By Alice Wang, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, winner of the 2017 Stories from Abroad Scholarship and member of the BC Study Abroad Writer in Residence Team
My Chinese heritage became very salient to me during my study-abroad. At every city I went, I had someone, often a man, shout out greetings to me in Mandarin on the street. Why they would even think that to be an appropriate behavior is beyond me. And yet these borderline discriminatory remarks enticed me to reflect on what it felt like to wear my ethnicity so visibly around me.
Born and raised in China, my family immigrated to Canada sixteen years ago. Since then, I have acquired Canadian citizenship and accustomed myself with the label “Chinese-Canadian.” I retained the first qualifier—“Chinese”—even though I...
