Cultural Commentary

I have been meaning to write about this for some time, but was finally prompted by a gift I received yesterday from a Japanese-American friend of blueberry mochi she had made in honor of Girls' Day, a holiday I had never heard of. But never mind about that. The main point is--blueberry mochi? Wow! Something that could only occur at this very unique juncture of time and place... an Americanized Japanese living in Alaska.

There aren't too many American-born Asians in Fairbanks. M and I are the only ones I know. Most of the Asians in Fairbanks either are foreign nationals or naturalized as adults. The Chinese students (and there are lots of them in engineering) go out of their way to be friendly to me, and I to them, but after a while, communication gets difficult. Their English is in general not as good as that of Sili Valley Chinese folks, and my Chinese is limited to the vocabulary lists of names of colors and fruits and vegetables that I memorized when I was about eight. So unless we want to have a vegetable-based conversation (which would only utilize one of my colors--green!), we don't talk about much other than exchanging very enthusiastic daily greetings that then fall short of developing into a conversation.

I think most people here take me at first glance to be Alaskan Native, but then I open my mouth and instead of the gentle, thoughtful cadence of the Native, out comes my boisterous and indelicate California voice. Then I guess people don't know what to make of me.

One of these days, I'll have to make another cultural commentary post about size. In the Bay Area, I was medium-sized; here, I'm a mere slip of a thing; but I'm very big in China!