Jesus Creed
To sum up: I was Chinese, converted to Christianity, living in Taiwan, practicing Western-style worship in Mandarin, doing QTs in English, taking communion with bread and red wine, doing church potluck with fried rice.
One could say it was too much identity confusion for a child, but children are also resilient. Instead of breaking, I bended to the cultural norms of whichever context I found myself in, and built bridges to cross those divides whenever I needed to. Our brains are remarkable in that multi-lingual people like myself, intuitively access the area of the language center we need to function in our social context. It just happens. I open my mouth and subconsciously the appropriate language speaks.
I thrived in my faith, navigating through the muddled waters of mixed cultures. I learned to pray in English and worship in Chinese. I developed Western creative thinking and practiced Chinese lavish hospitality. I watched, listened, and learned, picking up social cues and cultural nuances.
At the same time, I was lonely. Every person is unique, but it seemed to me other people had huge swaths of their cultural experience overlap with peers and community, while I had to work extra hard to patch up some common ground.
At any given time, I had reason to feel uncomfortable, like I didn’t belong.
At any given time, I am making choices. To hide half of my cultural identity in order to conform to the majority, or to present all of my complicated self, bringing confusion and living with tension.
This is the delicate line I walk as part of a growing maturity in this life journey. I feel an increasing conviction to show the world, the church, that we do not need sameness in order to connect.
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