Southern Charm

<p>Hey y’all and welcome to the very first episode Country geisha. I’m your host, Holly Sarah.</p> <p>I’m not your stereotypical Holly. I’m Holly with black hair and black eyes.</p> <p>So, how did an Asian girl get to Tennessee? Well, my parents were refugees that ended up in Nashville. My dad is of Chinese descent who lived in Cambodia his life and my mom is Cambodian. They met in the refugee camp before rekindling their romance in America. Truly, they are the American dream.</p> <p>Their dreams were big they wanted more for me and my siblings.</p> <p>I am the middle child out of five children. My grandparents raised me, my siblings, my cousins.</p> <p>My grandparents didn’t speak English so we only spoke Chinese at home and English at school. Let me just say my grandparents are hardcore traditional. Thank god for my grandparents. If not for them, I wouldn’t be able to speak my native tongue. Teochew is a Chinese dialect that I speak. It’s not a common Chinese dialect. So, I cannot understand Mandarin or Cantonese unfortunately.</p> <p>Being the first generation Asian American, I had to adapt to my surroundings.</p> <p>I was taught to respect and uphold my traditional values, but also to learn to fit into the southern ways. Let me just say if you had strict parents like mine you would understand that it was hard living a double life. Life is a balance and I balanced it well.</p> <p>My parents taught me to be responsible at a young age.</p> <p>Growing up in Nashville, I walked and talked like everyone around me, but I was always different because I’m half Chinese and Cambodian. I’m not white. I’m not black. So, I never fit in. People didn’t even know what Asian people were. They mistook me for being Mexican.</p> <p>Yes, people are very ignorant. Did you know that racism is normal?</p> <p>I remember always falling for the white boys with blonde hair blue eyes. They never liked me because I was the smart Asian kid. No one ever saw me as their equals. I was the minority so I was outnumbered.</p> <p>In middle school