um, excuse me... we used to be such shy children. not shy, just fearful of talking to people not related or already friendly to us. our parents used to force us to go ask shopkeepers or salesmen questions because we were so aghast at the notion of having to ask anyone anything. my mom especially took affront at our hesitation because she felt that if she could force herself to ask things with her "poor english," the least we could do was suck it up and go ask things for ourselves.

it took awhile before i felt comfortable enough to ask people in positions of authority anything. and i use the term "position of authority" very loosely. librarian? fifth grader? waiter? if you were older or uniformed, i choked up trying to talk to you. and this type of mentality carried over into school life. for me, talking to teachers was forbidden. i pretty much avoided teachers as much as i could because they made me uncomfortable. had a question to ask about the homework? just miss it and move on. screw the grade, maintain the anonymity.

this same sort of hesitation still pops up from time to time, rearing its ugly head at the most inopportune moments. usually it takes the form of automatic deference to anyone chinese and old enough to be an uncle/aunt type. it's like a total inability to conduct normal conversations with chinese people whom i've been accustomed to treating as "significantly older than me" my whole life. i'd always thought that this communication barrier would automatically disappear as soon as i reached an age, and a maturity level, where i could be perceived as grown up.

as a "kid," i saw the older kids (maybe four years older than me) speak with parental friends openly and frankly. i figured that would happen to me when i reached their age. but now that i'm old enough, and presumably mature enough, i still feel like i'm twelve. so i have to give myself these pep talks and tell myself that "hey, i'm an adult now. people will treat me like an adult if i present myself as an adult."