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| Courtesy photo |
| Author Cathy Bao Bean talked about being both Chinese and American in the United States. |
“We’re not really the same underneath at all,” she said. “I cannot be Chinese American simultaneously.”
Bean spoke to a group of about 30 students and faculty Friday evening in the Ernie Pyle Auditorium as the keynote speaker for the Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. The lecture was sponsored by the Asian Culture Center and co-sponsored by the School of Journalism.
Using only a slideshow, a sense of humor and her book, The Chopsticks-Fork Principle: A Memoir and Manual, Bean discussed being both Chinese and American in the United States.
Bean said the “chopsticks-fork principle” means taking the ordinary things such as birthday parties and utensils and making them “culturally extraordinary.”
Urging audience members to have a sense of humor, Bean spoke about her immigration to the United States, growing up in a “melting pot” and the less-traveled road she took. Bean said because each culture is so different, you can’t meld the two together.
“In this world,” she said, “you can be the last person in the world to know who you are.”
After enrolling in college in 1960 and majoring in “history, government and screaming,” Bean met her husband, Bennett, an artist.
Bean spent most of her life teaching, but turned to writing after her students “got to be no fun.” Bean said teaching others about the possibility of being bicultural is a stereotype breaker because she gets the chance to say what she wants.
“This is what I do and it’s so much fun,” she said. “It’s the best kind of teaching.”
Bean said in order to be an immigrant, you need to start acting more like one. She suggested to the audience several ways of acting more like an immigrant, such as “thumbing your knows” and “finding the duck-rabbits.” In order to “thumb your knows,” one must get new perspective on things instead of just “thumbing your nose” at things one doesn’t understand.
On a power point slide, Bean displayed a “duck-rabbit” and asked the audience to look for the duck, the rabbit and then to see both of them at the same time, something which she said is impossible. Bean said there is a problem because there certain stereotypes urging people to “be only one thing.”
“The pressure is always to choose between your selves,” she said. “I am stressing that you don’t have to choose.”
Dean of Students Dick McKaig said Bean had an easy time phrasing what she feels in ways that are easily relatable. McKaig stressed how important multiculturalism is on campus and how there is a “sense of awkwardness” about it. He said Bean’s lecture was “right on target” by educating students about multiculturalism.
Fancy Zhao, a graduate student in the School of Journalism, said she heard about the event from a classmate. Although Zhao had not heard of Bean before the lecture, she said she was interested in a topic on multiculturalism.
“She was really humorous and enjoyable,” Zhao said. “You can feel the difference (between cultures) and how similar we are, the way we express and celebrate holidays.”
Bean topped off her lecture by discussing a study that indicated three trends between Asians and Caucasians. The trends included drinking, drug use and suicide.
“The two groups get mixed up and converge because we’re in this global world,” she said. “These trends are trying to somehow meld us in a way that allows you to be functional as well as to maintain your identity, and it’s not easy.”
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