The Danger of a Single Story: as a Chinese Girl

Media is everywhere, it is how we connect with other people and know about what is happening around us and beyond. What is portrayed in the media is how we see the world—and sometimes, it can make or break our vulnerable and impressionable perceptions of the world. This also connects to a speech and article that I learned in English class at school—Danger of a Single Story—by Chimamanda Adichie, which is about her experiences of seeing the world and the world seeing her through “a single story”.

I saw this video of a creator comparing IShowSpeed’s content of when he went to Africa and interacted with the locals there and Mr. Beast’s video of him helping African people in poverty. I must admit that although I am well aware that Africa has urban cities and has countries and cities just like any other region of the world, when people say the word “Africa” to me, the first few things that come to mind are still child labor, poverty, and unfortunately war (both of which thanks to MUN). IShowSpeed’s content was a stream, and in his stream, he was showing all of Africa, not just the rural parts of it or the areas where people think Africa has stereotypically. He was interacting with the people on the streets, and just sharing everything that he saw and did on the Internet. Mr. Beast on the other hand did this video of helping Africa through his philanthropy, and that is seen by the public as a stereotypical portrayal of what the continent is like—just a place that needs humanitarian aid from the rest of the world because they are immersed in poverty.

Now let’s talk about Adichie’s speech. Adichie talked about being from Africa and growing up there surrounded by very little representation in literature as all the books that she read all had characters who are blue eyed and had blonde hair. That made her initially believe that in literature, there could only be characters who did not look like her, but after she was exposed to literature with characters and girls like her, she then realized that literature can also have people like her. This is an example of a single story (or in other words, a single pair of lens or way of looking at something) and its effects, as she grew up in this mentality and phenomenon of little representation. She then went on to talk about how her college roommate thought that she would only listen to African drum music or didn’t know how to use a stove just because of who she is.

I guess this has been the same for me as a Chinese girl. In recent years, China has been an increasingly popular tourist destination, especially for foreigners. When they arrive in China and see that our deliveries arrive within 30 mins, or that most restaurants don’t even have paper menus anymore as we just order on our phones, they are stunned. To me, that is a single story that I am living in, and something that I will never forget, as those technologies are just everyday stuff, but for the foreigners it might seem like something abnormal, but for me its everyday, so it is just like them opening up their perspectives to more than one story. My mom always told me that when we went to San Francisco back when I was in kindergarten, we went to this mall and she took me to the first basement floor to eat and we sat in this restaurant with this lady from Taiwan. She told me that this lady from Taiwan province asked her how she knew that all the food stalls and restaurants are in the first basement floor, a question that I guess we all know the answer to, as most malls have restaurants and food stalls at their first basement floor. So, my mom told the lady that that is how malls work in Mainland China too and she was so surprised. I guess that lady promoted immigrated to the US very early on so didn’t even realize that Mainland China could be just as “developed” as the US or Taiwan. There was also this other time when my mom moved to New York in the 2000s and she had this landlord from Taiwan and that landlord asked her if she knew how to use a facet. How to use a facet. Yes, that landlord is also an immigrant and didn’t realize that my mom had already lived in the US for years already and also lived in hotels back in China. We all experience so much more than we expect, but sometimes, it only takes one story or one comment to change one’s perception of something completely.

To me, single stories are just the beginning, it is the reason why we shape our perspectives around things—what needs to be done now is to show people that there can be so many stories to things that we as ordinary to us, and we just need to be open enough to hear and experience them.

Let me know what you think of this in the comments below!