Essay
Cultural Identities
I’m a person with different cultural identities: Taiwanese, Pakistani, South African and American. Because of my diverse upbringing I have the ability to adapt to different cultures. Even though it was stressful moving from one culture to another and even though it always took a long time for me to feel comfortable in my new surroundings, looking back, I was given the opportunity to experience how different people think and act according to their culture. I’m very proud of my multi-ethnic blood of Taiwanese and Pakistani, which I believe makes me unique and special. Also I have the ability to learn more languages; I know how to speak Mandarin, English and Urdu. I also know how to read Arabic, because of my father’s religion. I believe that my diverse cultural background has shaped who I am. My Pakistani and South African childhood helped me develop self-respect, my Taiwanese adolescence helped me uncover my creativity, and my American schooling helped me build my self-confidence.
I was born in South Africa in a Muslim family. The Muslim culture is very strict, and growing up, I had to follow all the rules of the Muslim culture. I went to a Muslim/Turkish school, taught only by Turkish teachers, and I had a good experience at that school since I learned a little bit of Turkish culture and their language. However, there were a lot of strict rules at school that I had to obey. For example, I had to wear an abaya, or a cloak, whenever I went to school because girls weren’t allowed to show the outline of their bodies in a way to attract guys. Not only that, girls and boys were separated at our school. Girls weren’t allowed to talk to boys because they could get into trouble. In the ten years that I lived in South Africa , I never actually made a male friend. The conservative beliefs of the Muslim culture changed my personality toward guys. When I see them or communicate with them. I always get nervous or extremely shy. Sometimes I wish I could have experienced more relationships with the opposite gender, but I believe that Muslim culture has also taught me how to have self-respect as a woman. I take time to make friends with guys because I need to find the right guy friend to start a friendship. I don’t want to end up with a guy who does not respect women at all or who hurts my dignity.
At the age of eleven, I moved back to Taiwan with my mom. One day my mom took me to a dance concert, which was when I came in contact with art and creative performance. I was amazed by the dancers’ beautiful costumes, and as soon as the concert ended, I told my mom that I wanted to be a dancer when I grew up. My mom thought it was good idea to send me to a dance school to work on my favorite activity, and believed that I could eventually find a job as a dancer. After few more years, I discovered that I really enjoyed my art and dance classes. I drew and created a lot of art pieces that I never thought I had the ability to create. Even though my art may not be amazing enough to get everybody’s attention, I’m still extremely proud of my talent. Though I’m not a really good dancer, I still enjoy it, and the same goes for drawing. I learned that the most important thing is to be proud of yourself with what you have, to enjoy what you do, and to add your own style to whatever you’re doing. My experience living in Taiwan gave me the opportunity to realize my own talent, and if I had never moved to Taiwan , I would have still been in South Africa , following my daily routine: wake up, go to school, study and sleep. I might have never noticed that I had this amazing talent.
Being part of the American culture gave me the ability to openly express myself and helped me gain more self-confidence. When I first arrived here at the age of fifteen, I had absolutely no friends. I was extremely shy at the time, plus I was scared that all the American people at school were unfriendly like the mean girls and bullies that showed up in American movies. Yet during my freshman year, I met a girl name Bianca who walked up to me and asked if I wanted to hang out with her during lunch. She knew I was new to this environment and wanted me to feel welcome. Now Bianca and I are best friends. I wanted to be like her because she made other people feel more cared for. Also during freshman year, I met a really optimistic teacher, Ms. Hogan, who was my world history teacher. She always encouraged me in class to make me feel more confident. Because I wanted to be more like Bianca and Ms. Hogan, I tried to open up myself to other people. That’s when I slowly made friends. All this time I had thought that I wasn’t brave enough to talk to other people, and I found out that it really wasn’t that hard.
Growing up in Pakistani, Taiwanese, and American culture has helped me discover my self-respect, creativity, and self-confidence and has made me a more mature person. I’m really happy that my multi-ethnic background gave me the opportunity to gain some of my special personality traits, to find the hidden talent in me and to learn different languages.