Рет қаралды 52,490
My roommate Alf introduced me to Claire.
Claire's KZbin: / @clairetta
Claire was born and raised in Taiwan. Her mom is Taiwanese and dad is Canadian. They met while teaching English and are both hippies. Even though Claire has only been to Mandarin schools, her English sounds like she grew up in North America. Claire thinks of herself as Taiwanese, but she's always felt people treat her like an outsider. For instance, kids magazines would want to hire her as a "foreign model" and people approach her in public to practice their English. Even though she speaks unaccented Chinese, she will sometimes pretend to only speak English because she associates Chinese with distressing moments in her life. Her parents divorced when she was four and moved to Taitung to live with her mom and stepdad, a mountain guide who was her babysitter. In Taitung, they lived a very rustic life because of her overbearing stepdad. She wasn't allowed to play with dolls or look in the mirror. Her schooling consisted of climbing coconut trees and skinning deer. Back then, Claire would spend half of her time with her dad in Taipei, and would take the train alone, which caused concern amongst the other passengers. From third to sixth grade, Claire attended a Taiwanese public school in an indigenous village. All of her classmates were Bunun, and she was bullied for being tall and white. Claire was also bullied because her stepdad's minimalist lifestyle led her classmates to think she was poor. Claire tried to voice her situation to the teachers, but they made excuses to not listen, and even changed her annual surveys asking if she was getting bullied. During this time, her mom and step dad would disappear for months at a time to conduct mountaineering expeditions. Thus, Claire would live with her neighbors, and got to see the reality of indigenous communities. Many children would walk around unsupervised, and one of her friends accidentally killed her baby sister by leaving her in a hot car. Claire observed that many indigenous people have support, and often turn to God as a last resort. For instance, her bully had to pay for his own tuition by dancing in traditional indigenous garb at a tourist attraction, which is something Claire found off-putting. Around this time, Claire's stepfather became abusive, and would even through knives at her and her mom. Only after moving back to Taipei to live with her dad, did Claire realize the gravity of her situation. Therefore, for the first year of middle school, she spent a lot of time crying. In Taipei's highly competitive academic environment, Claire realized that success hinges upon parental involvement. Also, she noticed her classmates were motivated by traditional notions of filial piety. For Claire, this was irrelevant because her parents were hippies. Thus, she dropped out after graduating from middle school. Afterwards, she would spend hours sitting in cafes drawing as an escape. Her determination to become an artist gave her the will to live, and eventually she started gaining recognition through her KZbin channel. Now the classmates that previously ignored her are reappearing and asking to hang out. Despite her harsh childhood, Claire remains optimistic and energized by proving wrong those that doubted her ability to succeed.