Scottish | Hong Kong Chinese
My Father is Canadian/American with Scottish heritage, and my Mother is from Hong Kong, but both of her parents are from Southern China. My parents met in Hong Kong during the 80s after my Dad moved over there for work. Since 2001 we have lived in the UK. I have always recognised that I was mixed-race. Starting primary school at an International School in an expat community in Hong Kong, I was always surrounded by a mix of races, and mixed-race people too. However, I don’t think I actually embraced the fact I am mixed-race until much later on in my life. I would say that being mixed-race, not only do you often have a great opportunity to connect with your relevant cultures, but it often makes you inquisitive to discover even more. The food we ate at home growing up was always hugely varied, and it has definitely developed my palate to be pretty accommodating to most tastes. Learning the tricks of the trade from mum has meant I now get to treat my friends with dim sum and things like that. Home has also had a large effect on how I connect with language. My Father is tri-lingual and my Mother is quad-lingual and growing up the dinner table often was a mix of English, Cantonese and Mandarin. Despite barely using Cantonese myself, for a lot of my upbringing, my Mum always used it with my brother and I so I have always retained strong understanding. In the past few years, I have begun only using Cantonese with my Mum and my speaking is back to a far better level which has made me really happy. I’m currently studying a Masters at SOAS, where there is an incredibly diverse student body, and at it has been so satisfying to actually use Cantonese with native speakers other than my Mum and her family, and be in an environment where there is a huge mix of races and mixed-race people. If I were to be born again, I would come back the exact same, but perhaps try and adopt a more embracing attitude from the outset. I have really loved my experience as a mixed-race person, and I would not swap it for anything.
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