Mei Lin by Margot Durfee

an excerpt from:

Mei Lin

by Margot Durfee

Mei-Lin has lived in Beijing her whole life. she has walked past the same buildings and people everyday after school since she was little. and yet, when she passes by the children chasing one another, the elderly women peeling vegetables on their doorsteps, the men smoking and drinking tea and playing chess, when she smiles at them, all she receives are blank stares. she feels isolated, invisible, as if she is on one side of a tinted window and the rest of the world is on the other. she has been alive long enough, and experienced enough, to know that she doesn’t fit in, especially in a country as racially homogenous as China, where her biracial-ass sticks out starkly her chestnut hair and hazel eyes a constant reminder that she isn’t “one of them,” even though she has similar features: a rounded, flatter nose; almond-shaped eyes; straight, thick hair.

she identifies as a (mixed) Chinese person. she celebrates the Lunar New Year and Mid-Autumn festival with her family, she is near fluent in Mandarin, but still Chinese students in her classes mock her pronunciation, even converse in front of her as if she cannot understand restaurant waiters automatically hand her a fork, give her an English menu recommend westernized dishes,

one day, after a birthday party her friends decided to do an “Asian-only” photo and they asked her to take

the

photo

off she goes again chasing a receding current so close yet forever out of reach she is confused when her very culture and city she calls home do not seem to want her as if she is pretending to be something she is not as if there is another life she should live, that she belongs in except there isn’t

she feels stranded like she’s jumped on a boat and only too late has she realized everyone around her is on another

find the full piece at futurehistoriesmag.org