Words by: Angel Tully 
Art by: Siena Thomas

Humans love to put things into boxes.

We want to categorise people, places and objects as things that are ‘known’ and things that are ‘unknown’. We want to identify the similarities and differences between them based on our previous encounters. Naturally, this leads to making judgements based on stereotypes—for better or worse. It is simply how we are programmed to make sense of the world.

When we encounter different ethnic cultures, our desire to categorise flourishes. We ask questions like: What makes a particular culture different from another? What values unite us as all humans, and what separates us by the way we look or the language we speak? Finding a way to internally sort through the information and put a label on people helps us to process the wealth of diversity and culture within our society.

Now this is all well and good in a world where there is no such thing as a multiracial individual, and everyone fits neatly into their mutually exclusive boxes. But in Australia in 2024, that is simply not the case. We are—as the popular phrase would put it—a melting pot country.

So what’s it like to belong to the abyss between two defined cultures? It can sometimes feel like two halves don’t quite equal a whole. Like the culture you feel most at home in is both of them, yet neither at the same time. An oxymoron if you will.

In many ways, I have always connected more strongly with my Australian side, due to growing up here in an English speaking home and hanging out with mostly White friends. Celebrating my Chinese culture felt like an activity reserved for being around family and my fellow bananas. Even so, I always feel slightly out of step with both sides. It is as if no matter what side of myself I lean on, people will always notice that I am a little bit different.

Even if they don’t intentionally put me into that box or overtly treat me differently, the unwillingness to fully acknowledge me as being ‘enough’ of either side reinforces my cultural identity crisis.

But just like how my bloodline runs across two different sides of the world, the life of a Halfie has two sides of a coin. Being half-Chinese and half-Australian feels like a lot of things. It feels like never having a celebrity lookalike due to a lack of representation. It feels like one of your parents looking like they could have adopted you. It feels like getting asked where you are from because apparently if you aren’t White you must be an immigrant. It feels like getting called ‘exotic’ and being unsure if it’s a fetish or a compliment. It feels like getting told you speak great English (it’s literally my first language??) and equally grilled about why you don’t speak Mandarin or Cantonese like a good Chinese girl.

On the flip side, it feels like having the privilege to embrace and share two different ethnic stories. It feels like being born with a more open-minded view of the world and its many ethnicities and cultures. It feels like having a BBQ by the pool on a Saturday and Yum Cha on a Sunday. It feels like being the product of a love so great that it travelled continents to unite. It feels like getting to share an intimate unspoken connection and understanding with any other Half Asian person I come across. It feels like being unique in my own beautiful way.

What I have come to realise is that it is ok that I don’t speak Cantonese, and it is ok that there aren’t as many people in my life who look like me. To me, embracing your culture is not about ticking off a list of boxes that let you into an exclusive club, it is about being proud of who you are and sharing those parts of yourself with the people you love. Culture is about family, love, traditions, good food and stories that outlive generations. It is about your own feeling of belonging, and not about anyone else’s opinion on that.

So no, I am not sorry that I don’t speak Cantonese. Not saying that I might not learn one day, but for now, I take solace in the fact that not speaking Cantonese doesn’t make me any less than half of who I am.