How to American: An Immigrant's Guide to Disappointing Your Parents

by Jimmy O. Yang

“I eat the fish.” I said this to my roommate, in my thick Chinese accent. “I know you eat the fish, but when you clean the fish, you can’t just leave the fish head and guts and shit in the sink, because the whole house smells like a bait station. So you got to put it in the trash, then take the trash out. Do you understand?” my big, curly-haired American roommate explained to me, pointing at the leftover fish parts in the sink. I stared at him, confused. And I replied, “Yes, I eat the fish.” “Motherfuck!” he howled in complete frustration.

I’ve always felt like an outsider, even as a Chinese kid growing up in Hong Kong. Hong Kong was a thriving British colony with its own government, and people in Hong Kong often looked down at their neighbors from Mainland China.

Everyone in Hong Kong has a legal Chinese name and an English nickname. My legal name is a four-character Chinese name. My family name is a rare two-character last name, , Ou Yang, and my given name is , Man Shing, which means “ten thousand successes” in Chinese. It’s a hopeful name that is sure to set me up for failure. No matter how successful I become, I can never live up to my parents’ ten thousand ambitions. Jimmy was my English nickname given to me by my parents. I grew up in a tight-knit nuclear family with my parents and an older brother. My mom’s name was Amy, because it sounded close to her Chinese nickname Ah-Mee. My dad named himself Richard “because I want to be rich,” he explained to me. And my brother was named Roger, after my parents fell in love with Roger Moore’s portrayal of 007. Roger Ou Yang never liked his English name; he thought it sounded like an old white guy. So he changed his English name to Roy, an old black guy’s name. I asked my parents why they named me Jimmy. They didn’t really have an answer. My dad said, “It just sounded pretty good.”

Mom is a people person but she is also very blunt. It’s definitely a cultural thing. Asian ladies will tell you exactly what is wrong with your face, in front of your face, as if they were helping you. I always have to brace myself when I visit my parents. My mom often greets me with a slew of nonconstructive criticisms: “Jimmy ah, why is your face so fat? Your clothes look homeless and your long hair makes you look like a girl.” After thirty years of this, my self-image is now a fat homeless lesbian.

The most important values in American culture are independence and freedom. The most important values in Chinese culture are family and obedience.

I promised my parents I’d finish my college degree in economics, but then I turned down a job in finance to pursue a career in stand-up comedy after I graduated. My dad thought I was crazy. But I figured it was better to disappoint my parents for a few years than to disappoint myself for the rest of my life.

Mom was often quite lost during English conversations; she’d just politely nod and smile. When a foreign person doesn’t understand something, instead of saying, “Pardon me” they’ll just nod their head and smile “yeah, yeah, yeah.”

The college graduation ceremony felt more like a deadline than a celebration. It marked the day when I’d go from being a student to officially becoming an unemployed adult.

I was pairing R&B songs with strippers like a sommelier at Spago suggesting which red goes best with the beef Bolognese.

It’s always a good move to compliment someone, then tell him he reminds you of you; it’s like patting yourself on the back using the other person’s hand.

Needless to say, I never heard back from Jeff and Modern Family again. The little bit of confidence I had left crawled out of my body. I still can’t watch Modern Family to this day; it’s like a Vietnam War veteran eating at a pho restaurant.

How stupid and desperate do you have to be to literally write your own name on a very illegal stolen check? Luckily, I was so poor I didn’t have thirteen hundred dollars in my bank account, so the check bounced and my account was frozen. I went down to the Hollywood police station and reported it to an officer: “My old roommate committed check fraud. He stole my check and made it out to his name. Here’s the evidence.” I handed him the copy of the fraudulent check, hard evidence. The officer asked: “So he stole thirteen hundred dollars from you?” “He tried to steal thirteen hundred dollars from me, but it didn’t work.” “So he didn’t really steal from you.” “He stole my check and forged my signature!” “Well, if he didn’t technically steal anything from you, we can’t really charge him on anything substantial.”

Acting is the only job where physical discrimination is allowed. I once auditioned for something with the character description “NO FAT PEOPLE!!!” in caps with three exclamation marks. Ironically, it was for a McDonald’s chicken nuggets commercial.

I once fired up my Uber Driver app after leaving my acting class and I was matched to pick up one of my classmates. To make matters worse, it was the pretty girl I had a crush on. Then just as I was pulling up, the trip was canceled for some reason. So I rolled down my window and asked: “Hey, Jessica, did you call an Uber?” “Yeah, but I canceled it. My boyfriend’s coming to pick me up.” I wanted to drive my Prius off of a cliff.

This can’t be real life. Six months ago, I was driving drunk assholes in an Uber; now I am eating free salmon next to Harrison Ford? My imposter syndrome kicked into full swing. I felt like I snuck into this party. How did I end up here? I don’t deserve this! These are gods amongst men and I am just a dude who used to pay five dollars to do five minutes at an open mic. I was looking over my shoulder, waiting for a security guard to escort me out.

The first time I showed my mom a scene from Silicon Valley, she said: “Jimmy, how many times do I have to tell you, don’t hunch your back.” “Mom, this is acting, I’m playing a character.” “Can you play a character that stands up straight? You look weak.”

There was an award that night called “Best Performance by an Asian Not Asked to Use an Accent.” I’m not making this up. I was invited to attend the show because I was nominated for that award for my role in Patriots Day, in which I did have an accent. The other nominees were Randall Park and also, Donnie Yen from Star Wars who naturally had a Chinese accent. The award was supposed to be ironic, really; it should have been called “Best Asian Homie Award.”

The day you buy your 55-inch flat screen and throw away your old Zenith tube TV is one of the best days of your life. You call all your buddies over and you watch Planet Earth for eight hours. It’s magnificent. That flat screen marks a milestone for your success. You’ve made it. Then two months later, you get used to the 55-inch TV; it’s just another TV to you. You watch the Price Is Right on it and scream, “One dollar! Bid one dollar, you fucking idiot!” just like you did when you had your Zenith tube TV. And sadly, you can’t go back to your Zenith tube TV. You have tricked your brain into a new standard and there’s nowhere to go but up.

To become a US citizen, I had to pass the civics test to prove that I had a good enough understanding of American history and the English language. I had to prepare for a Q&A from a booklet, “100 Civics Questions.” How many justices are on the Supreme Court? What is the economic system of the United States? What does the judicial branch do? I have seen enough of the “Jaywalking” segment on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno to know that most US-born citizens wouldn’t know the answers to these questions. I had to study those questions like it was the SATs. They should have let me pass the test just based on the amount of Bud Light and American football I’d consumed over the last ten years. I think the test should have more relevant everyday American questions like: What constitutes pass interference in the NFL? What’s Snoop Dogg’s real name? Who is Leonardo DiCaprio currently dating?

“I was telling the truth ma’am. I’m here to get away for a little vacation. Here to have fun.” “Nobody comes to Winnipeg to have fun,” she said bluntly. I couldn’t argue with that. I guess I underestimated just how shitty Winnipeg was.

In Hong Kong, I didn’t have to answer the question “Am I Chinese or am I American?” anymore. I was just another person. I was just me. The weight of being an immigrant and the weight of being defined as an Asian American were gone. Things that seemed like stereotypes in America were just normal in Hong Kong. Instead of an Asian guy eating weird chicken feet at the stereotypical dim sum, I was just a guy having lunch.

I’ve spent my entire adult life figuring out how to American. Fitting in became the only consistent part of my life. And no matter how American I tried to be, I’d always felt like an outsider. And no matter how long ago I left Hong Kong, it would always feel like home.

Even though we might never say “I love you” to each other in Chinese culture, there is so much love in these two human beings I truly hit the lottery in life to have them as my parents. My dad once told me: “Having you as my son is like winning the lottery… Not the Mega Millions jackpot, but like a small twenty-dollar prize.”