To me, culture is an incredibly vague word in a hyperconnected world. Cohesive stories can highlight identity, and my scattershot stories highlight my conflict over who I am. 

I was born in Boston but spent most of my childhood in Shanghai. I feel deeply connected to the Blair Academy community but I miss Shanghais comforting nostalgia. Blair Academy’s inviting culture, in addition to its beautiful environment, the Paulinskill trail, the beautiful sunsets all embrace my personality fully. Yet at the same time, I also feel a deep connection to my community in Shanghai. I miss my childhood, of exploring the alleyways and hidden restaurants of riding our bikes up and down the Yangtze river. I miss my middle school’s comforting nostalgia.

China’s pandemic restrictions severed limited my ability to go home, making my room a time capsule of my personality before I attended Blair. Much of my inquiries into this idea of who I am come from my 8th-grade room. My room tells a straightforward story, a curious, passionate student who is incredibly optimistic and loves European history, reading newspapers, and playing soccer. It lacked nuance and experience, yet I was sure about my identity. Fading posters of a popular video game and stacks of detective book series show who I am, a Chinese American, but a Chinese first of all. 

Further texts with old friends revealed how different we became after leaving primary school and middle school. When I asked them to define themselves, they confidently answered, but I could not offer a convincing answer. 

After my family moved here to support us in 2021, I can see my home is in America, but that is just a tiny part of my struggle. I am not thoroughly American and, unfortunately, not entirely Chinese. In a way, I feel distant from both Chinese and American cultures. Through a mixed consumption of Chinese and American media, I know enough to converse, but I cannot engage deeply. My room still needs to be partially painted. Through the effects of globalization, a new definition of Chinese American culture has been created. How do I feel even more lonely and fragmented with the internet revolution and the global community at my fingertips? 

What if being more connected to diverse experiences makes us even more isolated? If my isolation emerged from reason and order, then maybe our presumed safety within the rational world—the realm governed by logic, science, and innovation—is not as secure as we had once believed. 

In a world dominated by the sciences and logic, I escaped by studying the humanities, human relationships, and our emotions. 

From Fast, Jorie Graham writes of the need to proactively seek life, “You have to keep living; you have to make it not become waiting.”In other words, I must be comfortable seeking these contradictions and, through my journey, eventually come to my conclusions. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe notes that because of our present material conditions, “The beauty of the world and the sweetness of existence which the beauty of the world offered them, they were not able to esteem or to enjoy.” I can meander and develop my cultural identity by actively pursuing an optimistic life. Ultimately, through readings in philosophy, fiction, poetry, and even nonfiction, the quote by Maxine Kingston in The Woman Warrior summarizes my conclusion perfectly,  “I learned to make my mind large, as the universe is large so that there is room for paradoxes.” I have learned through reading to accept the paradox of my identity by pursuing an authentic and meaningful life.