One Step at a TIme

It was five o’clock in the afternoon in summer of 2010. The sun unreservedly slanted into beams of glimmering reds overlooking Shanghai’s city smog. My Chinese cousin or older sister as I would call her, spontaneously signed us up for some urban tourism at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo. The scorching August heat felt raw and boggy upon my skin, now clammy with sweat.

“Come on! There are two more pavilions to go!” My voice screeched.

A sea of people swooped upon me. Exhaust and air coated my city lungs. Hastily, I rubbed shoulders with all strangers, foreign and Chinese alike. I adamantly trained my gaze forward and fixed it over a pavilion ahead that had U.S.A. pinnacled upon its rooftop. My feet quickened beneath me and I leaped for the waiting line. I was gripping for my cousin’s wrist before the shuffling bodies behind me broke us apart.

“Slow down!” My cousin screamed.

“You are so weak, Shanghai has truly domesticated you, cuz.” I said.

“Maybe it’s the other way around…”

My body twisted and I beamed at her, “I beg you pardon?”

“You have been Americanized. You pay no heed to my suffering.” She sucked in for breath and continued, “individualized and we call that selfish in China. What happened to running along with other people instead of always driving ahead?” My cousin was shy of 5 feet one but born of a firing attitude.

Her words struck vital and my insides chilled. “I’m sorry, dui bu qi.” I intoned in Mandarin Chinese. Like a child being corrected from faults, I retrieved backwards in downtrodden steps and realigned myself shoulder to shoulder with my cousin. At that moment, I knew I was no foreigner to her even after countless years of living abroad. I customarily straddled two cultural worlds while growing up as a self-identified Chinese American, but now I am beckoned to navigate my way single heartedly about Chinese culture.

Droves of Chinese natives began to ceaselessly move around me in forward, backward, and sideway motions. I quickly reoriented myself and began to shuffle my body rhythmically with the human shift.