Growing Up Between Cultures: The Making of a Self
Some people discover themselves early—not because life has been gentle with them, but because it has quietly insisted on difficult questions long before their peers ever had to ask them. Speaking with Aidan Hung, I felt that unmistakable sense of someone who has been shaped not by certainty, but by the persistent work of navigating the in-between spaces of identity, culture, and belonging.
Aidan grew up in New Zealand as an adopted Chinese child, suspended between cultures he never fully inherited and expectations he never entirely understood. He didn’t describe his childhood as painful or traumatic. Instead, he spoke of a soft but constant disorientation, the subtle feeling of not quite fitting into any template around him. Nothing was wrong, yet nothing quite aligned. He was, as he put it, “always trying to figure myself out”—a lifelong project that began in the background long before he had the words for it.
That vague confusion hardened into something sharper during his teenage years. High school, for Aidan, wasn’t marked by rebellion so much as emotional turbulence. The questions he carried now—big, philosophical questions about culture, identity, and the human condition—were already alive in him, but he approached them through the only emotional language he had at the time: anger. He wasn’t angry at anyone; he was angry at not understanding, angry at the silent weight of expectations, angry at being unable to articulate the complexities inside him.
What quietly amazes me is how he transformed that anger. Many people carry their adolescent frustrations far into adulthood, never examining them closely enough to dissolve them. Aidan did the opposite. He turned inward. He asked more questions. And then, almost instinctively, he followed those questions into academia—not for prestige or career prospects, but because studying society felt like the only way to understand himself. Politics, philosophy, economics—these weren’t subjects for him; they were maps. Through them, he learned how societies are built, how institutions take shape, and how cultures form identities. And in that process, he slowly began piecing together his own.
But as he learned to understand the world, he also navigated the unspoken expectations of a high-achieving Asian family. His parents, like many Chinese parents, came armed with love expressed through ambition—doctors, Oxford, academic excellence, the well-worn blueprint of “success.” Aidan was the only arts student in a family of science and medicine. His parents supported him, yet he could feel the quiet, lingering hope that one day he might return to the path they had once imagined for him. That subtle tension—between support and expectation—is one many children of immigrant or Asian families know intimately. It’s the pressure of wanting to be your own person while also being a good son.
Aidan chose himself, but not arrogantly. He chose his truth with a kind of humble courage that many people take decades to cultivate. And he captured the turning point in one simple sentence that struck me harder than I expected: “You realise your parents are just people.” It is one of the most liberating, heartbreaking, and maturing moments in any person’s life—when the myth of perfect parents dissolves and is replaced by the reality of flawed humans doing their best with what they know. That realisation softened him. It created room for compassion, without erasing the challenges.
Yet beneath all of this—the cultural tension, the identity work, the intellectual curiosity—runs another thread of his story: anxiety. Aidan’s mind was once a storm of constant thoughts, a relentless noise he couldn’t turn off. He described it in a way only someone who has lived it could: “I could hear every one of my thoughts. Constantly.” For years, he believed this was simply how life worked—until he began SSRI medication and suddenly experienced silence. For the first time, he could breathe without negotiating with his own mind. He could think a single thought without ten more shouting over it. That moment didn’t change who he was—it revealed him.
It’s impossible to hear Aidan speak about being kind to himself without understanding how hard-won that kindness was. He used to dismiss the phrase entirely, thinking it was vague or unhelpful. But over time, he discovered its real meaning: forgiving yourself for how you survived. Accepting that your coping mechanisms—no matter how messy—were the best you could do at the time. Letting go of the shame attached to the younger version of yourself who didn’t yet have the skills or clarity you have now. “If you survived,” he said, almost quietly, “you did fine.” That sentence could be a lifeline for so many.
What stands out most about Aidan is not his intelligence, though he has plenty of it. It’s his relationship with truth—his own truth. He spent years unable to tell which beliefs were his own and which were inherited from parents, teachers, or cultural norms. Slowly, he started recognising the subtle inner recoil when something didn’t align with him. He began trusting that instinct. That “inner knowing,” as he calls it, became the compass guiding him through difficult choices—toward authenticity, and away from expectations that never fit.
Now, at 22, he is not pretending to have answers. He is not claiming to be complete. But he is undeniably grounded—less angry, less confused, more compassionate with himself, and finally stepping into life with intention rather than reaction. He looks at the world with a calm realism and a quiet resolve to help others understand it too. His interest in cross-cultural dialogue, empathy, and the lived experience of others isn’t academic—it’s personal. He wants to help people understand each other because he knows what it feels like to be misunderstood.
When our conversation ended, I realised why speaking with him felt so meaningful. Aidan represents an emerging form of leadership that doesn’t rely on authority or ego. His leadership is quiet, reflective, and empathetic. He isn’t trying to shine; he’s trying to understand. And in a world so full of division, that kind of person is not just refreshing—they are necessary.
His story is still unfolding. It will evolve, deepen, and shift. But even now, it carries a rare honesty. A clarity earned not from certainty, but from wrestling with the uncertainties that shape us all. And perhaps that is the essence of becoming yourself: learning to walk through confusion with curiosity, through expectation with integrity, and through anxiety with gentleness.
Listening to Aidan, I couldn’t help but think—this is what it looks like when a young person begins their life with both courage and introspection. A life shaped in the spaces between cultures, between identities, between who he was expected to be and who he is becoming. A life that proves you don’t need to be loud to be brave. Sometimes, the quietest journeys are the ones that change us most.
Full Podcast Growing Up Between Cultures, A Conversation on Identifty and Belonging with Aidan Hung
