prejudice, racism, homophobia
[warning] not a single thing said politically correct in this. i'm not intentionally bashing on any ethnicity/orientation, but i will write in the way i classify and that's not close to politically correct.
prejudice, we all have some. it's an inevitable part of all of us, but what makes it relevant is what we choose to do with this prejudice. perhaps its because i grew up in the usa where there is a larger interaction between different ethnicities compared to my parents that i view this in a different light. to them, there's nothing wrong with being prejudiced and voicing it out. they don't seek to rectify it in anyway and it seems socially acceptable to just stereotype and make racist/homophobic comments. it has always made me angry, but yesterday just made me feel this incredible hurt.
let's put this in perspective first. my parents were born and raised in taiwan, which was basically a homogenous chinese society with people squabbling over being a "native" or what translates to a "outside district persons". the natives would be the taiwanese who were there before the ROC government came over to taiwan after losing china to the communist party. and these other chinese would be considered the "outsiders". already there's bias there, but let's not get into that. as taiwan's grown, these differences aren't as apparent anymore, although there will always be people who will be biased.
my father was transferred here for a work opportunity, and he hadn't the best exposure to the outside world. he had a client that was constantly calling him "charlie" instead of his name in reference to Charlie Chan. while not the most offensive thing to be called, it's never a good feeling to be called by someone else's name, especially if that someone is a fictional stereotype of your ethnicity. it's like calling all cuban men 'ricky ricardo' and all red heads 'lucy'. there were probably other comments made that he never caught because his english wasn't good enough. by the time he realized that this move was permanent, the city i live in was nicely populated by asians. so my mother reluctantly agreed to move here and hasn't yet mastered english in her 20+ years of living here. i still don't know if that's indicative of her stubbornness to change or her unwillingness to be assimilated into another culture.
now enter me, who was moved here since the age of 3 and grew up going to a more or less diverse school. where i live is probably half asian, but we had our mix of other cultures. my parents have never forbidden me from making friends with other ethnicities at all, so they aren't horribly prejudiced like that. but as i was in a more ethnically mixed group in elementary school, i found that i started hanging out more and more with my "own kind". by middle school i was only hanging out with other asians and by high school was was mostly hanging out with other chinese students. i do have close friends from high school who are korean and indian, but at the core of it, they were chinese speaking. it's probably perfectly natural for this type of gravitation, these people understand your culture and get you in ways that other ethnicities don't. i never have to elaborate to them the inexplicable fear of the wrath of asian parents, why i never refer to older siblings by name, why i don't look elders in the eye, etc.
i never really noticed how prejudiced i was until i got to college. my roommate was white and so didn't get why me and my other roomie (same high school, chinese, etc.) wouldn't really consider dating outside of asians and specifically chinese. in discussion spilled all of those prejudiced things that we've been brought up with but never really thought about. like how our parents would not approve! but if we did, preferable another asian (non-chinese we're talking about) to white guy to and never a black guy. it's made me wonder since then, how much of the "parents would disapprove" was actually my own racism and pushing it onto them. i'm sure they would still be very uncomfortable should i really date a non-asian, but all this other stuff about whites and browns and blacks made me wonder 'how much of this is actually what i think?'
not so surprisingly, a lot of it is what i really think. i wouldn't consider dating a black person. i don't avoid interaction with them, but they're automatically shelved as 'friends and acquaintances'. in the same vein, the same applies to the brown people. they aren't "attractive" to me. i can tell you one's good looking or not, but it's never in a personal interest kinda way. it might be because what i was taught a 'good looking' person was typically asian. i will still tell you the ultimate hot man is takeshi kaneshiro in the honest to god if he was in any way interested in me i'd offer myself on a silver platter kinda way. that's a far cry from when i say orlando bloom is good looking and if he was interested i'd maybe do something if i was drunk, but probably not. yes, i'm so dating biased it's probably a good thing i don't do it often and expose what a horrible person i am.
side-tracking here on the homophobia bit of the parents. they've never said anything about this either unless i bring it up. i took a nose-dive into yaoi when i was dabbling in the x/1999 fandom. i was in 7th/8th grade? at first i only read the het stuff (see arashi as my icon), but then i started reading the slash. if you don't know anything about x/1999, all you need to know is that clamp draws it with lots of pretty pretty pretty boys/men with highly complicated relationships that manifest in compromising body positions all the time. in other words, any slash writer's wet dream, literally. there used to be a very good fandom for that series with some phenomenal authors that have since moved onto other things. so i've been completely behind gay rights since then. it was a very superficial start, but i came to realize that it's a relationship just like any other, so why should we interfere?
so then even after they watched 'brokeback mountain' they seemed all right with it. i just assumed they were ok with homos in ways that most conservative asians are not. prop 8 rolls around and we have some heated debates about it. then i find the reason they've been "cool" about homosexuality is because they consider it a sexual kink rather than a real orientation. like a perversion that should be kept in the privacy of their houses and not publicly announced. so we voted differently and don't talk about it much anymore. it was the first time i've ever been so angry at them for being so unreasonable. and in all my passion of calling them unfair and unwilling to change, i find it highly hypocritical of myself since i have areas in which i am much prejudiced as well.
so i've started kinda seeing (don't label it) someone now that's not asian. nothing serious, just getting to know each other. and then my parents start asking questions and find out he's not asian. my dad's surprisingly saying the "whatever makes you happy" but my mom's already rejecting it. flat out, doesn't even know this guy. i was so hurt and frustrated. i don't even know. i don't mean like hurt because i'm totally into this guy or anything; i'm just so hurt that she wouldn't even give it a chance. so i've been in a horrible mood since then, someone cheer me up?
prejudice, we all have some. it's an inevitable part of all of us, but what makes it relevant is what we choose to do with this prejudice. perhaps its because i grew up in the usa where there is a larger interaction between different ethnicities compared to my parents that i view this in a different light. to them, there's nothing wrong with being prejudiced and voicing it out. they don't seek to rectify it in anyway and it seems socially acceptable to just stereotype and make racist/homophobic comments. it has always made me angry, but yesterday just made me feel this incredible hurt.
let's put this in perspective first. my parents were born and raised in taiwan, which was basically a homogenous chinese society with people squabbling over being a "native" or what translates to a "outside district persons". the natives would be the taiwanese who were there before the ROC government came over to taiwan after losing china to the communist party. and these other chinese would be considered the "outsiders". already there's bias there, but let's not get into that. as taiwan's grown, these differences aren't as apparent anymore, although there will always be people who will be biased.
my father was transferred here for a work opportunity, and he hadn't the best exposure to the outside world. he had a client that was constantly calling him "charlie" instead of his name in reference to Charlie Chan. while not the most offensive thing to be called, it's never a good feeling to be called by someone else's name, especially if that someone is a fictional stereotype of your ethnicity. it's like calling all cuban men 'ricky ricardo' and all red heads 'lucy'. there were probably other comments made that he never caught because his english wasn't good enough. by the time he realized that this move was permanent, the city i live in was nicely populated by asians. so my mother reluctantly agreed to move here and hasn't yet mastered english in her 20+ years of living here. i still don't know if that's indicative of her stubbornness to change or her unwillingness to be assimilated into another culture.
now enter me, who was moved here since the age of 3 and grew up going to a more or less diverse school. where i live is probably half asian, but we had our mix of other cultures. my parents have never forbidden me from making friends with other ethnicities at all, so they aren't horribly prejudiced like that. but as i was in a more ethnically mixed group in elementary school, i found that i started hanging out more and more with my "own kind". by middle school i was only hanging out with other asians and by high school was was mostly hanging out with other chinese students. i do have close friends from high school who are korean and indian, but at the core of it, they were chinese speaking. it's probably perfectly natural for this type of gravitation, these people understand your culture and get you in ways that other ethnicities don't. i never have to elaborate to them the inexplicable fear of the wrath of asian parents, why i never refer to older siblings by name, why i don't look elders in the eye, etc.
i never really noticed how prejudiced i was until i got to college. my roommate was white and so didn't get why me and my other roomie (same high school, chinese, etc.) wouldn't really consider dating outside of asians and specifically chinese. in discussion spilled all of those prejudiced things that we've been brought up with but never really thought about. like how our parents would not approve! but if we did, preferable another asian (non-chinese we're talking about) to white guy to and never a black guy. it's made me wonder since then, how much of the "parents would disapprove" was actually my own racism and pushing it onto them. i'm sure they would still be very uncomfortable should i really date a non-asian, but all this other stuff about whites and browns and blacks made me wonder 'how much of this is actually what i think?'
not so surprisingly, a lot of it is what i really think. i wouldn't consider dating a black person. i don't avoid interaction with them, but they're automatically shelved as 'friends and acquaintances'. in the same vein, the same applies to the brown people. they aren't "attractive" to me. i can tell you one's good looking or not, but it's never in a personal interest kinda way. it might be because what i was taught a 'good looking' person was typically asian. i will still tell you the ultimate hot man is takeshi kaneshiro in the honest to god if he was in any way interested in me i'd offer myself on a silver platter kinda way. that's a far cry from when i say orlando bloom is good looking and if he was interested i'd maybe do something if i was drunk, but probably not. yes, i'm so dating biased it's probably a good thing i don't do it often and expose what a horrible person i am.
side-tracking here on the homophobia bit of the parents. they've never said anything about this either unless i bring it up. i took a nose-dive into yaoi when i was dabbling in the x/1999 fandom. i was in 7th/8th grade? at first i only read the het stuff (see arashi as my icon), but then i started reading the slash. if you don't know anything about x/1999, all you need to know is that clamp draws it with lots of pretty pretty pretty boys/men with highly complicated relationships that manifest in compromising body positions all the time. in other words, any slash writer's wet dream, literally. there used to be a very good fandom for that series with some phenomenal authors that have since moved onto other things. so i've been completely behind gay rights since then. it was a very superficial start, but i came to realize that it's a relationship just like any other, so why should we interfere?
so then even after they watched 'brokeback mountain' they seemed all right with it. i just assumed they were ok with homos in ways that most conservative asians are not. prop 8 rolls around and we have some heated debates about it. then i find the reason they've been "cool" about homosexuality is because they consider it a sexual kink rather than a real orientation. like a perversion that should be kept in the privacy of their houses and not publicly announced. so we voted differently and don't talk about it much anymore. it was the first time i've ever been so angry at them for being so unreasonable. and in all my passion of calling them unfair and unwilling to change, i find it highly hypocritical of myself since i have areas in which i am much prejudiced as well.
so i've started kinda seeing (don't label it) someone now that's not asian. nothing serious, just getting to know each other. and then my parents start asking questions and find out he's not asian. my dad's surprisingly saying the "whatever makes you happy" but my mom's already rejecting it. flat out, doesn't even know this guy. i was so hurt and frustrated. i don't even know. i don't mean like hurt because i'm totally into this guy or anything; i'm just so hurt that she wouldn't even give it a chance. so i've been in a horrible mood since then, someone cheer me up?