I used to always want people to understand me and accept my opinions. I tended to look down on people when they held values or behaved in ways that I disliked. I often wanted people to become “better”—by my own definition of better.
Even though I genuinely love learning about new things, ideas, cultures, languages, and values, I am also very biased, especially when it comes to politics, religion, and certain values that I believe are simply “wrong.”
But the thing is, sometimes there is no such thing as being completely right or completely wrong. Sometimes things are just the way they are.
I’m sure I’ve annoyed people many times by expressing my opinions. No one—at least, not any of my friends or acquaintances—has ever told me straight to my face that I’m “opinionated,” but I know for sure that I am.
In fact, just yesterday, my significant other told me that I sometimes talk very “bai-mu.” It’s a Taiwanese expression that can mean something along the lines of being annoying or foolish—speaking without thinking about the consequences of offending other people, or lacking basic social awareness and etiquette.
I started thinking about all the things I might have done that hurt people, or things I might have said that made me look like a fool.
Of course, I was defensive at first, even though I knew he had a point.
Part of me still thought, Yes, there are people out there who aren’t very smart. They don’t think things through. They don’t understand my point. So, to a certain degree, I’m not “bai-mu.” I just think they could be smarter.
And therein lies the problem.
I should be more careful about what comes out of my mouth. Nobody deserves to be talked down to like that. Just like I didn’t deserve to be called “bai-mu.”
But oh well. There’s no use holding on to things that drag you down and make you unhappy. Sometimes it’s better to just let them go.
Of course, I also called him out and brought up some of the “bai-mu” things he had done or said to me, just to make things even. But that’s not really the point I’m trying to make here.
The bigger thing I’m realizing is that I need to learn how to control my anger and confusion toward people and places I dislike—including the country where I was born and lived until I was twelve.
I need to face the fact that there is good there too. I can’t keep looking only at the negatives.
At the same time, I can acknowledge that a place simply may not suit me.
It’s not as if my birthplace did something wrong by being the way it is. In fact, without it, I wouldn’t even exist.
That makes this complicated.
Moving from one country to another, acculturating and then assimilating into a second culture, only to eventually realize that your homeland is very different from the way you remembered it as a child—that can create a completely different kind of culture shock.
I know why I dislike it so much. I understand where those feelings come from.
But my partner, who was born and raised there and never left the country until he was 34, probably can’t fully understand what that experience feels like. And honestly, he is already a saint for listening to me rant about how much I dislike his beloved homeland.
And for that, yes, I guess I am a little “bai-mu.”
I constantly find myself comparing my first home country with my second one, almost as if I’m trying to prove a point about how much more developed or functional I think things are here.
But deep down, I know that my second home country isn’t some kind of heaven either.
I simply like the lifestyle here better.
Or maybe more accurately, I’m more used to it here.
I’m still trying to learn how to be less biased about everything. Not necessarily by changing my values, but by learning to coexist with the fact that other people have different ones.
I’m trying to stop reacting immediately.
To listen instead of judging.
To understand instead of trying to correct.
To accept that something can be different without being wrong.
And maybe, most importantly, I’m trying to just be happy.
I don’t want to cling so tightly to my 1.5-generation immigrant experience that it becomes the explanation for everything I feel or do. That experience shaped me, but it doesn’t have to define me forever.
At some point, I also just need to be an adult.
Find ways to fulfill my goals. Pursue my little dreams. Enjoy the people I love.
And stop being so grumpy.
I’ve been grumpy for too long.
It’s always about the same things.
And maybe it’s finally time to stop.
