Eastern Michigan University’s 2010 Chinese Week officially started Sunday, and different discussions, speakers and entertainment will take place all week.

This past Monday, the second day of the festivities kicked off with a speech about Women’s Roles in the 21st Century entitled “Raising the Second Generation.”

Though the outline of this topic was essentially about second generation Asian American Women, all of the concepts discussed could be applied to any gender.

The guest speaker for this event was a second-generation Chinese American, Frances Kai-Hwa Wang.

Originally from California, Wang spends her time jumping back and forth between Michigan and Hawaii.

“Frances agreed to do the speech because we believe in culture understanding,” said Mandarin instructor Yen-Lin Von Meister, who is responsible for Wang’s attendance. “She has been an activist, and I felt it appropriate for her to enlighten us. I thought that the students should get an outside opinion.”

In this lecture one learns about many issues, including the highly talked-about body imagery. However, topics got brought up from many different aspects one may not normally think about.

“Women grow up and find links that look like them,” Wang said. “I grew up thinking that because I did not have blond hair like Barbie I could never be beautiful. Now you can get a Barbie who can be Asian, Muslim, Black or Latina.”

Essentially this is teaching young women to think critically and redefine what is normal and what is beautiful based on their standards – and not society’s.

She goes on to talk about how if your child is bi-lingual he or she must be encouraged. She says it is important for the child to know he or she does not speak funny and the language is an important part of their heritage.

Also, there are many children’s books encouraging being bilingual and staying connected to where you come from. Cultureforkids.com is a website that has pages after pages of information for a wide variety of religion and cultures.

“I really enjoyed learning about the inclusive children’s books,” masters student Sarah Frame said. “It’s wonderful that we can read stories about all cultures to our kids.”

Besides bilingual stories, Wang suggested taking traditional stories and switching the roles around. Instead of the woman always being the damsel in distress make the woman the one who goes on adventures and saves the day, and the man.

“Happily Ever After” already does this by taking traditional fairytales and recasting them to different races to help diversify classic stories.

Throughout these stories young women can learn to speak up, being who they are instead of what they are told to be.

Wang is an established writer and editor for various publications. She is the lead multicultural contributor for AnnArbor.com, and has her own column “Adventures in Multicultural Living,” which can be found in the evening edition of the online paper.

For more information check out her website www.franceskaihwawang.com.