Born in the U.S.A.

The primary reason I chose to study abroad in Hong Kong was that I wanted to live in a place with as different a culture from the United States as possible. At the same time, though, I wanted to still be able to get around speaking English (or my rusty high school Spanish). And though my appearance might cause people to assume otherwise, the idea of getting in touch with my roots was never a factor in my decision.

This assumption is not entirely unjustified. Americans make up the majority of the international students studying at Chinese University in Hong Kong, and most are Asian American and specifically Chinese American. Fellow Princetonian Darren Joe '02 cites the fact that his mother was born in Hong Kong and his father in southern China as one of his primary reasons to study abroad in Hong Kong. It would not be an exaggeration to say that connecting with one's roots is a major consideration for many of the students studying abroad here.

Why wasn't it a consideration for me? To begin with, my racial heritage is not Chinese, it's Japanese. However, this is not to say that if I were studying in Tokyo, I would necessarily feel much more of a connection with the locals than I do here.

I'm a fourth-generation American — my great grandparents on both sides emigrated from Japan. My parents enrolled me in Saturday morning Japanese school when I was five, but I quickly failed out. Compared with my schoolmates, whose parents spoke Japanese at home, I started with an inherent disadvantage. My grandparents chose not to teach my parents Japanese while raising them in the United States because World War II left lingering hostilities toward Japanese-Americans. Having an accent wouldn't help.

On a superficial level, I am more "Japanese" than many other Americans without a Japanese racial background. I eat raw fish with a gusto, I can count to 10 in Japanese and my middle and last names ("Sayuri" and "Higa") are Japanese.

But even though I am technically "Asian American," I identify with the "American" aspect far more than the "Asian" one. Studying in Hong Kong has merely strengthened this feeling.

I have bought the Hong Kong flair pants and retro-chic sunglasses with blue shades, and until I open my mouth, I could easily be mistaken for a local. But move past appearance and it is clear that I'm not a Hong Kong native — and not just because I don't speak the preferred language (Cantonese).

I have never been one for oral verbosity; I'm usually the person who tries for a couple of thoughtful comments in precept. Yet in lectures here, when the professor asks a question, nobody speaks up. My one or two comments quickly qualify me as the loudmouth of the class. Based on my classroom experience here, I think the general silence of local students can probably be attributed to a culture that strictly enforces the teacher-student relationship. There is much less give and take. Even in most of my seminars with fewer than 15 students, the professor usually delivers a straight lecture without student input.

There are other cultural differences that distinguish me from the locals. Every time I eat out, I feel awkward when someone else cleans up the table for me (this is standard practice, even in the school canteens and at McDonald's). My discomfort is shared by other international students, but not by locals; in Hong Kong, it is accepted that the customer never clears the table.

One Chinese legacy that British rule never eliminated was the close ties to one's family. I love the members of my family, but I openly admit I went to college a few thousand miles from home to get away from them. Because of Hong Kong's high population density, less than half of the students at Chinese University live on campus, yet nearly all of them go home to their families on the weekend. I talk to my parents and sister on the phone weekly, but by Hong Kong standards, I would surely qualify as a delinquent daughter (even when I am living in the same country).

Living abroad has merely heightened my awareness that I am culturally American. During Hong Kong rush hour, when I am crammed in a subway train where everyone else "looks like me," I do not feel any more "at home" than when I am on a crowded New York subway.

I have enjoyed my time abroad, but look forward to returning to the United States, where my cultural roots are firmly in place. It is those roots I identify with, and not the ones that dictate my appearance at a skin-based level. Liriel Higa is a Wilson School major from Los Angeles. She is currently studying abroad in Hong Kong, and can be reached at lshiga@princeton.edu.