profound questions
1. when you've been massaging the hell out of your tatas in hopes of busting the clogs ... how do you know when they're still there or you just have hella bruised tatas?
2. what do you do when you are publicly embarrassed by your own people? sam and i were at loehmann's today, standing in line to buy some dresses (which might just be returned anyway). the line was slow. there was a chinese lady who had put her clothes on the line strap maker thing and had gone off to look at something else while she was waiting. she comes back and essentially cuts the line in front of these two white ladies.
white lady #1: "um, did you just cut the line?"
chinese lady: "no! i left it here and i go see something else!"
white lady #2: "that's cutting the line. you should go to the end of the line."
chinese lady: dead stare into space.
white ladies #1 & 2 proceed to constantly make little cutting remarks with each other about the rudeness of some people and how THEY would go to the end of the line. the conversation continues.
white lady #2: "so you're really not going to go to the end of the line?"
chinese lady: dead stare into space.
there was white lady #0 already at the cashier. as she finishes up her purchase, she tells the cashier and points at chinese lady "she cut the line. she should go to the end."
white ladies #1&2 proceed to continue making a stink about it. chinese lady rushes to the counter to pay and says "i no hear you. i was here. you stupid."
white ladies #1&2 continue in their outrage.
sam and i wanted to sink into the ground and disappear. well, i did, and sam kept sucking on his fist. so i was COMPLETELY embarrassed to be there. i didn't want to get involved in the fracas but i felt compelled to apologize on behalf of all chinese people. i mean, i can kind of understand chinese lady's mentality. she WAS in line. and white ladies didn't have to go and on about it. but the fact that chinese lady lashed out with the "you stupid" line MORTIFIED me. i was embarrassed for her and i felt like i spoke to sam in extraloud english to disassociate myself from her. it's times like that where i wish i were NOT chinese. i know i shouldn't feel that way, but .... errrrrrh. if my ethnic studies friends (dr s and jc) want to weigh on the question: what is the best way to respond to such a situation? ... i'd be happy to hear.
posted by Unknown @ 6:18 PM
6 Comments:
You know, there are so many ethnicities, dialects, generations, people groups, etc. within Chinese culture that you could say in this situation to yourself or to others: "Well, she's Han and I'm Hmong," "Well, I'm Shanghainese, and she must be from Beijing."
Or, you could choose to say something like: "Well, I'm American today, and this is really not a ethnic/racial thing; I just feel sorry for this poor woman who had nothing better to say than 'stupid', and I feel the others were too hard on her."
There's really nothing you could have done.
I personally think the other ladies should have just let it go. Quite obviously this Asian lady, for whatever reason, wasn't going to go to the end of the line.
what does this have to do with ethnicities? a lady cut the line that was chinese. so what? it's not like white people don't cut in line. i was at the sfo security checkpoint and this middle aged white housewife did pretty much the same thing. she was just as unapologetic.
i don't get all the asian-american self-hate. if a 29 yr old white gal saw the that woman at the sfo airport, the first thing she'd be thinking would be "what a bitch" not "this reflects poorly on my race."
what's so great about white people and white culture? half the world is f*cked up b/c of them (factually true, go read up on the effects of british colonialism).
i think it has something to do with being in the minority, and also being cast as the model minority. i'm not disagreeing with you b -- but i def. think there are some asian hangups there.
It’s natural to feel embarrassed in this situation. However, by associating the embarrassment with ethnicity, aren’t we at the same time condoning the racial discrimination against a particular ethnicity? When you tried to talk to your baby in English loudly, I think not only were you trying to disassociate yourself with your ethnicity, maybe at the same time you were trying to show the white ladies that their potential racist views weren’t universally apply to your ethnicity. There are good Chinese people. We naturally associate our embarrassment with many of our roles that aren’t just ethnicity. For example, if you are sitting on a plane with your baby, and another baby started screaming and throwing feces while your baby is sleeping nicely, would you feel embarrassed by being a parent of a young child? Would you intentionally disassociate yourself from the other parents?
I found that even within Asian Americans who live in San Francisco there are many sub-cultures. The best thing to do is to know who you really are. You may not belong to any of these sub-cultures. You may be one of a kind. You are not defined by your ethnicity or even your sub-culture. You are many things. The white ladies don’t know that. If they pin you in the same crowd as the obnoxious Chinese lady, that’s their lost, not yours.
sorry a, that came off more harsh than i intended it. but what dorothy said i feel strongly about. there's this huge push in the asian american community to find acceptance/recognition in the majority culture. like when i went to that asian american film festival, there was a lot of complaining about the emasculation of the asian man and wanting to improve that. there were complaints about the movie 21--how they used non asian actors even though most of the real people involved were asian.
my problem with that is the whole premise is wrong. why should we even care what majority culture thinks? what is so great about their approval, their understanding?
only weak minds are after the approval of strangers. the rest of us ought to know who we are. esp asian christian folk. men look at appearances but god knows the heart
The Asian lady was in line, they stupid. White ladies expect the world, they complain too much. I agree with Jieun they should have just let it go, plus where the heck do they need to go anyways. You were already in Loehmans. I mean where did they desperately have to go, why are people in so much in a hurry these days? They aren't going anywhere.
Post a Comment
<< Home