Chile and how the world is Chinese.

Disclaimer: "Chinese" here is used to refer to people whose ancestry lies in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan (where I hail from), and others of the Chinese diaspora.

Ever since I arrived in Santiago, I noticed the vast amounts of Chinese restaurants on every street corner. I became friends with a 20-year old girl named Cui Xia who works with her family in one of the restaurants. I always try to hang out with her, but her schedule is so busy working for her family's restaurant that she never has time to.

But today for once we got to hang out. Although our lives' directions are different, with me studying in college and her working indefinitely in her family's restaurant, something very important allows our divergent lives to intersect: being Chinese. No kidding. We talked for 1.5 hours about being Chinese. This was no silly conversation about how cool it is to be Chinese nor about how much better Chinese culture is to others. Rather, it was about how we juggle being Chinese while being a Chilean or an American. Simply where our parents came from gave us a common bond, despite growing up in completely different environments. Her parents work 364 days a year, taking only a day off during Fiestas Patrias, the Chilean independence day. She wants to study and learn about things that interest her in university classes, but she cannot because her family needs help taking orders in Spanish because her parents and her brothers speak very little Spanish. Even though my parents don't own a restaurant, it's very similar how we relate with our parents because we are the children of Chinese immigrants, children of people whose lives were implanted in an unknown country with unfamiliar people and barely speak the language. Those who suffered a lot to simply make a living. They want us, their children, to marry within the same ethnicity, to not marry wai guo ren (non-Chinese people). We are Chinese, but not fully. She is Chilean, but not fully. Chileans have told her to go back to her country. I am American, but I can't relate with families of people whose parents have been in the U.S. for over 40 years or more. I am undeniably Chinese in many aspects of my thinking, my culture, and my family.

Even still, there are differences in our lives as well. The mere fact that I'm from the US is a very privileged thing, I realized. I have a world-class education at UC San Diego; I can speak English (and like a Valley girl at that); I get USA financial aid to pay for my schooling (and studying abroad); my parents were college-educated and pushed me my entire life to go to college and get a PhD, even if they were working their tails off at their business. Never did they make me put my education aside to work to help out the family. With Cui Xia, however, her parents discourage her from going to college because they need her to work work work. Education, practically speaking, is just not feasible for her and it's a luxury she cannot have. She said she hates working at the restaurant because she's so bored, but it would pain her if she had to see her mom work by herself while she were not working and in school. For many Chinese-Chileans it is a system they cannot get out of: to work everyday for the rest of their lives to help out their families' restaurants with really no end in sight. Hearing about this made me realized that my state in life is so privileged. I have the luxury of living on my own, picking any major I want, studying in Chile, and having time to spend it how I want to. My parents aren't rich, and I have my share of money problems, but in the grand scope of things, I am lacking in nothing. I am blessed beyond what I deserve.