My Taiwanese-American Cultural Identity

I’ve often struggled with how to describe myself in terms of my cultural identity. I wrestled daily with this question as I took in the sights and sounds of living in Taiwan as an American. As part of my volunteering at CRTS, I had the opportunity to spend time with elementary school children as part of a Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF) program. Two days a week, I would go to an elementary school classroom to help lead the children in games and singing, while another co-worker taught a short Bible story. This co-worker eventually asked me to share my testimony in Chinese with the students in the class— I was very reluctant at first, but eventually I did it, albeit using very broken Chinese that was probably barely intelligible (with some made up words and phrases along the way).

One day when I was in the classroom, one of the students asked me whether I was Taiwanese or American; to them, it must have been weird to see a Chinese person who couldn’t speak Chinese. I truly didn’t know how to respond at that time, but I envied the children because their cultural identity was secure— they had the experience of growing up in Taiwan, which I never had. In Taiwan, my language deficit became even more apparent to me— although I looked Chinese, I couldn’t speak the language fluently, and once people discovered that their English was better than my Chinese, they started using English to talk to me. Despite all these things, I was encouraged by my secure identity in Christ (Galatians 3:26-28), and the knowledge that the Father knows me intimately, for I was “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14). May God use my unique cultural identity for the furthering work of the Kingdom!

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