Inheriting Outsiderness

Is a Superpower

You told me (or hundreds of you told me) that one thing you missed about Rough Translation not being in your podcast feeds was hearing stories from “regular people.” And I miss hearing stories from you. So: this post does both. The story of one subscriber that stuck with me & may resonate with you. Happy Juneteenth!

It began, as things do, with a conversation with a stranger. Esther Choy is an early and generous supporter of this newsletter, and a perk of subscribing at the Founder level is a 1-on-1 Zoom with me (jury is out on how much of a ‘perk’ this is for you, but I’m 100% sure these convos have been my saving grace.) She said something in that call that really stuck with me and became this thing that I internalized. Something I would pull out and offer up in conversations about the audience I want to serve.

Esther, I would learn, has a knack for saying stick-able things. She is the author of “Let the Story Do the Work: The Art of Storytelling for Business Success” and the founder of the Leadership Story Lab, helping clients talk more effectively to their bosses and employees by helping them frame their own story. But the thing she said wasn’t about reframing a client’s story. It was a realization she’d recently made about her own.

“I’m your target listener,” she said, not long after hello. (One of Esther’s charms is a tendency to proceed directly to the point.)

“Why do you say that?” I said.

"Because I am an immigrant, raising daughters. And I was the daughter of a mother who was an immigrant. And my mother — she was the daughter of a child bride."

I started this newsletter as a place to launch my next thing. A place to understand why you’ve spent time with our show. And to let that understanding guide what I’m making next. Though I already knew that lots of RT listeners live somewhere other than where they were born — (in fact, how about a flash poll to test that assumption?)

— what struck me about Esther’s answer was not just that she identified as an immigrant, but that she placed herself in a multi-generational story of relocations and new beginnings. A chain of un-belonging, as it were. An inheritance of outsiderness.

So I called back Esther and asked her if she might be willing to answer a few questions. Our Q &A - lightly edited and annotated - follows.

Esther Choy, Q&A

Esther Choy and her mother, May Ying

GW: Thanks for doing this. It's kind of an experiment.

EC: I like it. And I like what you're saying about - the inheritance of outsiderness. That's kind of cool. Because I did inherit something.

GW: What do you think is that something that you inherited?

EC: Um… outsider looking in?

GW: Say more.

EC:  Like when people say to each other, Oh, Gregory, how are you today? That's just a synonym in this country for “hi.” Whoever asks you, Gregory, how are you today? They don’t want you to download anything more than two or three words, and they want to move on.

We made a whole show exploring the exclusionary nature of idiomatic speech – and how to fight back! – in our episode “How To Speak Bad English,” one of the most-downloaded episodes of 2021.

GW: What’s another example?

EC: The nonsensical “small talk” that Americans engage in at professional networking events. Maybe lots of people are bothered by it but they still keep playing along. I refuse. In fact, I've made it a purpose of mine to tell anyone who'd listen to stop getting sucked into this ritual. I used my first book as an opportunity to encourage readers to stop this nonsense, and tell short, engaging stories instead.

GW: So you find that your ‘outside looking in’ approach is helpful in your work?

EC: Oh yes. For example, I'm very jargon-sensitive. And I am, um… rattled. Yes. I guess that's actually an appropriate word to describe how I feel inside when I hear jargon.

GW: Because you hear the exclusionary nature of it.

EC: Yes. When I was in Hong Kong – I was a little kid - I was once told by my mom, Do not tell people that we moved from Beijing. And I understood the undertone. Don't tell anybody. This is bad for you.

Esther was born in Beijing in 1974, but moved at age 3 to Hong Kong, early enough to learn to speak accent-less Cantonese. Her mother, on the other hand, was born in Indonesia and raised in the Chinese community there, speaking Mandarin.

GW: What do you remember about that day and what your mom told you?

EC: I was standing in our tiny kitchen, she was hovering over the sink, cleaning the bok choi she was about to fry up for dinner and so her back was facing me. She liked listening to me giving her a download of my day and I've always loved giving her my daily report of any and all events. I was rambling on about my day until I got to the part about running around with my friends in the school yard during recess and telling them about my birthplace. Nearly all my classmates were born in Hong Kong. I thought it was kind of cool that I was from a different place. But then my mom stopped cleaning the veggies, turned around and stared at me, as if I did something terribly wrong. People from mainland China were being looked down upon, she told me. My parents were gods to me at the time. I worshipped them and sometimes I was very afraid of them. So, how could anyone look down on them? My little mind was blown. Second, I was also from Mainland China and so that meant I could be looked down upon too? My mind was blown again. I liked people and I thought people liked me! But now, I realized that they only liked me because they didn't realize I was born in Beijing?! It's a lot for a preschooler. And I actually had a good cover, I spoke flawless Cantonese. But I blew it. I blew it by happily and proudly sharing the fact that I was born in Beijing.

GW: It’s interesting that when I asked you about being sensitive to jargon, your mind immediately went back to this childhood story.

EC: On a visceral level, it makes perfect sense. Jargon excludes people who don't understand, and don't have access to their meaning. I can still see my mom's face in my mind when she told me to keep my mouth shut about being born in Beijing. She gave me a lens into the exclusionary nature of things. I know she didn't mean to burden me with it, but that was her experience.

GW:  When did you move from Hong Kong to the US?

EC: When I was 16. I moved by myself. I finished high school in LA, went to college in Santa Barbara, and then grad school in Texas. I moved around for a bit and I’ve lived in Chicago since 2000.

GW: Your daughters were born in the US.

EC: Yes. That’s why I told you my daughters are being raised by an immigrant mother. And I was raised by an immigrant mother. And my grandmother was a child bride. And it sounds terrible to call her a child bride because it's fairly typical in her time. The direct translation of what she was and what that practice was is more like, adopted daughter bride — 童養媳. (See this Wikipedia link for more). Families that were poor could place their female children with families who could afford to feed one more mouth. That also means one more pair of hands to help out. They're adopted as the future mate of one of their sons. So that's what my grandmother was.

GW: And she was sort of a second class citizen in her own home, right? I thought that’s why you mentioned it as part of the chain of outsiderness in your family. Not being on the same status with the other kids. Even though you're growing up in your native country, you're an outsider in your own home.

EC: Right, right. There may not be that many cultural linguistic differences, but you're an outsider, nonetheless. And what has drawn me to your show, and I think that one common thread I see [with other listeners] is that we've all felt like an outsider at some point in our lives. Though actually, this pattern in my own family.. three outsiders, three generations… I didn’t notice it myself until maybe a year or two ago.

GW: Really?

EC: As George Foster Wallace said, fish don’t see water. But now that I noticed this pattern, I think the question that I’m asking myself, is, will this change the way I parent in any way?

GW: That's a good question! Has it?

EC: I really don't know. That's my honest answer. I think I ought to... change something. But I don't know what yet. Maybe you or other listeners can help me wonder what that is. it would make sense that something ought to change, but what is it? I don't know.

GW: Maybe parents are often wondering what we’re doing wrong. But it could be that you realize that, oh wow, I’m doing something right, I just have to do that something more intentionally or more loudly or more fully.

EC: Maybe. Hopefully that's the direction I can take it.

GW: Have you ever asked your kids about it?

EC:  I've only talked to my husband about it. But they’re 12 and 15. I don't think I want to add one more thing to them about, yeah, your mother's weird…  Here's one more reason why!

🌎 Travel Planning Section…

I’ll be in 🥯Montreal next week for Jean Baptiste Day — the national holiday of Quebec – any suggestions? (Besides stuffing my face with kouign amann cake.) And I’ll be in Jerusalem next month. Would love to hear from you if you’re in one of these places, and also if you’re not, and please subscribe for more stories from the road.