Several kids at work were happy to show me that they can say “Happy Chinese New Year!” in both Mandarin and Cantonese yesterday, and then asked why there were two languages so lectured them: “China is a very big country and is what the Roman empire would have been if it stayed an empire. There are many different cultures and languages in China.”

I could tell they weren’t interested and just wanted to show me that they have accepted the fact that I’m Chinese, so I stopped talking and said my family doesn’t celebrate Chinese New Year anyway and wouldn’t be able to correct them if they’re saying it wrong.

My family is notorious for not celebrating holidays because celebrating holidays would mark us as normal, which is the last thing we want. So, instead of celebrating Christmas, Chinese New Year, Easter, and other religious holidays that we get off work, we turn birthdays into big celebrations instead. And in particular, my birthday happens to be a cause for celebration, which is probably because I’m the oldest of the oldest of the oldest of an only surviving child.

Not celebrating Chinese New Year is just one of things that has helped me become de-asianized in many ways, which painfully evident when I’m invited to a hot-pot dinner and don’t know the proper etiquette or when my non-Asian friend uses the chopstick better than me. But I make up for it by spicing my diet up with a variety of East Asian dishes and going to U of T.

Anyway, it’s officially the year of the dragon now. When I was a kid I thought people who were born in the year of the dragon were the epitome of everything cool – or rather, I just highly admired the kids who were one year older than I was. My old logic: “well I’m year of the snake, and dragons and snakes are essentially the same except one has wings, claws, and can breathe fire. That means I’m almost cool.”

Actually, now that I think about it, the only reason I might have thought they were cool was because I had a crush on this kid who was a year older than me and I wanted to have everything in common with him. Sad but true.