“Why aren’t you running?” Anthony questioned, walking alongside me on the sidewalk. “We’re running for warm-up today. Don’t worry, the field isn’t that far. Everyone’s already a block ahead; why don’t you catch up with them?”

Anthony was my P.E. teacher and the only other Black man in the school. I looked at him, then looked down at why I wasn’t running. On this chilly day, my hoodie protected me from the cold winds but also made me a threat.

At 15, it had already been ingrained in me tonot run through city streets in a hoodie. Black boys have been shot for much less. I’d seen hoodies become death sentences; I’ve had white moms tell me to remove my hood when entering a store just to still be followed around inside. The skin of the other students did not weigh them down. “I can’t run, for my safety,” I explained.

Anthony smiled sadly and said, “Don’t worry, it’s not like that here.” I blankly stared at Anthony before suddenly remembering I wasn’t in America anymore. My Black skin cast a very different shadow in Beijing.

‘Curiosity, not hostility’

There aren’t many Black people in China, which made every public appearance seem like a newsworthy event. Cameras found me wherever I went, stealthily snapping me on subways and in crowds alike. Once, when family friends visited during China’s National Day, so many people wanted pictures that it took the nine of us nearly two hours to cross Tiananmen Square, a walk that would typically take five minutes. I even considered charging for photos. Some love the attention their skin attracts, while others find the constant eye of cameras dehumanizing. I loved China, not because of the spotlight, but because the meaning of Blackness there was worlds away from in America.

In the States, I am a permanent minority in a society that spent centuries systematically denying Black humanity. Four hundred years of propaganda, social engineering and terrorism reduced the Black body into a concentrated caricature of all things dangerous and threatening to “civilized” society. Still today, my skin elicits suspicion and contempt. Alleviating this distrust demands a perpetual expense of energy in presenting myself palatably, especially since I live, learn and play amongst white people.

While slavery’s oppressive shadow still shapes American society 150 years after its dissolution, it simply never existed in China. Black people are not a fixture in Chinese history, so my skin generated genuine curiosity rather than suspicion. My Blackness was certainly still Othering, but in a much more benign and tolerable way than in America.

In Beijing, people took pictures of me nearly anywhere I went, asked to touch my hair, and tried practicing their English. But in the spirit of curiosity, not hostility. For many, it was their first time seeing a Black person. Initially, it was jarring because I still lived with my American perspective. Suppose I walked down the street and a white person started taking pictures of me and asking to touch my hair. In that case, I’d consider that racist, so why would it be different if a Chinese person in China did the same?

But it wasn’t the same. I was never a slave in China. Identical actions from Americans and Chinese had to be judged differently because they occurred in completely separate social and historical contexts. For the first time, the lens I used to experience and understand the world became visible. America colored my perception of the world growing up, but I was not permanently bound to this lens. By switching this lens, I discovered a world where my skin color was not the primary determinant of my social identity. In that, I found freedom.

‘A Black and American foreigner’

I arrived in Beijing when I was 15 with my mom and brother, where we stayed from 2016 to 2019 until I completed high school. I spent my sophomore year in a learning community with around a dozen local Chinese students and one other American. We all attended an online school using an American curriculum. I loved that first year because it was true Chinese immersion.

Attending high school in China gave me space to explore my identity without the crutch of Blackness. I don’t call American Blackness a crutch to paint it as a hindrance or negative force. I consider it a crutch because American Blackness provides a long and rich tradition of social identity built to enable Black Americans to survive. However, this conception of Blackness is specific to America. I couldn’t lean on American Blackness to walk on Chinese soil because it had never swallowed Black bodies.

My self-identity during high school was constructed from being both a Black and American foreigner because these attributes were the most important in informing my social interactions. The first thing that commanded people’s attention was that I was not from China; next was that I was Black; and finally, if we spoke, they’d learn I was from America, not Africa.

This gradual separation of my skin color from my social identity was liberating and challenging. I felt the freedom to explore my identity without ascribing to prescribed cultural archetypes. Still, this journey towards self-discovery was difficult. I saw myself as a cultural chameleon, an entity feeling equally stranger and at home when engaging with any culture, including my own. I feel the same mix of familiarity, curiosity and alienation with my Korean high school friends, Black family members, white classmates and any other cultures. I have a voracious appetite for exploring new cultures and this universal curiosity makes life as a world traveler somehow easier. This painful growth became the most precious part of my identity.

‘Unceremonial return’

When I returned to America, I underwent an intense bout of reverse culture shock. My Blackness returned like a cloak immediately after landing in Dallas. After arriving from China, we stood in a long line for immigration. I needed to use the restroom, so I ducked out of line to relieve myself. When I returned, my family had moved up in line, so I ducked under the ropes to catch up with them.

Suddenly, I heard a white man bellow, “Hey! Come back here, boy.”

I froze, confused about who he was talking to. Then, it all came rushing back. I remembered I was Black. In America. More specifically, in Texas. I recognized the racist undertones. The security guard arrived to diffuse the situation and half-heartedly told me not to skip the line next time after I explained that my family was ahead. I returned to them, fuming at my unceremonial welcome back to America.

Readjusting my self-conception to align with my experiences in America took several difficult months. It was necessary, though, because without that realignment, I couldn’t make sense of being followed around a store while my white friend stole with impunity. Now, three years after my return, I feel I can say I’m a Black man from America.

I feel a semblance of belonging in China and Black America, though I’m not a true native of either. This is arguably the condition of many Black Americans. We may never feel at home in a land that systematically devalues our lives through the gun and gavel. American soil is saturated with the blood of our forefathers who suffered far from the land of their birth. A return to Africa may be equally uncomfortable, as the journey across the waters may have snipped our umbilical cord to the Motherland. So some of us travel the world searching for a home, or at least a place to carve out a comfortable space in a hostile world. Such is the fate of the Black traveler.