The 6 Worst Parts of Being Chinese (Not In The Stereotypes)
Being a second-generation Chinese American isn't that tough. We don't get harassed by police on flimsy pretexts, we don't get called terrorists and Chinese men don't accidentally knock things over with their penises. Sure, we once weren't allowed to own land or become U.S. citizens, but that was way back in the ancient past (1940).
In the distant, barbaric past.
Hell, sometimes people even apologize to us for putting us in camps during World War II. That was actually the Japanese, but I guess it's the thought that counts.
That doesn't leave a lot of room for self-deprecating racial humor (the most important aspect of racial identity), but there are a few minor annoyances about being Chinese American that nobody seems to talk about. Not the boring stuff about being caught between two worlds or being pushed to succeed or supposedly having our parts stolen by white people in the Last Airbender movie.
I don't know, I'm pretty sure I've seen white kids that looked like that at my high school.
None of that. This is the stuff that is annoying real actual Chinese Americans every day.
#6.
No Fun Stereotypes
This matters to me because it's my job (or one of my jobs) to make fun of people, and to protect myself, it has to be from my own people. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of publicly known stereotypes to work with. We supposedly can't drive and are good at math, some of us don't speak English very well and maybe something about kung fu. You can maybe make a communist joke if your family comes from mainland China ("In Communist China, Google searches you!"), but if your roots are in Taiwan, you're stuck.
I've been assured that this is hilarious if you're from Taiwan.
Nobody knows anything about Taiwan. You can joke about all the weird organs you're expected to eat as part of Taiwanese cuisine and you will just get blank stares. ("...and there was the Taiwanese guy, eating all the chicken uteruses! Come on. Anybody? Chicken uterus. Taiwanese people eat them.") Someone from the back will yell at you to do some kung fu and then it will all go downhill from there.
Even if you're not doing comedy formally, this really puts a damper on joking around with your friends. You're just sitting there, ribbing each other good-naturedly on your various stereotypes and then someone tries to rib you back and they're all, "Well... why don't you go... get some straight A's or something." Then the whole evening is ruined and everyone has to go home.
Part of this is due to a larger problem...
#5.
White People Can't Tell Asians Apart
A lot of Americans can't tell the difference between different Asian races visually, but that's understandable, since we all look nearly identical. We all have similar skin, hair and eye coloring as well as similar facial structure, so it's hard to see the difference. I myself have trouble telling the difference between white folks, like English and Irish, or like Hitler and a cat.
I think the cat is on the left but don't quote me on this.
#4.
Chinese Words Don't Sound Cool in English
Everyone who has even the slightest connection to a foreign culture knows that you milk it for cool names. For your kids, your dog, your video game character, your Harry Potter slashfiction, whatever. Then you just wait for the moment where someone asks about it and you can say, "Oh yeah, that means `soul' in Japanese."
Just for kicks, here's an ancient Chinese saying you should try to convince a friend to get as a tattoo. Tell them it's about crisis and opportunity or some shit.
"Half chicken, 3 dollars, whole chicken, 5 dollars."
Unfortunately, while Japanese names look pretty cool written in English (Akira, Kamiko, Yakuza, Chicken Katsu Bento), Chinese names sound pretty lame (Yun-Fat, Chee Hwa, Haier, Egg Foo Young). My own Chinese name is Porchin, which using the modern pinyin system, still comes out to an unglamorous Buoqing. You want to name yourself "great king"? Have fun being "da wang." Sometimes immigrants get lucky when their last names transliterate into something cool, like, "Fang," but more often than not, they will end up like our family friends, the Poons.
The pinyin system really doesn't help the coolness factor by introducing all those Q's and X's. (Pro tip: They're pretty much just "ch" and "sh" respectively.) Instead of sounding exotic and mysterious, I sound like a really desperate Scrabble cheater.
In Chinese Scrabble, you would kill for a hand like this.
I know a lot of other cultures feel our pain, like the Welsh ("Let's name our little girl `white flowers'." "OK, that's... Blodwen."), but if you randomly spin the culture wheel, odds are you'll hit some language that has cooler transliterated English names than Chinese.
I'm thrown by the gift thing, actually. I'm a Malaysian Chinese and as far as I've ever known, you take the s**t people give you. On Chinese New Year, my friends and I go house-hopping for the red packets of money that you get when you visit your friends' homes. And trust me, it's not just us. Somebody explain? Because I suspect that it just may be that I'm a real banana of a Chinese.
ReplyYou should have said "Chinese American", not Chinese. I thought you meant people who live in China, which is the kind of article I'm looking for.
Reply#1 (Chinese politeness) So does that mean that in China, the only reason you offer someone a gift is because you hope to gain some kind of moral superiority if you can con them into accepting a gift.
ReplySo it's a case of "Beware of Chinese bearing gifts" then?
Odd... I always figured that was how gifts work everywhere.
Hilarious article, even though I'm half-Japanese and half-white. Some things are similar, like the refusing gifts thing (or anything offered at all), other parts not so much. Anyway, I noticed that most people making comments about telling the difference between Asians are either not Asian themselves or are not Japanese. So I thought I'd chime in and say that most Japanese people can tell the difference between the different far east races--Japanese, Korean, Chinese. Growing up my family and I could always spot any Korean or Chinese tourists. Listening in closer (to language) revealed we were right. I think the reason we can tell is because Japan is so extremely mono-racial (like 99%) that we can immediately spot any differences, even outside our own culture. (I must note that this might not be the case in larger cities, with them being more multiracial.) This mono-raciality is a consequence of being an "island nation" for so long, even with the onset of the modern age.
ReplyAnd yes, it does seem 80% of sushi restaurants are run by Chinese people ;D
Totally understand what you're saying about the gifts. My mother doesn't get too upset when it's family (sometimes) but if family friends try to do the same... "YOU GIVE IT BACK RIGHT NOW!! Don't give her anything!!" "MOM I, DIDN'T EVEN TAKE IT!! Jesus It's still in her hand!" -__-. And I dunno how those ladies do it, but you really CAN'T win those arguments with them. It's ridiculous.
ReplyThere kinds of Asians and whenever you guys judge about it, your insulting some other asians countries. In Asian culture our attitude depend on how people treat us. Respects is the must!, just because were different doesn't mean you guys judges the way we learn. No offense!
ReplyNot all Asians are the same. So before you guys even judge each perspective try to have respects. MIND YOUR MANNERS FOLKS!
Replyre: Fun Stereotypes
ReplyI'm from Hong Kong, food heaven haha! From what I heard from relatives, you folks in Taiwan are famous for eating Chicken Butts Kebab, CHICKEN BUTTS!
Plus, Taiwan is known as the place where Office Ladies can go to visit the Cowboy brand male strip club.
This is probably your best article. And I'd say 70% of sushi chefs being Chinese here in southern California sounds about right.
ReplyI'll be honest, Kuchi just sounds like being English!
ReplyOooh... This one time I took a gift (Chinese Calendar) from a girlfriend's father when he was visiting from Taiwan... It was in a red envelope and everything! :O
ReplyI didn't know! I'm white! We're required to accept all gifts indiscriminately and by force if necessary! AAAAAHHH!!
Calendars are okay, it's under Trinkets.
Since Asians(in most people's view) include Chinese, Japanese etc. we south east Asians(such as Indians, sri lankans etc.) should have a separate continent....Why to be ignored, be different !!! :P
ReplyI hate to tootle my own horn trumpet, but I was fairly certain that there were different kinds of Asians before I read this. This is not only informative, but it's hilarious. Well done.
ReplyThank god I'm not alone, okay I can tell people apart by their accents, way of manners, style of clothing, and language. To be honest, I can't tell Asians apart aside from accents, to me Japanese accents are soft, Korean (I don't know if there's a North or South Korean accent, I just watched a Korean film that took place in SK) accents are more of a 'withdrawn' sort, Chinese accents are more of a 'bold'... I don't know the other Asian cultures well enough but them.. however I don't see a difference in them by facial and body, so please don't kill me, it's my only system of knowing where a person originated from. Forgive an European/Indian mutt.
ReplyBut seriously, do Koreans have a different accent depending where they're from? I have been wondering this, like do North Koreans use a different system of idioms than South or do they have their own little accents like China and Japan? (anyone who read JP mangas will know what accents I'm talking about).
Of course there are regional accents in asia, and most of these accents die out after a generation or so. Realistically you shouldn't be able to do much more than regionalize a person after a generation since they will be more american as they go along and lose some of the more obvious features like fashion and accents. The same way you can't tell most white americans apart from where they are from.
North and south korea are clearly different, but not incomprehensibly so. There are also regional dialects within their own borders. 6 in the south, 5 in the north, and 3 in China, these are all in the korean language.
Good god...is that a pic of you in your youth, or just a random kid? Either way, it's cute.
ReplyKids with guns... kids with guns.. easy does it, easy does it..
Gorillaz.. they know EVERYTHING.
To be fair, I've watched several Chinese movies where one of the actors was Korean. One or two where the main character was Korean. They dub the lines and move on, which is what I suspect they did with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
ReplyAlso to be fair, take a U.S. Citizen, a Canadian, an Australian and someone from the UK and stand them next to each other. Then guess who is who. What usually tips a person off is accent, sometimes style of dress. I agree that to some people all Asians are one and the same, but I think more often it's just hard to tell what specific country a person is from unless you hear the language, or observe mannerisms or dress.
I agree. I hang out a lot with Asians at my college (we've got over half a dozen countries represented... Japan, China, Vietnam, Korea, Indonesia, Hong Kong, the Philippines...), and I'm slowly learning to figure out who's from where based on accent and appearance (Chinese, Koreans, and Vietnamese are fairly distinctive), but it takes me a little bit to figure out someone I've never met before.
Knowing at least a little bit of one or more languages also seriously helps. I'm kind of lower-intermediate in Japanese language (my skills have definitely decayed lately), and I'm able to guess with about 50% certainty between Japanese/Chinese/Korean/Vietnamese/Filipino based on how the language sounds. (Just don't ask me to figure out who's from China, Taiwan, or Hong Kong, they all sound too similar to me...)
You can't tell a language you CAN speak from languages you CAN'T speak? What's it like being ret arded?
90% of figuring out where an Asian is descended from is the name. I suspect the Asians are playing an elaborate prank on you.
Hong Kong of course is PART OF China, and the mainland govt would have you believe that so is Taiwan.
I won't ask you to figure ANYTHING out.
I doubt Asians can tell nationality easily either, of others Asians. I once showed some Korean middle school students a quiz on a website ("alllooksame") that had pictures of Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans. They did no better than me. Really it's just often nearly impossible to guess where someone is from just from looking. Usually you need to recognize some specific behavior, or hear their language.
ReplyOK, I'm 61 and not so funny. 50 years ago it was not hard to distinguish the different Asian groups because doing so meant more, and immigration was from just a few different parts of Asia. Now immigration is from all over. And immigrants are pre-westernized upon arrival in the U.S. Also, it seems that western culture affects all asians in similar ways, so the lines between them are quickly blurred after immigration.
I should also note that the younger generation seems to cleave more closely to ideal western beauty than in my day, when there were many ethnically obvious, unadorned individuals among the "pretty" pan-asian ones.
Still, knowing some basic ethnic physical/facial types offers good clues to distinguishing among the various groups. Describing them sounds racist so I'm reluctant. So I'll say three things. First, there are a very few Japanese who genuinely look like anime. They were not among the first wave of immigrants circa 1900. When anime first hit, I thought what a novel way to draw humans! Well, no, not so much. Second, when I visited Inner Mongolia, I observed Mongolians (not ethnic Chinese) and saw individuals who looked like Koreans, very hefty Koreans, northern Chinese, my southern Chinese family, and various types of North American Indian. Quite a mishmash. Third, China has many ethnic groups, but the main one (that most of us know as Chinese) lives in a huge area the size of many countries put together and speaks countless dialects. Not surprisingly, there are many physical types that resemble each other less than most Japanese resemble most Koreans.
What the hell are you talking about?
WHAT THE HELL? where are the constant nagging from your parents to become a doctor, always having to achieve nothing less than an A+ or A* in your exams and and having a gay s****y surname like 'dong' or 'wang'
ReplyThis is fascinating.
Replywut cat ?
Reply