Passport to Shame: From Asian Immigrant to American Addict

Introduction

"So ashamed that the ancestors

of eight generations can even feel it."

CHINESE PROVERB

Asian cultures are rooted in shame. They are known as shame-based societies because the lives, families, and mindsets of these cultures revolve around some aspect of avoiding shame to preserve familial and cultural honor. In Chinese culture alone, there are more than 100 different ways to describe shame. While some of them overlap with English versions of shame, such as a sense of disgrace and humiliation, many others help shed light on why and how shame is so pertinent among Asian cultures. Within the Chinese, some of the shame-related terms and references are: a nation’s humiliation/shame (i.e. bringing shame to yourself also brings shame to your family, ancestors, and community and your entire ethnic background and/or family’s country of origin); the old father-in-law carries the young daughter-in-law on his back to cross a river (in Chinese culture, it is considered inappropriate for a father-in-law to have physical contact with his daughter-in-law, thus equating how taboo it is to be associated with shame); and a person lives by face as much as a tree lives by bark and as much as a light bulb is covered with glass (i.e. stressing the importance of maintaining a positive and good-standing public image).

To encourage conformity, shame is built into child-rearing practices. Asian children are shamed early on as a means of guiding social and moral behaviors. In addition to collectivism, religions and philosophies such as Buddhism and Confucianism perpetuate shame, as they value filial piety, obedience, authority, ancestral worship, and loyalty to family. In other words, to let others down simply by deviating from social or family norms or engaging in behaviors that can be seen as shameful is much more negatively impactful to Asians than Westerners.

In Asian culture, shame often begins early. Basic human needs such as touching, relationships, and affirmation can be thwarted during this time. When primary caregivers do not display physical signs of affection like hugs or kisses, verbal affirmation such as words of encouragement, or take the time to know their children individually, these children may develop internal core messages: I’m not good enough, I’m not loveable, I’m a bad person.

Shame is powerful. Children and adults will do anything to thwart those feelings. Some become perfectionists or try to prove their worth through academics, sports, or careers. Others may become susceptible to addictions, seeking to fill their core emotional needs in unhealthy ways (drugs, alcohol, food, gambling, shopping, work, sex, etc.).

Unlike the United States and other Western countries, which pride themselves on individualism, equality, and autonomy, traditional Asian nations exalt collectivism, hierarchy, and obedience. As a result, Asian societies are often referred to as shame-based cultures, in which social order is maintained through the use of shame. Identities are forged by upholding honor while avoiding any shame-producing feelings, thoughts, beliefs, or behaviors. This presents a cultural bind where the shame leads those to suffer in silence, since acknowledgement can be met with family, community, and cultural rejection, ostracism, or banishment.

I should know. My life was once shackled by shame. As a first-generation Chinese immigrant to the United States, I was challenged by shame from the moment I arrived on these shores. The shame of being Asian in America, the shame of prejudice and racism, the shame of Asian masculinity, the shame of breaking away from Asian norms, and eventually the shame of my addiction. Not just my addiction but a family legacy of addiction.

I come from at least three generations of addicts. My grandparents were compulsive gamblers. My uncles and aunts also gamble. Some of my relatives struggled with infidelity. My parents were workaholics. My brothers struggled with their own compulsive and addictive tendencies. And I inherited a combination of the above addictions, in addition to carrying the burden to be the first in my lineage to succeed in America. The burden of hidden shame and addictions was immense until it was finally lifted. I’ve accepted and overcome the shame and also tried to be of service to those still suffering from it. I hope this book will help you do the same, by encouraging you to courageously explore your past and pain, knowing that by doing so you can still bring honor to your heritage and yourself.

PART I

The Asian Immigrant

The Departure

I hate myself!

This was one of my earliest thoughts as a Chinese boy in the United States. I wasn’t white like those I saw on television. I wasn’t Black like those in my neighborhood. I was an Asian immigrant. I was an outsider, a foreigner, the other. It was 1976 and I was four years old. I hated looking different, speaking different, and having different customs and traditions from mainstream America.

In Hong Kong, we were part of the Cantonese-speaking Chinese majority. I never felt different there. Hong Kong was not only home to my parents but also my grandparents, great-grandparents, and their ancestors. Cantonese is the largest Chinese dialect in Hong Kong, Macau, and parts of Southeastern China.

Hong Kong was a British colony from 1842 until the handover back to China in 1997. For myself, this meant my early identity and roots were a confluence of British and Chinese. I can still recall the juxtaposition of British double-decker buses with traditional Chinese fishing junks along the Hong Kong harbor. Additionally, I have memories of our British passports to mark our distinction as Chinese with British citizenship, so even before setting foot in America I was ethnically Chinese but legally British. My young mind thought it was cool that I could be both Chinese and British. But this all changed when my parents decided to move the family to America. The first English words I heard were, Ching, chong, chong! Not exactly the most welcoming reception. The first question hurled our way was whether we ate rats or dogs. I cringed and began distancing myself from my Chinese background.

This cultural contempt and self-loathing became evident when my parents spoke to me and my brothers in Chinese and I responded in English. I was embarrassed and ashamed of our heritage. I winced when they spoke Chinese in public. I wanted nothing to do with them in any setting, public or private.

The shame of my native tongue couldn’t have been more pronounced than when I was stuck in an enclosed city bus with my grandmother. During the weekends, while my parents worked, our grandmother watched over me and my brothers. She would ride the bus to Seattle’s Chinatown to get groceries and I’d come along just to break the monotony. My grandmother was also hard of hearing, so she shouted when speaking Chinese. It felt as if all eyes were on us, listening with suspicion to the most foreign of sounds to ever land on their ears. To ease the perceived tension, I did my best to respond in perfect English, thinking that by doing so everyone would view me as a legitimate American.

But it didn’t matter if I could speak English without an accent, because there was no way I could get rid of my skin tone. It wasn’t for a lack of effort, though. There were times when I took a bar of soap and scrubbed it hard against my flesh, hoping it would turn lighter. Obviously, that didn’t help. I would have to live with my skin tone, a dead giveaway that no matter where I went I could always be singled out, targeted, and labeled as the foreigner.

The Oldest Son of the Oldest Son

The tension of growing up in a Western, individualistic society while living in a collectivist household was not lost on me. I was told time and again by my parents and other relatives that my life was to represent and honor my family and Chinese heritage. Individual pursuits and ideas were to be ignored, no matter what mainstream society was telling me. The weight of these expectations impacted me disproportionately, as I was the oldest son of the oldest son.

My father is the oldest son of seven children. My grandparents on my dad’s side were in an arranged marriage and it showed. Issues of domestic violence, gambling, and strife plagued their relationship and impacted the family. I’m told my grandfather had a gambling problem and eventually abandoned the family and moved from Hong Kong to Australia for a number of years, while my dad was tasked to work to help support the family. He dropped out of school by the time he was thirteen and began working in Chinese restaurants.

Along the way, he met a waitress who would become his wife (my mother). By the age of thirty, my father had risen to the rank of chef and was making a name for himself. Yet, with three toddlers in tow, his individual aspirations were set aside for the desires of the family. My parents wanted a better opportunity for us. Neither of them had much of an education, as both came from poverty.

The Pacific Northwest became their destination when a restaurant near Seattle wanted to sponsor my dad to work in the United States. Based on what they had heard about America, my parents felt it was in the collective best interest to move here. I say collective because not only did this mean our nuclear family could immigrate to the U.S., but so could my grandparents, aunts, and uncles due to the immigration policies of that time. Thus, one fateful day in the summer of 1976, everyone on my dad’s side of the family packed a suitcase and flew to Seattle to start life anew.

From Majority to Minority

When my parents left Hong Kong to immigrate to the United States, it was for a better future for me and my two younger brothers. It was not an easy decision, as they were already in their early thirties, but they forged ahead, thinking their sacrifice would be worth it so we could receive an American education.

My parents were part of the dominant culture in Hong Kong and viewed life through that prism of ethnic and cultural privilege. They were not only illiterate immigrants to a new land but an ethnic minority popularized in Hollywood as strange, exotic, and foreign. My father worked as a chef for a Chinese restaurant in the suburbs outside of Seattle and my mom was a waitress at a restaurant in Chinatown. Both worked long hours for low wages with no benefits. They didn’t have medical or dental insurance. There was no paid sick leave or vacation.

Beyond the cultural shock of adjusting to a new language and customs, they were stripped of the status of being part of the majority. Not only were they known as Chinese immigrants, they were a minority living in a Black community. My family struggled to make sense of our place in this new land.

The Seattle zip code of 98118 where we grew up is now one of the most ethnically diverse in the United States, with speakers of fifty-nine languages. However, when we arrived in the neighborhood, it was predominantly African-American with a growing population of Chinese, Japanese, and Filipinos.

People may erroneously view culture shock as the simplistic process of assimilating into traditional, mainstream white society. For us, we had the additional layer of trying to navigate and integrate into an African-American community. I point this out because growing up in a Black neighborhood helped shape part of my identity. Hobbies, sports, music, and the culture of Black America were adopted as my own. I viewed life through the prism of three lenses: mainstream white America, Asian, and Black.

When it comes to the perception of Asian identity, one big misconception people have is to clump us into a large, all-encompassing, monolithic group with scant understanding of the various ethnic, cultural, religious, and linguistic differences that set us apart. They also fail to recognize the different American cultural influences that impact our sense of self. Our identity is much more than our ethnicity. It includes the subcultures we experienced growing up.

In addition, the values of Asian collectivism and groupthink that my parents and other relatives tried to impress on me and my brothers clashed with American ideals of independence. We were being taught at school to speak up, question authority, and think critically, while at home our parents stressed the importance of obedience, harmony, and never questioning authority figures like teachers, elders, and parents.

How would all of this impact our sense of identity and shape how others viewed us or how we saw ourselves?

Regardless of which type of community you grew up in, this belief that you are different from mainstream society becomes the first aspect of life many Asians encounter. The teasing, taunts, and racial slurs remind us that we are foreign, different, and at times considered un-American. The common caricatures associated with being Asian came my way starting in kindergarten. Questions like Where are you really from? were commonplace. These questions, while sometimes benign and not meant to be cruel, nevertheless reaffirmed