Since coming to the U.S. for school at the age of fourteen, I’ve tried to recreate the magic I used to feel during Chinese New Year. Growing up in Singapore and Hong Kong, we made New Year’s crafts at school and teachers recounted the story of Nian. My sister and I wore little qipaos and got showered with laisee at big family dinners. I’d stay up all night waiting for the New Year’s fireworks to scare the Nian monster away, and make sure there was red on my windows, always.
Unfortunately — apart from a lackluster McConnell Dining Hall Lunar New Year feast with a few Asian friends — I felt isolated from my own culture and struggled to feel seen at the 5Cs this year.
Scripps is the whitest place I’ve ever been. My high school had a tight-knit student body that embraced multiculturalism and community. The whole school showed up to our annual Lunar New Year celebrations, regardless of their background. However, at Scripps and the 5Cs, the contrast has been disappointing.
There is a lack of curiosity from my white peers out of fear of messing up or not knowing enough. This is causing cultural blindness at the 5Cs.
As an Asian international student, I’ve wrestled with my identity. I feel drawn to, but undeserving of, the Asian American identity, and also don’t have the language background to speak seamlessly with other Chinese international students. I’ve struggled with feeling vastly different to those around me, wondering if I’m as beautiful or worthy.
Many of my white peers hesitate to talk about race, and moments like Lunar New Year accentuate the feeling that there’s so much about me they don’t — and don’t even try to — see.
However, when my cultural identity is sometimes the only thing I can hold onto in a country as racialized as the United States, the intentional effort to address our differences and learn more about each other actually makes me feel the most seen. I understand that no Chinese New Year will ever be like the ones at home and that is the price I pay for being abroad. Still, I wish that individuals would be more intentionally curious and thoughtful in our mostly white community.
When Lunar New Year finally arrived, I carefully picked out my red outfit, hoping to spot peers remembering what I’d told them about wearing red on the holiday. I held my breath while greeting my classmates and friends, wondering if someone would at least text an acknowledgment. My messages and attempts remained anticlimactic.
This year, the professor for my Chinese conversation class — an Oldenborg language resident — hosted a New Year’s Eve gathering for students studying Chinese and living in the language hall. Not knowing anyone there, I sat to the side, worried talking to someone I didn’t know would reveal that 1) I’m not as Chinese as I look and 2) I’m more American than I look.
I bumped into two of my white classmates. Although I was habitually worried I’d feel misunderstood by white people at the 5Cs, I let my guard down and we devised a scheme to sneak ourselves extra dumplings.
On our walk back together afterward, one of my classmates asked if they could ask a personal question.
I said yes. My chest tightened slightly.
“Are you ethnically Chinese?” they asked.
I replied yes.
“How do you feel about white people learning Chinese?”
I was instantly relieved. During my whole time at Scripps, none of my white friends have brought up race unless I had first. I think about being Asian every day, so it’s hard to feel completely seen when they don’t mention it. My heart warmed at the fact that these people I barely knew were brave enough to do so.
I said I thought it was cute. They joked about how that was my fake answer and I insisted I was telling the truth.
I went on to explain how putting in the effort to learn a language they have no ethnic ties to makes me feel seen. Most Chinese learners I know are ethnically Chinese and trying to connect deeper with their heritage, so it means a lot to me that they’re trying without that background. It made me feel seen to realize the way these white people, with no cultural connection to Chinese New Year, had come to this celebration and loved the same foods I did.
It wasn’t what I imagined, but a shared love for food, each other and a willingness to learn more brought joy to a seemingly gloomy day. That’s what makes holidays special to me.
“Yes,” they answered as they laughed about being my diversity hire. “We can be your white friends!”
“I have white friends!” I said ironically. “I go to Scripps.”
Nicole Teh SC ’27 is from Hong Kong/London/Orange County. To her white friends: she understands. It’s impossible to absorb someone else’s memories and fully grasp what something means to them, but she just asks that you try.
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