My name is Jiang Lian. I am fifteen years old. I was born December 5, 1986
in Chongqing, China in the Sichuan Province. Please let take this moment to
apologize, my English is not that good; I still have a trace of an accent.
My little sister speaks English better than I.
I first came to America when I was five. My family came here looking to join one of the American circuses. We joined several, drifting around like gypsies before finally settling with the Circus Boheme when I was eight.
I think my parents got the biggest culture shock when they came to America. They knew it was going to be different but until you are plopped down in a place you've only read or watched movies about, I don't think you realize how different. I adjusted a bit more quickly because I was a child and I didn't have much tying me back to the old country. My little sister, Jiang Sun-Yi, behaves more like an American than a Chinese. She has no memories of China; she was two when she came to America.
In China, we list our last names first and our first names last. So I suppose my name here would be Lian Jiang and my sister's, Sun-Yi Jiang. Americans are a little less formal than us Chinese. When asked our names, we normally say, "Ms. Jiang," our something along those lines whereas the Americans say, "Bob."
Papa still has us practice calligraphy and Mom feeds us Chinese food. Real Chinese food, not the kind served at restaurants in America. We call that American food in China. They believe in a certain amount of tradition. My little sister is already beginning to butt heads with Mom and Dad. She likes pizza, not rice, and prefers to write in English, not Mandarin Chinese. Sometimes they argue for hours over these things. I am grateful that she loves the circus as much as they do.
I perform in the shoulder pole wire act and the Chinese poles. I also do plate spinning. I can do the teeterboard halfway decent and I am working on learning hoop diving. Because Chinese acrobatics is the building block for nearly every circus art, all the Chinese acrobats feel we have a certain responsibility to make sure we pay our proper respects to arts created thousands of years ago. Peasants and middle-class people created most of these acts. Hoop diving was originally done by farmers who would take their hoop-shaped farming tools and dare one another to dive through them. If you could dive through seven hoops stacked on top of each other (a height of seven feet), then you were considered supremely skilled. Likewise, a merchant selling pottery might do a few tricks to attract customers.
The shoulder pole wire act is done using a long pole with a wire on top of it. An acrobat supports the pole while an artist does tricks on the wire on top. I'm the artist who walks the wire. My partner, Li Hao, supports the pole on his shoulder. Sometimes when I annoy him he jokes about dropping the pole. He is seventeen and as my French teacher would put it, Il est tres beau. I would ask him out, but my parents say, "No dating until I am eighteen." They want me to focus first and foremost on my art.
Chinese poles are a bit different. The Chinese pole is simply a long, vertical pole planted in the ground. Me and several other artists, shimmy up them like we're lizards and leap from one pole to the next. My favourite trick is when I leap and catch the pole with my legs so I am hanging upside down. It is a tough trick that always makes my heart skip a beat.
My sister performs the single hand balancing and plate spinning. She is currently working on learning the teeterboard.
Her single hand-balancing act is one of the most interesting acts in the show. She balances on a single post on one hand. She manages to be so graceful and so strong at the same time, which is something I have trouble with. Despite how stubborn she is, I think she could go far in life.
Life here is rough, but I can't imagine myself anywhere else.
I first came to America when I was five. My family came here looking to join one of the American circuses. We joined several, drifting around like gypsies before finally settling with the Circus Boheme when I was eight.
I think my parents got the biggest culture shock when they came to America. They knew it was going to be different but until you are plopped down in a place you've only read or watched movies about, I don't think you realize how different. I adjusted a bit more quickly because I was a child and I didn't have much tying me back to the old country. My little sister, Jiang Sun-Yi, behaves more like an American than a Chinese. She has no memories of China; she was two when she came to America.
In China, we list our last names first and our first names last. So I suppose my name here would be Lian Jiang and my sister's, Sun-Yi Jiang. Americans are a little less formal than us Chinese. When asked our names, we normally say, "Ms. Jiang," our something along those lines whereas the Americans say, "Bob."
Papa still has us practice calligraphy and Mom feeds us Chinese food. Real Chinese food, not the kind served at restaurants in America. We call that American food in China. They believe in a certain amount of tradition. My little sister is already beginning to butt heads with Mom and Dad. She likes pizza, not rice, and prefers to write in English, not Mandarin Chinese. Sometimes they argue for hours over these things. I am grateful that she loves the circus as much as they do.
I perform in the shoulder pole wire act and the Chinese poles. I also do plate spinning. I can do the teeterboard halfway decent and I am working on learning hoop diving. Because Chinese acrobatics is the building block for nearly every circus art, all the Chinese acrobats feel we have a certain responsibility to make sure we pay our proper respects to arts created thousands of years ago. Peasants and middle-class people created most of these acts. Hoop diving was originally done by farmers who would take their hoop-shaped farming tools and dare one another to dive through them. If you could dive through seven hoops stacked on top of each other (a height of seven feet), then you were considered supremely skilled. Likewise, a merchant selling pottery might do a few tricks to attract customers.
The shoulder pole wire act is done using a long pole with a wire on top of it. An acrobat supports the pole while an artist does tricks on the wire on top. I'm the artist who walks the wire. My partner, Li Hao, supports the pole on his shoulder. Sometimes when I annoy him he jokes about dropping the pole. He is seventeen and as my French teacher would put it, Il est tres beau. I would ask him out, but my parents say, "No dating until I am eighteen." They want me to focus first and foremost on my art.
Chinese poles are a bit different. The Chinese pole is simply a long, vertical pole planted in the ground. Me and several other artists, shimmy up them like we're lizards and leap from one pole to the next. My favourite trick is when I leap and catch the pole with my legs so I am hanging upside down. It is a tough trick that always makes my heart skip a beat.
My sister performs the single hand balancing and plate spinning. She is currently working on learning the teeterboard.
Her single hand-balancing act is one of the most interesting acts in the show. She balances on a single post on one hand. She manages to be so graceful and so strong at the same time, which is something I have trouble with. Despite how stubborn she is, I think she could go far in life.
Life here is rough, but I can't imagine myself anywhere else.