What Being Chinese, Javanese and Muslim Has Taught Me About Identity

When I was eight years old, my mom sent me to a Chinese New Year party hosted by our distant family members. I went with two of my cousins of the same age. None of us cared about getting to know who’s who—we're there on a mission to get as many red envelopes as possible.

I practiced reciting the Mandarin phrase that would grant me one, making sure I didn’t butcher the intonation. I trailed behind my cousins, who then stopped before the sitting elders. My cousins delivered the phrase smoothly. The elders responded with a smile and slipped them the envelopes. Then came my turn.

“Xi nian kuai le. Shen ti jian kang wan shi ru yi.”

“Happy New Year,” I said. “Wishing you a prosperous life and a good health.”

Their smiles disappeared, and one of them squinted his eyes, studying my face. He then turned to a woman next to him and the two exchanged rapid Mandarin before they took turns handing me the envelopes. For the rest of the night, my cousins' hunt seemed way more effortless. Meanwhile, every time I approached a new group of people, they paused for a second or two before putting the envelopes on my palm.

“It must have been your looks,” my mom said after the party. “They didn’t know who you are, whose daughter you are.”

I only came to understand what she meant then years later. When I look at the mirror today, I see a story of a ten-year-struggle.

My maternal grandparents came to Indonesia from mainland China with no one else but their four children: my mom and her siblings in the 1940s. They knew no one in this once-foreign land and strived to make a living. My dad's family, on the other hand, has been living in Java as devout Muslims for generations.

They met and fell in love, and for 10 years each of their families disapproved of their interracial and interfaith relationship. My mom eventually converted to Islam to marry my dad, and soon I was born and raised a Muslim in a diverse religious environment. The relationship between both families improved, and it wasn’t as strained as I would’ve imagined. It only strengthened after my mom’s passing, to my surprise.

Growing up, my obviously mixed-race physique never led to outward racism in Indonesia. But I noticed that as I switched from one ethnic group to the other, people would make a big deal of my racial ambiguity. One time I was having lunch with my new co-workers when they broke into a light debate over my ethnicity out of nowhere. “No, her eyes are Javanese," one of them said. “She can’t pass as Chinese. Her skin is too dark!” said another. In other social situations, like when I'm with my friends of Chinese descent, they would say the opposite. It occurred me I could be perceived differently by different ethnic crowds. It's like I'm the human epitome of the white or blue dress phenomenon.

Being Chinese, Javanese and Muslim has made me question my identity my entire life—could I feel truly, wholly belong to one specific group of ethnicity? I think the answer is no. In a way, I'm both Chinese and Javanese, but also neither of those things. I've struggled because of this, but there's a beauty in being a mixture of two cultures that are so rich and unique in every way.

My mom made sure I never abandoned my Chinese heritage by implementing daily Mandarin phrases into my vocabulary at an early age. Meanwhile, my dad has never stopped teaching me Javanese etiquette and Islamic values. I call my aunt from my mom's side "Bude," and the one on my mom's "Yiyi." I still light up incense to pay respect to my maternal grandparents from time to time, because though it goes against the Islamic belief, my dad has accepted the tradition as just another part of my identity. Eating pork is always a huge ordeal. It's haram—forbidden—in Islam but is the most important staple in Chinese cuisine. Despite being a Muslim convert, my mom ate pork whenever we went out without my dad. Maybe she just missed her old-time family meal.

I'm lucky that I've never experienced racial prejudice. Sure, I've had minor racist jokes thrown at me. But in the bigger scheme of things, they never really bothered me. It took me roughly five years to realize that being of mixed heritage and having a mixed upbringing is a blessing. I'm not half of anything, I'm just wholly me. A third-generation Chinese Indonesian on my mom's side, and an umpteenth generation Javanese on my dad's.

So the next time you see a tan, flat-nosed and big-eyed-looking woman walk into a Chinese New Year party donning a cheongsam and pulling a smooth “Xi nian kuai le," I hope you won’t get too surprised.