In my earliest memory, the first time that I realized people have different skin is in my primary school. Our school will let a foreign teacher to teach us as soon as we get into grade four, in order to give us a chance to practice our oral English. My teacher was a man who was from America. He was really friendly and humorous. I forgot his name now, but he was the first person who came from other country and have different color of skin.

When I was in grade four, foreign teachers were rare in many school. Fortunately, our school have one. When we were having the first class with him, I did not discover that he have the different color of skin than us at first. I just noticed that his features are deeper than us, such as his eyes. Then, after the class, he was playing with classmate. At that time, with the contrast, I realized he was much whiter than us. His skin was so white that I wondered whether he ever bask in the sun? Sometimes, I just stood behind him, and compared my skin with him. After a few weeks, I saw him do exercise with us under the sun. I did a contrast again. He did not have any color change on his skin.

In my memory, in China, many girl wanted to have whiter skin than they used to be. They thought white skin is more beautiful, and I might think so as well when I was young. Therefore, after school, I came back home, and asked my mother about my teacher’s skin. I said, “Mom, why my teacher can be so white? Can I get whiter like him if I do not bask in the sun for a long time?” My mother laughed at me. She said, “No, you cannot become as white as your teacher does. His skin was born whiter than ours. There are many countries in the world, and this leads that there are many difference among those countries. We have many different languages and people. We are Chinese, our hair is black and our skin is yellow. Your teacher came from America, and his skin is white. Some people, for example in Africa, have black skin. We were born like this, and it indicates our race and country.” I cannot recall all the sentences that my mom said, but I remembered that my mom told me, although people have different colors of skin, but there is no differences in their inside.

At that time, I did not really know about the discrimination, especially the racial discrimination against black people. Therefore, I did not notice that the color of skin can be used to judge somebody or decide what kind of people’s life they can have. However, I know about this, and I know why my mom said like that. She told me that she met some white and black people when I was 1 years old, and she said that they were really nice and really like me.

I am not a Canadian, so I do not have a home here, and I am living with my friend Alex in the university. However, the place that makes me home was the dormitory of my friend Jessie in Vancouver, and I am not quit sure about whether I was being like Canadian or not, but we were just being normal as a Chinese. I went and stayed in Vancouver during the Christmas holiday.

In weekends, I woke up at about 10:45 in the morning. I was just simply playing my phone on my bed. I turned on my music and began to getting up from bed. While I was getting dressed, I heard Alex was waking up with my music as usual (we are classmate since high school). Just after I brushed my teeth and washed my face, she was walking into the washroom. We looked at each other and I laughed at her messy look. While she began to brushing her teeth, I said, “I’m going to make breakfast. Come out and eat after you wash.” I just made two egg sandwiches, and two cups of milk. That was our brunch. We talked about some interesting things that happened in Canada, both in Regina and Vancouver, when we sat down.

At about 11:00, when we almost finished eating our brunch, Jessie and her boyfriend Charlie came. They just came back from atelier. They put down their bags, their umbrella and lay on the couch. I asked how was the class in the atelier. Charlie told me about the class, and they began to complain the weather. After they finished the complain of the weather, I changed the topic to talking about where we go and eat, or what to play. Alex said we have some food materials in the fridge. Jessie jokingly said, “When cooking at home, only Alex and Charlie can make it. You guys can make a Chinese food combining southern and northern China. Berney(that’s me) and I just need to wait and eat.” Then, Jessie realized what she said. She pulled me to the computer and turned on the computer games. At the same time, I heard that Alex and Charlie were discussing about what to cook. However, Jessie and I did not have time to complete a game. When we just started, Alex shouted, “Berney, come here and wash the cabbage.”

“Why Charlie cannot do that?”, I said it aloud.

“He is cutting the pork!”

Then, I went to the kitchen and washed the cabbage. Then, I just sat down again about 30 seconds, Charlie’ s voice came. “Jessie, steam rice!”,he said.

“Ah! No!”, Jessie complained and went to kitchen at last.

The game did not finish, but the meal began with the shout of Alex. She was shouting at Jessie, because Jessie carried the pork with her chopsticks from the kitchen to the table, and the oil dropped down along the way. Charlie and I were setting the table. I was laughing and seeing at them.