Summary Of The Same Difference By Amy Wang

Fear affects many in life; it comes in all different forms and can etch itself on to some one and never let go. Amy Wang tells us of a girl that was scared in a way for the majority of her young life. In "The Same Difference", we are able to see how the fear of her own nationality led her to set up barriers against the world unlike her own. When we are young, we are very naïve to all that is around us, so when we are faced with taunting children we are very likely to over interpret and get hurt. Wong established a fear of many things early on when she was called a "chink" by those children. She feared her mother's response on the situation that occurred, so she never told her. She also feared acceptance oh her nationality, as well as all the different ones that surrounded her.
This fear that consumed her gave her the feeling that what ever bad things happen to her they are for the sole reason that she is a "chink" as the children had called her, that if a white man took her number down at a party and never called, it was because she is a "chink".
As well, she thinks that the men who were driving past her and screaming things and making faces, were all doing so because she was a "chink". These conclusions which were all derived in her head were for the one reason of her fearing her nationality, instead of accepting it as she should have. Wong should have gotten over a six year olds fear and spoken to her mother when that situation occurred. If she would have done that, her mother might have been able to explain to her how she should behave in situations such as those, and as to why it had happened at all. Yet, for the fact that she hadn't, she was only left on the edge, thinking that she was different from everyone around her and she had to be careful in order to protect
herself. Fear consumes us all at times; it is one of the greatest emotions out there. What we need to do though, when we are faced with it, is to try to tackle it head on. Either, by confronting the thing that is causing us the fear or going to speak to some one about it. We can have fears of our race or nationality like Wong, we can have fear of our genders and so on. We just need to find ways to move past those fears as early as possible so we don't give any one the privilege of knowing that they are above us and that they can run our lives. At least at the end of Wong's story, when she arrives at her parents house with her boyfriend she sees that everyone has some kind of fear in them. More or less, it's the fear of the unknown.