IBARW: Disownership

[yeloson]

So. Factoid: I'm 3rd generation Toisanese, don't speak the language, grew up completely Americanized.

It wasn't until middle school that I began to really wrestle with what that meant in terms of identity. I realized that there was this group of communities, collectively called "Chinese" of which I wasn't a part, culturally. Effectively, my understanding of my own people was a) my granma's cooking and b) kung fu movies. Which didn't put me -that- much further than the usual asian fetish whiteboy.

In my seeking, I found myself skipping from one mainstream source to the next. Bullshit books about faux taoism, kung fu, history, etc. In the end, again, not different than your bullshit Quetin Taratino.

So why not go to the source? I remember as a kid, asking my dad why we didn't go to the asian supermarket, and he said, "What? Do I LOOK like I fucking belong there?" At the time, I thought it was just my dad being an asshole like usual. Later I thought it was shame about being Chinese. Now? I get that part of it is just how if you're outside enough, then you're just outside with no way in.

See, the irony is, for all the bullshit new agey crap white folks have about being Chinese? They still get an in to the culture if they ask. The expectations are different if you happen to be of Chinese descent. You're -expected- to know the language, you're -expected- to know the customs, you're -expected- to put up with a lot more shit that they don't give the white people. White people imagine they have to "pay dues", but they don't have to play dues like you do if you ARE chinese.

Simple things. "How do you pray to the dead?", "What's the money for? When do you burn it? How much?", "Who can give red envelopes? At what events? How much are you supposed to give?", "Is he pissed at me? What did I do wrong?"

Funny enough, it was that I was expected to know this from both white folks and chinese folks, so I made it a big thing to trying to find it out.

Now? Like my dad, I'm not sure I give a fuck. Is it growth of self esteem, letting go of fetishizing your own culture (any wonder I identify emotionally with Kemetic African Revisionists?), or just deciding that trading one culture of hierarchies for another isn't worth it? I don't know.

All I know is that as frustrating as it is when some random white person comes up and starts telling me about chinese culture, history, etc. and knowing that 99% of the time they're talking out of their ass and full of shit, it's more frustrating knowing that 1% who actually looked have it right, and they got it without going through a quarter of the shit I would have to go through for the same thing.

Comments

[buria-q.livejournal.com]

"And don't feel badly about having to learn about your culture while being outside of the culture. For the majority of us it is that way. For different reasons: some of our families purposefully distanced themselves from their culture, some of us due to colonization and/or enslavement or war, were never given information ..."

Yes, exactly.