” As I got older, I realised that people saw me as other things – sometimes Korean, sometimes Japanese, sometimes just Asian. When my family moved to a more affluent white neighbourhood, I started to see myself as ‘other’, this amorphous category. I didn’t even know what ‘not other’ was, but I knew I wasn’t it, I wasn’t what was normal. “
” Of course I want the things I write to reflect well on me or anyone who might feel represented by me, but also, I’m not writing a guidebook on how to be or how my people should be seen. I’m telling very specific stories. “
” Growing up, I had a face that people wanted to tell things to, and I grew up with adults who had so much to say. They had lived through decades of unbelievable poverty, starvation, political upheaval, chaos. “
” Chinese people of my parents’ generation who lived through the Cultural Revolution knew so much of death at such a young age, and the psychic toll those experiences left was immense. I knew the stories of the Cultural Revolution before knowing what the Cultural Revolution was. “
” People who have very devastating lives sometimes have the most wild, avant-garde humor. It’s like when you’ve seen it all and been through it all, nothing is off-limits in a way. “
All 5 Jenny Zhang Quotes about People in picture
Topics: People quotes