A letter.

Dear ****,

My apologies for the delay in getting back to you; I rarely check Facebook nowadays and will probably rarely be on afterwards, at the very least until I finish my research. Therefore, it will be rather long before I reply to your future messages.

To be frank, ****, I’m rather disappointed with your choice of boyfriend and feel uncomfortable talking to you or visiting you with the knowledge that you’ve chosen him as your sexual partner. I can’t think of any way to say this to you kindly or even politely, so I’m going to have to be frank. The very nature of your relationship is, to me, very much an ideological kick in the balls.

Whatever happened to that class you took on African Studies and race? What memories are there left of our jokes about European colonialism, our agreed-upon knowledge of the pervasive hypersexualization of Asian women in Canada, white Canadians’ collective desire to consume, commodify, trivialize, sensationalize, and ridicule the experiences and lives of Asian Canadians? Have you now gone “to the white side,” ie: adopted the liberally humanistic approach that “we are all really nice on the inside,” and “we can all get along if we just accommodate”? So – does this Mr. **** of yours speak Korean? Is he a Buddhist? Is he vying for citizenship in Korea, so he can actually be more Korean and help out the communities there, to undo the damage U.S. forces have done there over the past fifty years and to speak out against white-focused capitalism, which is attempting to trivialize and wipe out Korean history and agency, to a much more comprehensive, if more subtle degree, than the Japanese ever did? How about his girl friends? Are they all Asian women like you? Does he have trouble with white women because they are too “liberal” and outspoken but dating someone like you makes him feel like a “real” man, and you are a “real” woman for being submissive and obedient but enduring, just how the pre-civil rights West liked? Has he introduced any white girls to your male friends? Remember that guy, ****, who was having trouble dating? How’s he doing, lately? Has Mr. **** recognized the overall colonial relationship between whites and Asians, and endeavored to nurture relationships between four white women with Asian men (because that is the sociological statistic for the gendered ratios of outmarriage)?

Your invitation to your last party had a healthy score of white men on the guest list, and advertised the event by saying, “Look guys – KOREAN FOOD!” So now you are inviting white men into your home and cooking for them, just like the domesticated, exoticized, pseudo-white housewife should do? Or have all these men now “become” Korean because they eat kimchi and jabchae?

I appreciated our friendship because you were willing to reach out to me, and share stories and memories of your own identity. You aimed to help out your (Korean) community, you cared for your (Korean) family, and you had dreams of improving your relations with your long-time (Korean) friends and visiting the country of your parents’ origin and contributing to its knowledge and prosperity. I remember the stories you shared about the other girls in school who made fun of you when you were young. But you endured, because that was a part of your experience and you didn’t give up on who you were. Did anyone ever say Korean people were perfect? Did anyone ever say going to Korea would be paradise? I admired you for holding on to what was important to you. That was before you decided to turn all of that into a commodity for the approval and attention of white men. Now, it seems, being Korean means nothing more to you than eating food from Korean restaurants and volunteering at film festivals, which in the space of Toronto, run the dangerous line between preserving a minority culture’s tradition and voice, and commodifying their identities for the sake of Western consumerism.

What are your thoughts on the American presence during the Korean War? What do you think of the large amount of Asian mail-order brides still being shipped to the West for white men? What do you think of the overt hypersexualization and feminization of Asian cultures in Western film (ie: Wayne’s World, Austin Powers 3, The Mummy 3, Young Guns 2, the overall career of Lucy Liu)? How about the exoticization of East Asian ethnic enclaves in Western detective and action films (Blade Runner, The Matrix)? How about the Asian men ridiculed (Sixteen Candles) or consistently poised as the villain (Lethal Weapon 4, The Art of War, both of Nolan’s Batman movies, The Mummy 3 again)? Perhaps you appreciate movies like _The Last Samurai_, where a white man goes into the East, learns about their “ancient” civilization, and finally becomes a better samurai than the Japanese? Do you applaud such movies for their “authentic” and “sincere” representations of the East? Perhaps you follow the role models of Amy Tan, where you learn to love and endure your terrible Asian upbringing, because your parents were flawed like any other human beings, and now you can forgive them for being backward and can introduce their ancient cultures to the white man you’re planning to marry.

What, to you, is a “real” Asian? To me, it is not the food (f**k the food), it is not the movies, it is not the pop music or the fashion trends. It’s history. It’s the stories and the collective memories. But most importantly, it’s the politics. It’s the willingness to speak out one’s voice against those who would oppress you, ignore you, marginalize you or turn you into a commodity. It’s about understanding the complex relations between Asians, within Asian communities, and between Asians and other cultures. It’s about not giving in to Western dominance. It’s about remembering prejudice and stereotypes. And in the context of Toronto, it’s about understanding *why* and *how* Asian bodies are organized in Western countries. Asian people don’t stick together because they’re stuck up (at least, not all of them); they do so because other people, especially the whites, have no real interest in their well-being and customs. If you don’t think that’s the case, then why don’t you ask some of your guy friends like **** about his endeavors outside of Asian communities and see how much of a “success story” his life is turning out to be? I tried speaking to you about this before and you just laughed and said, “aaaahhh! Stop making me use my brain!” Back then, I thought you were joking, but it seems like you really were indifferent…

As I am not one to inscribe a particular history or experience on to a person, I will leave you space to describe whatever it is you want to describe. If there is one thing I have to admit, it is that Koreans and Chinese are diverse people. There are those who still think of the West as a benevolent, civilizing force liberating them from their backward, stale traditions, and there are those (like me) who refuse to play into the hopes and expectations of Western masses and will continue to critique, dethrone, and relativize the ordinance of whiteness as long as they can. You weren’t the first woman I’ve met to trivialize Asian cultures and people for white men, and you won’t be the last.

Now here is the part where you call *me* a racist, and say, “but he’s *different*!” “We’re not like that!” and “Don’t you understand, we like each other for who we *are*!”

Yes – a white man and an Asian woman, reenacting the white male-centered dream of global capitalism. Please think carefully about what you have to say before replying.

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It’s been a while since I blogged but I wanted to, needed to share this facebook message from an old “friend”, a former Chinese-Canadian TA from a previous class.

I haven’t talked to him for a year. I thought he was just busy writing his thesis- but no, he had all this anger against me stored inside him. 

I wish I was angry but I’m just upset at the moment. Confused. I don’t know what to say, what to think. Just confused. Need to sleep. or cry. I don’t know. I’m going to stop thinking, take a long shower, and get ready for work tomorrow.