by Heather Diamond | Jun 1, 2021 | Blog, Daily Life, Intercultural, Travel
Adapting doesn’t mean you get to erase history. It means you get an opportunity to see things from another side. Whether White people choose to get mad or be humbled by the experience of being racially marked, it’s hard to relinquish the invisible kind of invisibility until we realize it blinds us to both our own and other people’s realities.
by Heather Diamond | Mar 24, 2021 | Blog, Daily Life, Family, Intercultural, Relationships, Tradition
Being in a Chinese family periodically throws me up against my cultural edges and forces me to question behaviors or beliefs I take for granted. For me, the concept of reciprocity is like an electric fence between my American training and Chinese customs. It zaps me with words like favor, debt, and obligation—all of which make me squirm.
by Heather Diamond | Dec 1, 2020 | Blog, Daily Life, Family, Intercultural, Relationships
My intercultural marriage is never dull, but parts of it are mired in translation.
by Heather Diamond | Nov 2, 2020 | Blog, Daily Life, Family, Politics
I want to know how it all turns out. Do we conquer the virus? Does democracy survive? Do we get on with our lives together? Does love outweigh hate? I want to be prepared.
by Heather Diamond | Oct 13, 2020 | Blog, Daily Life, Intercultural, Politics, Travel
I don’t know about you, but for me, this not going anywhere is getting strange. As if life in 2020 could get any stranger. I returned to Hong Kong at the tail end of July, and it’s now mid-October. While I was away, COVID-19 cases dwindled, and the protests died down...
by Heather Diamond | Aug 1, 2020 | Blog, Daily Life, Family, Intercultural, Relationships, Travel
I woke up in the middle of the night last night thinking about authenticity. That thought came on the tail of a dream in which I was in a pink kitchen telling someone about why it wasn’t ok for a white woman to dress up in Chinese clothes and be part of a Chinese...