Acceptance in Society

“Belonging”, being accepted, or having your image accepted in society nowadays has become a big setback. Racial profiling and bullying are becoming more and more common. What you speak, the way you look, and what you wear are things which people use these days to judge you. People will try to dress, speak, and act like famous people so that they may be accepted and looked at as “one of us” by the general public, and not “one of them”.

I’m sure we all have our very own experiences in which we see either our selves or somebody around us trying to be different, or for the most part, something that they are not. The youth of today see celebrities and famous groups of people and try to dress, look, and speak like them. The reason this has all begun is because we as a society are not accepting people for who they originally are and where they come from. Everyone is unique in their own type of way, and people should be proud of that, not embarrassed.

As we read the novel The Jade Peony, the theme of “belonging” is a very key issue between the children and their friends. In various situations, the children debate with their father, mother, and grandmother weather they are Chinese, Canadian, or both. All three of them do something (for ex, Liang tries to imitate a famous actor, Shirley Temple. Or Jung Sum tries to be accepted by picking up boxing). Since they go to English schools, their classmates are mainly white children and so inside their hearts the kids want to be seen as white kids. This is a mistake, and they should be proud of who they are and how they look, but it is how they are treated by the society that their mind is set like this. Although there is a war which is taking place during the novel, the Chinese children hate the Japanese children (and vice versa) and would hate to be mistaken for each other.

In one of the stories from Years of Sorrow, Years of Shame, the author narrates how he is gathered by the people ruling the city (most likely