One Woman Culture Club

Chinese, Asian, Malay, Australian, Kiwi, English, Ching Chong, Hobbit: when you’ve been called as many names as I have, you start to wonder who you really are.

Born Lai Chew Yarn, and baptized as Mary Celine Lai Chew Yarn, in Penang, Malaya, I was brought to Australia at 15 months of age by an English couple who had moved there from England. Most pronounce my surname Lai as “lay” even after I’ve told them that it’s “lie”.

At 3 years of age I was formally adopted and my surname of Lai became Jones. Mum thought that “Celine” was too high highfalutin a name for a child so she nick-named me Sally. My Report Card sometimes had Sally Mary Jones on it and sometimes Mary Sally Jones.

When I first went for my Passport with the aforementioned, and with my Birth Extract specifying I had been born “Celine Jones”, my Adoption Papers saying that I was now “Mary Celine Jones”, and with “Celine Mary Jones” on some documents, the Passport Officer asked me “Who are you?”

Heck, I didn’t even know myself.

In the middle of Uni, I changed my name by deed poll to Celine Lai.

I didn’t like it when people called out “Sally Jones”; and upon me claiming to be said person, seeing the incredulous or puzzled looks on their faces. Filled with disbelief or surprise.

I didn’t feel different, I was different; and even once I thought that I should don a blonde wig, and only that way I would be accepted.

By the time I was twenty one I had two different Resumes drawn up by a professional. I still remember the beautiful fine linen paper they were typed on.

I was pleased with myself for having 2 different career pathways, but neither eventuated — neither a paid job in the Biological Sciences or in using or teaching English.

Multi-dexterous, many talents.

You bet, like being the oldest inter-country adopted person in Australia, and wrestling with identity conflict and belonging, just surviving, drowning in a sea of abusive brothers, trying to deal with racism, ticking …getting through surgery for replacement of a faulty heart valve ….. and a big one, learning to set boundaries.

And whispers in the dark.

“You’re safe now” my Higher Self tried to tell me. A Gestalt therapist tried to demonstrate to me that it wasn’t my fault that my adoptive family was dysfunctional and that many got hurt.

I didn’t buy it. My penance was to stick close to anyone around me who needed help, to lose myself in the “other”, in what wasn’t me, and gradually …. to have no culture but that of being engulfed by non-entity.

I was a non-entity.

Neither self-compassion or self-esteem were paramount. One harsh thing after another eroded who I could be.

“The culture of Celine” brow-beaten by the culture of power over might, the culture of indifference, and the culture of each to their own.

Little did I realise that within I was putting up a fight.

But for everyone, there is a Ray of light.

It comes from the internal flame, the core that everyone has, a connection to something safe and untouchable, even if unknowable.

When you feel it, grasp it and don’t let go.

Make sure that you fan the embers of your true Self that beats its own drum.

This is your Essence, which will reveal itself, even if piece by piece; for all is a class-room, and you are both Teacher and Taught; and the teacher and the taught together create the teaching.

Slowly I began to carve a name for myself, from words.

Words penned to “Dear Diary” metamorphosed into brief sparks on “MySpace” and various online Forums, then splashed onto blogging platforms.

In the blogosphere I was able to breathe life into my loves, to share knowledge with others across distances, to feel that I was connecting — by communicating voices from the Earth — my voices on my many different interests.

Still they were not unitary voices. Each clamored for attention, many felt dispossessed, some downright depressed and there was always fear.

Anger was turned inward and appeared in my dreams.

The censor held me accountable for every small thing. The flame desperately leaped and burned a blue-print on my consciousness — there’s a way out, it doesn’t have to be like this, it spoke.

The Higher Self knows that none of the censure is real.

The voices / the cultures uniting wasn’t pretty. It saw me clawing my way out of the abyss — hurtling my wants upon a faceless enemy that turned out to be me, cloaking my needs in materialism and in good deeds.

Ever the helper, never the subject me. The cards were dealt and I got the raw deals — the proverbial kick in the pants whenever my body warned me to step back and to look after myself.

These episodes alternated with a push from beyond — finding help through deep reflection, books, people, online sources, and groups, heralded by the Higher Me, the culture of Celine coming through.

Not always good or bad, but useful, I distanced myself from me. Upward growth necessitated that I call me, she.

Slowly she learned that F.E.A.R. is often false evidence appearing real, and the ghosts of culture past subsided. Her true one voice rose, singing its praises of herself above the mundane.

Flapper, Chinese, Asian, Malay, Australian, Kiwi, English. All and None.

When she grasped that she had the Power to choose to treat herself as she did others, the culture trap closed.

Her one woman culture club had begun.

Note: Jones was not my real adoptive surname, but is a pseudonym used for the sake of privacy.