nwasianweekly.com
Sept. 2, 2006

Photo by Amy Lu

Participants of the 2006 Summer Youth Leadership Program traveled to Olympia to visit the state Capitol building.

By Stanley Wong
For the Northwest Asian Weekly

This is one time I agree with the saying “You never know until you try.”
You would not believe how angry I was to find out that a part of my summer had been booked before I even knew about it. I mean, how could my parents actually sign me up for something called the “Summer Youth Leadership Program” and not tell me until after they had turned in the application for me? My summer was not looking too good from that point on. None of my friends were going to do this program with me. I would have to be alone in a program that I didn’t even know anything about.

But you never know until you try, right?

Walking in on my first day, I did not know what to expect, and to tell you the truth, I did not expect much. There I was in a gym full of people of obviously Asian ancestry, and none that I knew. I sat down at a table with a few other people, not knowing any of them, not talking to any of them. For the next hour this was a table of awkward silence. You could feel the tension build up as the eyes glared from one person to the other. So about then I’m reminding myself to tell my mom, “Thank you for sticking me in a place like this for six hours,” but of course in a sarcastic manner.

We were eventually put into groups and directed to go on a scavenger hunt for buildings and landmarks. This actually helped me learn something important about Chinatown itself: it isn’t just a place where you eat Asian food. There was so much more to it, things such as historic landmarks, an international school. The neighborhood is actually a lot bigger than I thought. I learned this when I had to walk from one point to the other. When people think about Chinatown, many people just associate it with food and the famous Japanese store, Uwajimaya. Uwajimaya is not just a place where you buy international goods at, but it is also a place that helps preserve the way Chinatown is now, an International District.

There was a lot more to learn about Asian culture and Chinatown itself. Our trip to the Wing Luke Museum was very enlightening for me as an Asian teenage boy who didn’t care much about how Chinatown came to be. However, I found it interesting to find out that all of Chinatown was created by immigrants, and their purpose was to shelter and support other minorities. I never knew that Filipinos sheltered in Chinatown and played a big role in conserving the neighborhood as it is today.

The good thing about this was learning that a lot of what we do, though we may think of it as Chinese, comes from other cultures.
Our experiences included learning self-defense skills in martial arts to eating a large variety of foods to finally learning how to salsa dance. I believe it is a great thing to learn about cultures other than your own, because it gives you an awareness that you could not have achieved by yourself. I probably would not have eaten Malaysian food or learned that Malaysians fancy spicy foods.

Each day we had guest aspeaker from a different background tell us how he or she managed to succeed in life as a minority. I liked seeing how they pulled themselves out of hard times and managed to still be successful while having the pressure of other ethnic groups as competition.
We even met a self-made real estate millionaire named Thach Nguyen who was born in Vietnam, came to America with very little money and basically pulled himself from the streets. He taught me about the Law of Attraction: if you want something, then you have to tell yourself you want it and eventually you will have it. I think a lot of how this theory works is in the confidence you have in yourself. When you think you can do it, then you will be able to do it. But on the opposite end, when you doubt yourself, you set yourself up for failure.

A lot has actually changed since the first day I went through all of this. The people were so encouraging it actually made me feel good to speak up. There is a feeling of warmth from your peers; they give you a sense of comfort when you’re around them, so you can easily talk to them without being afraid of rejection. I liked how open people were with each other; it just helped the environment become warmer.

I would say the best part was meeting everyone. We learned useful skills from very important people who came to share their careers and success stories with us, but the friendships you make with others can stay forever. Everyone not only comes from different backgrounds, but from different classes in society and even different cities. I definitely would not have met a lot of my good friends if I hadn’t joined this program. Even if I had met some of them I would not have stopped to talk to them.

In the end, I do not regret taking this summer program. This is something I definitely won’t have to think twice about for next year. This has taught me many skills, from passive martial arts to public speaking to salsa dancing to meeting the people I would never have met anywhere else. The summer of 2006 is probably one of the best summers I have experienced. It helped develop both my mental and physical skills and left me a better person than when I started. So once again I say, “You’ll never know until you try.”

Stanley Wong can be reached at info@nwasianweekly.com.

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