Transitions

It was June 2016.
I just flew from Shanghai, China, to Dallas, Texas.
I was confused, because I didn't see the Dallas I knew.
I was sad, because I realized my loving grandmother was still in China.

My mother motions me to follow her into the airport parking lot, along with my father, and two sisters.

Fast forward the time to August.
After some painful jet lag, I started middle school, as a 7th grader.
I expected to see a school full of Caucasians.  
However, I saw people of different ethnicities.
I also saw other Asians, like me.  Most of them were also Chinese, like me.
But they also weren't like me.
They only spoke English, shunned their heritage, the boys playing on football teams and the girls wearing revealing clothes.
I was shocked.
Shocked by the fact that nobody in the whole school was like me.
I was shocked, because I realized that these Asians didn't like me one bit.

I tried to compliment them on their clothes, their backpacks.
The only thing they did, was to give me stares with their frosted eyes,
and frown.
Whenever that happened, I ran.
I was scared.  I was seen as too genuine, in a school full of hypocrites.

All the other Chinese-Americans obsessed over things like anime.
I wasn't interested in that stuff.

All the other Chinese-Americans forgot how to speak Chinese.
I remembered.
I was fluent.

Fast forward the time to 2017.
The school year has ended.
I learned to ignore the other Chinese-Americans.

But now thinking back to it,
Could I have been a little kinder and nicer?