Why Is Your Face So Red | Chenyang Zhao

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Jan 10, 2023

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The redness on my cheeks is the plateau redness, the mark of my dear hometown on her distant child. I will be proud and grateful for it all my life.

Why is Your Face so Red?

Outlining My Story

At the beginning of the semester, I had set several topics for the course's final essay, such as "Torn Wounds: The History and Future of African Americans," and "From San Francisco to Silicon Valley: Issues of Change and Integration for Chinese Americans." The course was titled "Minorities in America," and I chose it believing that I would learn about the various ethnic issues in America and eventually write a comprehensive sociological study.

I had expected to learn about their history in the course, study their self-identity, and take a neutral and analytical view of the centuries-old history of America's ethnic vicissitudes as an observer. However, after this semester's study, I discovered that distant lands and people are intimately connected to my life. After taking the course and learning about their history, I understood my history better and gained more insight into my self-identity.

I had initially decided to outline the stories of others in my course paper. Still, by the end of the semester, I decided to draft my own story and answer only one simple but meaningful question: "Why is your face so red?"

Intuition

On September 27th, I participated in a group discussion for the first time in our course. One of the students in the group asked curiously, "Are you a little nervous, or did you catch a cold? Why is your face so red?"

Thanks to his concern, I was neither nervous nor did I catch a cold. But his question made me ponder. Indeed, I have been asked this question countless times before.

My classmates asked, "Are you a little nervous? Why is your face so red?"

My roommates wondered, "Have you caught a cold? Your face is so red."

Even my PE teacher said, "Oh, my boy, your face went red. Just relax. Three kilometers isn't that bad."

Before College

At first, I was embarrassed by this question. The first time people asked me this question dates back to 2014 when I was a newcomer to middle school. I had very low self-esteem and was always worried that answering the question would make my classmates look down on me. I would tell them I was more nervous, so my face was redder.

However, that's not the case. I was born in a small city called Barkam on the western plateau of Sichuan. The redness on my face is plateau redness, which is my ancestors, my ethnicity, and my hometown, engraved on my body throughout my life.

Barkam is 2200 meters above sea level, and the weather is cold all year round. It is a small, simple city, so small that there are no skyscrapers, no playgrounds, and only in 2011 did it get a movie theater. However, many Tibetan, Qiang, Hui, and Han ethnic groups gather in this small city, and I am a Qiang person.

Barkam, in the Tibetan language, means a peaceful place with burgeoning fire. My Chinese name is Chenyang Zhao, but my traditional name in the Qiang language is Ran Rang, which means humble, hopeful, and sacrifice.

In elementary school, I studied Tibetan but not English. And the Chinese I learned was not called Yuwen but Guowen.

Growing up, I was open about my ethnicity and where I came from. However, before I started middle school, my family advised me to be less vocal about my hometown and never to reveal that I was a minority. I was surprised but soon came to understand why.

My Chinese and English were weak when I first entered middle school. Whenever I struggled to express myself in English, it seemed there were always thousands of eyes on me, judging me and asking me, "Where are you from, and why is your English so poor?"

Because of this, I felt self-conscious and hesitant to reveal my hometown or ethnicity, even when asked directly. For example, when people ask me, "Why is your face so red?" I was always worried that it would reveal my identity, so that I would give vague or evasive responses.

In short, I was initially shy about revealing my hometown and ethnicity. But this sense of low self-esteem and confusion about myself only motivated me to work harder in my studies. When I started junior school, my grades could have been better due to my weak Chinese and English skills. However, I worked hard in all my subjects during my second year of junior school and made significant progress in both languages. My grades improved significantly, and I received praise from my classmates and teachers for my academic progress. Despite this, I still struggled with confusion about my identity.

But things changed when I entered high school. There was a call for travel articles about Sichuan for my school magazine. I was excited to write an essay about my hometown memories, but I initially submitted it anonymously. I was still worried that my classmates would know where I was from, and I was torn between excitement and apprehension. However, to my surprise, my article was well-received, and I wanted to shout out, "I wrote this article about my beloved hometown!" But I couldn't bring myself to do it, still feeling shy deep down, yet with a solid inner voice wanting to express myself proudly about my hometown and ethnicity.

In College

My academic performance and success allowed me to pass the college entrance exam and enter Tsinghua University. Once again, I was confronted with my roommates' curiosity. "Where are you from, and why is your face so red?"

This time, I plucked up my courage and said, "I am from the western Sichuan plateau, and the redness on my face is from the altitude, known as 'plateau redness'." To my surprise, my roommates were interested and happy to discuss their hometowns with me. It turned out that everyone's hometown had its unique and fascinating story, and they were all so different from one another. Everyone has their own identity, whether it's an ethnic minority or not.

I felt that the shyness once inhabited my heart was melting away, and in its place were gratitude and pride for my hometown.

Now, when people ask me, "Why is your face so red?" I no longer feel shy. I proudly say that it is the plateau redness, the permanent mark my hometown left on me, reminding me of where I came from and where I belong.

In The Future

The story already has a happy ending for a young man who arrives at high school unsure of his identity but who eventually comes to embrace his ethnicity and find a sense of self as a part of a diverse world.

Still, as for me, my ethnicity, my language, and my story continue. My major is Computer Science and Technology, which may seem like an unrelated field to social sciences, such as minority studies. However, studying computer science and technology has allowed me to explore sociology through natural language processing. Through this path, I want to dive into my ethnicity's culture and languages further.

Before being exposed to computer science, languages and literature held a sacred place in my heart. As I have said, I am of Qiang ethnicity, and my people deeply revere written words. My grandmother would often tell me about the customs of the past, where people would worship the gods through written words. If someone saw a piece of paper with writing on it lying on the roadside, they were to pick it up with care, put it in the cleanest pocket of their clothes, carry it home, and then burn it in front of the Buddha, praying with devotion. If a child carelessly stepped on such a piece of paper, they would be reprimanded by the family's elders. I grew up in such an atmosphere that instilled a deep reverence for language and written words.

In my sophomore year at Tsinghua University's Department of Computer Science and Technology, I began to integrate my professional knowledge with computational sociology and natural language processing research. Currently, I am working on a project focusing on honest and efficient translation from Tibetan to English. In the future, I aim to continue my research in natural language processing and pursue a Ph.D. in North America, focusing on computational linguistics and minority dialects. My goal is to use machine learning techniques to achieve natural translation from my language to English so that people will retain the culture of my ethnicity along with the language.

I firmly believe that one day, when I present my research at an academic conference across the Pacific, some researchers will ask me this:

Oh, my research scientist, your work and report are both profound. But why you appeared so nervous during my presentation? We all see your face went red thought out the whole production.

I will be proud to say:

Thanks for your appreciation! But I am not nervous. I am a Chinese who is proud of my motherland and hometown, and the redness on my cheeks is the plateau redness, the mark of my dear hometown on her distant child. I will be proud and grateful for it all my life.