains why.”

That was actually the first time I have had someone ask me that, and this made me wonder myself what “accent” do I actually have? People in China say that I have a Taiwanese accent, and people in Taiwan doubt my mandarin accent. Where does my “Asianness” belong? I guess I would consider myself more Taiwanese since my parents are Taiwanese, yet the time I’ve stayed in China influenced me a lot too. It’s interesting to me how people can just tell that from my accent.

http://thejourneyofgrowing.wordpress.com/ 

http://thejourneyofgrowing.wordpress.com/

A Struggle:

Last Tuesday when Thomas came to talk to us, he mentioned how minecraft isn’t the funnest game he has ever played, but is one of the most influential ones. He also mentioned how sometimes he would love to read a book, but once it is assigned to him as homework, he might just be demotivated to read it because he then sees it as work. Honestly speaking, as a semi-gamer, minecraft isn’t a game I would normally play on my own. I do enjoy playing it, but I also see it as part of my work, something I am supposed to do and not something I would do on my own free time. I think some part of me is just not used to this type of gaming, minecraft is really open-ended. But maybe a bit too open-ended for me? That’s why I always look at what other people are doing and try to build it myself, and when I accomplish it I feel great. Yet I still don’t find myself that engaged in it like some other people in class. I just envy how they have so much patience and creativity, and I feel like I get impatient sometimes with the game. After playing for a while it gets a bit boring and flat for me, and I just don’t enjoy the process of always collecting materials first, even as Thomas said it later becomes more like a habit. I think I’m struggling to be motivated in this game, more than other problems.

An Accomplishment:

Our group managed to set up a meeting with Ms. S to discuss some questions we had regarding our schedules, and the project that we are planning to do. Ms. S managed to give us a good idea of how this project might work, and she helped rearrange times for us to go to the kindergarten to observe the classroom and kids for a bit. We all went to observe at different times, so we can have a good idea of how their day works. I went to the kindergarten from 8:45-10:45am and observed the first part of their day, which consists of kids choice, recess, and snack time. The kids get to choose what they want to play with, among a good number of activities such as painting, reading, playing doctor, and etc. 

We are meeting up again this Sunday to start planning our project and lesson plans, since by then all of us will have observed different times of the day and have a pretty good idea of how the kindergarten works. We're using google docs and google calanders and also sharing them with the Kindergarten teacher and Ms. S so that they can always comment, suggest, and help us out with our project. But our project is centered around the idea of "growth," and is divided into four parts. We are also hoping to be able to contact an elementary school at Ghana and collaborate with them. For now, we want to have a final end product of an e-book, a hardcopy, and a video. The e-book will be the one that we will be constantly updating, so everyone can follow the project along the way.

I've learned how broad the topic of education technology is. Everyone seems to have their own way of seeing educatoon technology and defining the terms. Sometimes it is hard to switch back and forth because I'm not always sure if I'm on the same page as others. The Selwyn Analysis paper was kind of hard to write since I struggled with using the same definition of "fair" throughout the whole paper. But I think because of the complexity of these words we use to describe education and technology, it sometimes just makes things pretty complicated. I would really want to try and clarify these terms and gain more knowledge of the subject throughout this semester.