Because I attended a middle school where I did not have to work hard to achieve high grades, I was not used to actually studying for tests and doing homework at home. I couldn’t see myself as the “smart Asian girl” in school anymore, and I felt overwhelmingly alone and lost.īut from the moment I got into Lowell, my self-image started to fall apart. I formed an expectation for myself that I should get a 4.0 and go to Stanford and become a doctor based off of my parents’ expectations for me.Įveryone in Lowell seemed more extraordinary and smarter and better than me. I just thought of what my parents wanted for me. I never thought of what I, Giping Huang Zheng, wanted to do with my life for myself. Growing up, my parents would always jokingly compare me and my siblings and ask who was the smartest, or which one of us would bring in the most money and provide for the family financially. I didn’t see myself as an individual with any unique traits.ĭuring middle school, I lived up to the stereotypes of being Asian: I had a 4.0 GPA throughout all three years and almost only Asian friends, attended Chinese school, and dreamt of being a doctor. Somehow, even back in fourth grade, I thought of myself as a typical Asian girl in San Francisco. My teacher laughed because I described myself just as a girl when I could have been great, giant, or genius. Instead of describing myself with extraordinary adjectives, I used common words: good, intelligent, polite, invisible, nice, and girl. In fourth grade, I did a school activity where I had to come up with adjectives using the letters of my name that described me. I didn’t see myself as an individual with any unique traits. I thought of myself as a typical Asian girl in San Francisco. And in the same way, I had always thought I was not special, that I was just like one of the many boba shops in San Francisco. But to me, all boba taste the same no matter where it’s from. Just in San Francisco alone, there are over 100 boba shops. In case you don’t know, boba is milk tea with chewy tapioca balls.
Junior Giping Huang shares how she learns of her individuality through other students.
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