Identity and home
Californian Asians have attempted to draw me out before. When I evinced no interest in their exclusionary activities and showed no sympathy towards their cliqueish mentality, I was accused of being whitewashed. I finally realized that my feeling of distate stemmed from the simple fact that I was not like them at all. We did not share a similar background. We did not share a similar culture. All their talk about "Asian pride" and pseudo-ghetto posturing was foreign and repellent to me. There was nothing linking us but a few bits of DNA that colored our hair dark and our eyes brown.
Today, I talked to aritei and found a group I do connect with: Asian chicks from Oklahoma.
In all seriousness, talking to her was amazing. Kim is one of those rare Asian women who grew up in an obscure, middle-of-the-country state just like me. I related to her effortlessly.
On one level, people do connect with each other through their ethnicity, but only in an indirect way. Shared ethnicity implies shared traditions and mores. If you are an American, though, it goes far beyond that. How you were raised and where you were raised are more significant.
Culture-wise, Oklahoma is distinct from Iowa. They have more cows than we do. We have more corn than they do. Kim has a badass accent*. I sound like Dan Rather after speech training. But their culture is open and friendly. They have the feeling of "caring about your neighbor". Their educational system is top-notch. All of this was familiar. And after we acknowledged these more important commonalities, we could chuckle over being the only Asian girl in a class, having mothers who knew nothing of the local fashions, and feeling the faint, automatic sense of familiarity between us because our parents came from the same place.
This was just another incidence of a phenomenon I've observed since moving here. Almost without exception, the people I relate to the best are non-Californians. It's eye-opening how little their race, age, and current circumstances matter in comparison to this one criterion. I don't mean this just in reference to my dislike of California. There are things like shared life experiences, childhood memories, and world views that simply aren't the same here. Nobody knows what the hell 4-H is. Nobody runs after you in the street to tell you your headlight is broken. Nobody has ever caught frogs in a friend's pond or done any of the things people who live close to nature do. It's a different world.
aritei: people here bash the state a lot
aritei: unless we're at a football game
aritei: or texans are around
One of the things that saddens me is how many people leave their childhood homes, citing boredom in search of something better. What they don't know is that "there's nothing to do here" is a universal sentiment. I've known people in New York City and San Francisco and Los Angeles who have said the exact same thing. What makes life exciting and interesting are the people around you and the friends you have, not how much urban clutter there is.
I am guilty of wanderlust myself. I wanted to see the world. I wanted to experience excitement. In the end, touring the globe only made me appreciate the things I had taken for granted.
Kim and I both agreed that it would be nice to return to our childhood homes once we grow up and have seen enough of the world. She was quite vocal about returning to Oklahoma to raise children, if children were a consideration. There's no better recommendation than that. In a parallel non-childfree universe, I would feel the same exact way about Iowa.
Of course, I'm destined for Austin. Because it's inevitable.**
* Unfortunately, her accent only comes out while drunk
** Obscure inside joke
Today, I talked to aritei and found a group I do connect with: Asian chicks from Oklahoma.
In all seriousness, talking to her was amazing. Kim is one of those rare Asian women who grew up in an obscure, middle-of-the-country state just like me. I related to her effortlessly.
On one level, people do connect with each other through their ethnicity, but only in an indirect way. Shared ethnicity implies shared traditions and mores. If you are an American, though, it goes far beyond that. How you were raised and where you were raised are more significant.
Culture-wise, Oklahoma is distinct from Iowa. They have more cows than we do. We have more corn than they do. Kim has a badass accent*. I sound like Dan Rather after speech training. But their culture is open and friendly. They have the feeling of "caring about your neighbor". Their educational system is top-notch. All of this was familiar. And after we acknowledged these more important commonalities, we could chuckle over being the only Asian girl in a class, having mothers who knew nothing of the local fashions, and feeling the faint, automatic sense of familiarity between us because our parents came from the same place.
This was just another incidence of a phenomenon I've observed since moving here. Almost without exception, the people I relate to the best are non-Californians. It's eye-opening how little their race, age, and current circumstances matter in comparison to this one criterion. I don't mean this just in reference to my dislike of California. There are things like shared life experiences, childhood memories, and world views that simply aren't the same here. Nobody knows what the hell 4-H is. Nobody runs after you in the street to tell you your headlight is broken. Nobody has ever caught frogs in a friend's pond or done any of the things people who live close to nature do. It's a different world.
aritei: people here bash the state a lot
aritei: unless we're at a football game
aritei: or texans are around
One of the things that saddens me is how many people leave their childhood homes, citing boredom in search of something better. What they don't know is that "there's nothing to do here" is a universal sentiment. I've known people in New York City and San Francisco and Los Angeles who have said the exact same thing. What makes life exciting and interesting are the people around you and the friends you have, not how much urban clutter there is.
I am guilty of wanderlust myself. I wanted to see the world. I wanted to experience excitement. In the end, touring the globe only made me appreciate the things I had taken for granted.
Kim and I both agreed that it would be nice to return to our childhood homes once we grow up and have seen enough of the world. She was quite vocal about returning to Oklahoma to raise children, if children were a consideration. There's no better recommendation than that. In a parallel non-childfree universe, I would feel the same exact way about Iowa.
Of course, I'm destined for Austin. Because it's inevitable.**
* Unfortunately, her accent only comes out while drunk
** Obscure inside joke