A Taoist Intersubjective Becoming of I and Thou

This is a narrative inquiry of my cross-cultural identity as a teacher in three countries: China, Canada, and the United States of America. Taking an individual approach to cultural studies, I inquired the Chinese-Canadian life experiences of myself and my former student—a Chinese-Canadian woman immigrant. Beyond our similar ethnic and gender backgrounds, we found each other from warring social classes in China. Underneath our differences, we recovered the Taoist intersubjective knowing as our common deep identity with the Chinese culture. I further developed this research with my former student—a Mexican-American male teacher. Underneath our different and opposing gender, social class, and ethnic identities, we reconstructed the Buberian ontology of I and Thou as our common way of relating to each other, listening to and telling each other’s cultural stories. We transcended our differences, and reconstructed our identities as fuller cultural beings. I concluded that individuals from opposing cultures coming into contact intersubjectively generated cultural creativity. My cross-cultural teacher identity was a Taoist intersubjective becoming of I and Thou