It’s been seven years since I immigrated to America from Korea (don’t worry, Mr. Trump, I’m legal,) and those years have been filled with surprises and shocking revelations as my Korean culture and this newfound American culture collided head-on. Everything was different: from what to say, to how to act to how to think. I found myself suddenly upheld to two standards of my two cultures, and if you are a multicultural like myself, you probably know exactly what I'm on about; everything from our actions, thoughts and appearance are judged differently depending on who you’re with and where you are. In my case, I found myself upheld to two standards when it came to how I looked, which is a lot trickier situation to be in than to be said.

Now, this might sound incredibly vain, but it actually is pretty funny. First of all, I’m not insecure or anything; I’m really indifferent when it comes to my physical appearance, unlike 99% of guys and girls my age. I couldn't care less, really. But my family and friends in Korea have told me that it would be good for me to lose some weight since I was getting “fat” (not in a derogatory way but in a concerned kind of way,) and they recommended that I shed a few pounds for a few years. Am I morbidly obese? No. Here’s me a month ago.

But by Korean standards, I was definitely closer to the “overweight” side of the scale. Of course, that might not be saying much because thanks to K-Pop, the ideal male in Korea now looks like this:

And I thank Jesus everyday that I don’t look like this (sorry, B2st fans).

But I’ve been told for so many� years that I am overweight, so I kind of assumed that I actually am, and I joked about me being “fat” with my American friends because I thought it would be funny in a lighthearted, self-insulting kind of way. Boy did that go well.

All of a sudden, I wasn’t fat or overweight, I was just “insecure” or “seeking attention.” There were a few people who actually got really ticked off whenever I say “I’m fat.” That w�as a surprising moment for me; imagine if you had been told that you are such a thing for years and years by some of the closest people in your life, then suddenly, you’re an attention whore for thinking that you are that such thing. It was a bizarre, puzzling sensation that caught me by surprise. But if you’re expecting me to have the stereotypical teenage identity crisis about my physical appearance or ponder into the depths of my psyche in search for answers about which way I follow, you’re absolutely incorrect! I actually laughed the whole thing off.

But it definitely is an interesting enough example of all of the contrasts between standards of multiple cultures that thousands, if not millions, of multicultural teenagers in America experience and I thought it wouldn’t hurt to add my thoughts on it.

Us teenagers—regardless of our race or what culture we grew up in—get all emotional and anxious when we start to figure out who we are supposed to be and how we’re supposed to look; we’ve always been like that, we’re hormonal messes of emotions and thoughts. We forever want to be accepted and loved by our peers, and that’s why we are so hung on how we’re supposed to look, how we’re supposed to act and what we’re supposed to wear, etc. That’s probably why multicultural teenagers have that identity crisis more often than others, because when two different groups of people that you equally identify as your own start a tug-of-war with you stuck in the middle, anyone would be flabbergasted.

My Asian friends have always said things like, "I'm considered too American to be full Asian, but I'm too Asian to be considered as full American." Us multiculturals are born right into the middle of the Venn diagram of different cultures that we identify ourselves in, and if we lean closer to one side, we are suddenly "different" in the eyes of the other. I know, I've been there, it's confusing as all hell. If this is you, my advice to you is to learn who you are and you decide the best thing for you. You do you, basically. It's 2016, after all. That's how I was able to shrug off my bizarre "you're fat," "no you're not" situation. At the end of the day, if you are comfortable in your own skin, that's all that matters, really. So now if you'll excuse me, my pizza is here.