Growing Up Asian: The Clown That Followed Me
By: Ed C
Tags: Academic, Asian, Job Hunting, Schools, Careers

This is life. (Image by Mche Lee via https://unsplash.com/photos/PC91Jm1DlWA Copyright-free)

There was a boy who worked and studied really hard. Every day, he would come home from school, sit at the dinner table, open his books and study till he slept. He would do this repeatedly for years until he went off to university. One day, he graduated and he went on to a good paying job. The end.

This was the story my parents told me while growing up and perhaps even an inevitable part of growing up Asian. Studying would lead to the nice front lawn, the good job and the high pay. But there was also a different story.

There was a boy who didn’t work or study hard. Every day he would come home and play video games. He flunked out of school and didn’t go to university. He ended up working at Mcdonald’s because that was all that he was good for. He had no future and nobody wanted him. The end.

Six medium coffees. Two cream, two sugars and two pumps of failure. (Image by Eric Mclean via https://unsplash.com/photos/fOlryqm6tmI Copyright-free)

Over the years I had heard this tale multiple times and over time it began to stick. It was something my mom would yell at me whenever she caught me watching TV or surfing the web. Perhaps it was one of the hallmarks of growing up Asian. But it was strange that it was never Burger King or Wendy’s. It was always Mcdonald’s and the dark specter of Ronald Mcdonald, the clown mascot that I saw on TV would follow me through elementary school and high school into my post-secondary school life. He would remain with me. Just beyond the periphery of my eye. Always at the back of my mind. I was determined. I would reject him with every fiber of my being because I couldn’t be a failure. It wasn’t in me to fail. I would never end up at Mcdonald’s. I would reject it till my final breath.

I spent my first year in University doing general studies before declaring my major two years later. Everyday was spent counting down to my future. I would get a job with a nice salary and settle down in a house with a nice front yard. But every time I would turn on the TV, take a break or take my eye “off the mark”, there he was. Ronald Mcdonald himself. He was haunting me. A grim view of my possible future.

I graduated, like I was supposed to. Perhaps like every Asian child is supposed to. But that didn’t matter to the economy. It was in recession.

My friends who had studied to become teachers couldn’t find jobs (although this was more a function of our area and their disputes with the teacher’s union than the recession itself). My science friends opted to stay in school and go further in their degrees.

As for me, I was exhausted. I couldn’t do school anymore. So I wrote cover letters and resumes and handed them out.

And no one was hiring…

I used my school’s career search for days. I wrote to my academic advisors and asked my classmates for leads.

And no one was hiring…

We all float down here. But not you. (Image by Mark Tryapichnikov via https://unsplash.com/photos/F5z77wzmIYU Copyright-free)

And finally, in my last act of desperation I decided to do it- to swallow my pride and apply to that one place that growing up was both place of happiness for me as a child and what had been ingrained in me as a place for happiness to die as an adult. I filled out an application form and submitted my cover letter with a resume and an open availability. I was beaten down, desperate for work and ready to kiss the ring of the clown that had haunted me from childhood and symbolized every vice my parents could imagine.

And he rejected me.