Everything looked right. My body said otherwise.

When I think of California, I think of people who don’t apologize for existing.

Confidence.
Volume.
Space.

Freedom like it’s their middle name.

Growing up, we had satellite TV.
A whopping twenty channels to choose from.

And with that, a choice between cultures.

I went to a Chinese primary school,
but my Mandarin was never good enough.

I didn’t speak it at home the way my friends did.
It was never my first language.

I learned early that difference had to be smoothed out.

So I did.

I tried to learn the culture,
to be more like my Chinese friends.

I watched Taiwanese and Hong Kong shows.
Series. Movies.

Trying to keep up.

But it never stuck.

I always felt slightly behind.
Slightly off.

Like trying to wear something
that didn’t quite fit my body.

So I leaned west.

More TV.
More series.

I remember pausing the screen
and writing down lines in a notebook,
because the English I learned in school
felt stiff by comparison.

And MTV.

I spent more time with Britney Spears and Beyoncé
than my own mom.

I printed out lyrics.
Memorized them.

Borrowed confidence secondhand.

I never fully landed anywhere.

So I learned how to adjust.

London came later.

Western, but restrained.
Polite. Controlled.

Years of navigating sarcasm
and surface niceness.

I never quite cracked it.

I rarely knew what anyone really felt about me.

I lived there for ten years,
yet my closest friends were other expats.

My British friends always felt just out of reach.

Close,
but not quite mine.

Then California.

The first thing I noticed at the airport
was the spelling.

Familiar words,
wrong letters.

In a changing room one day,
I heard women talking outside,

Sharp.
Animated.
Unmistakably, American.

It felt like the TV had come to life.

On the street, strangers told me their life stories
within five minutes.

Relationships.
Health.
Trauma.

Everything offered freely.

Too freely.

Their voices were piercing.

Their openness felt invasive.

This was the opposite of everything I’d learned.

Where my instincts were calculated,
theirs were expansive.

Where I’d been taught to read the room,
they filled it.

There’s a gap
between where I come from
and what’s happening around me now.

My chest tightens.