My Small Lane in Beijing by Kai Liao is a realistic story about his life after moving to Guangzhou, China. He speaks about the judgement she got based on her Beijing accent although he had no control of it, being born in Beijing. He also explains his difficulty in school and making friends, and portrays his deep sorrow when he was unlike everyone else. Trying so hard to get rid of his accent, he forgot his true identity. Eventually, it finally struck him that he didn’t need to be like everyone else and that it was not a bad thing to have an accent. He learned to appreciate it and was not scared to hid it or try to get rid of it because the truth is, he was just from a small lane in Beijing.


This story greatly shows that you should appreciate and cherish things you came with and things that are inevitable. Presented in the story, Kai believed that getting rid of his innate accent from Beijing would score him a friendship with people that mocked him of his accent in the first place. Kai shows that you cannot get rid of something that you came with and that it’s easier and better to cherish it. Through his hard work trying to learn Cantonese and trying to get rid of his accent, he eventually realized that he should not change, and that it didn’t matter of his accent. Being Asian American myself, I know the judgement and the stereotypes people place on me and others of my race and the things people think and say about my race. I once believed that being in an American country and being born in an American country, I should be American and I always denied that I was Asian. I tried so hard to be something I was not and ultimately realized that you should not resent yourself because of your race or anything else, because things like these are inevitable. Being different is okay and everyone is placed on this world for a reason. As Kai states “We all have our places in the world. Mine is the small lane.”