Peeling of a Banana

Banana. Was never my first fruit of choice, or something I’d eat with oats for breakfast. It is, however, the label given to Australian born Chinese like myself and many others. Deceiving. Chinese faced and yellow skinned, yet bleached with Western values and ideologies, our lens are ‘filtered’ with a Eurocentric preset. To the overt peoples, we are unrooted sprouts, being carried in the wind amidst an established ancient forest. To people of our home, we are white-washed, having lost touch of our ancestors and heritage. A self-induced battle. Sandwiched between two alternate worlds- of school and home, of society and family- the weight of interstitially existing between cultural dichotomies were reflected through my timidness and suppression as a kid. To have grass between my toes and the Australian sun dancing on my skin tickled my inner hopes of assimilation. I learned to conceal. I got good at it. In my best attempts of forgetting, detachment. It was dispassion. It was ignorance. It was shame. Growth takes place at moments of realization and reflection. Project U is an ode to my past self, to the ones who feel like they don’t belong, the ones who hide through the colourless in colour.