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itsablog
My Generation of Asian-Americans Sucks. last modified: Monday, June 06, 2005 (1:17:13 AM) (Like my mini-essay on anime going into the toilet, this will likely become an actual polished piece someday.)
I don't know when this happened or who started it. Maybe it was the Joy Luck Club. Maybe we started noticing the token Asian girl included along with the other minorities in the Gap catalogs. All I know is that my generation of Asian-Americans are totally lame. There is no science yet behind this opinion, only anecdote and personal experience. The personal experience boils down into one simple observation. When I go out with my friends, the running gag is that we’re basically the only Asians at anything we try to do around town. Austin is a predominantly white and Hispanic town, but there is a sizable Asian population on the college campus. Austin City Limits? We’re the only ones at the taping with 200+ people. Asian-American Film Festival? We’re among the only Asians, especially from our age group, in the theater. Drinking – at a place that serves something other than Bud Light and Lone Star. Yup, just us. It was funny for the first few years. Now I’m just mad. Where are all the Asians? Somwehere along the line, Asian-Americans held a secret meeting where they decided to embrace that most annoying aspects of the American Dream. The documentary for this would be horrifying. My entire generation is front-loaded with shallow, inane, and uninteresting individuals. Cheers, you became a doctor. Cheers, you’re a consultant with some corporate ship of fools. So may I ask, what do you do in your spare time? You... watch TV? Anything else? You.... surf the Internet? When was the last time you created something interesting? Tell me, all this time paying for more education and more status and more furniture, did you ever stop and think about what you really wanted to do in life? Some of us are pretty cool. You and I may never meet them due to the sheer amount of talentless, trained monkies standing in the way. Take music for example. Middle-class Asian-American children are probably saddled with music lessons in anything from one to several instruments at a much higher percentage that the our counterparts from other cultures. But how many of those go on to careers in music that don’t involve Chopin, Bach, or other people who have been dead for a century or more? Yeah, I’m sure you can name a few. So can I. If you even bothered to bring that up as a counterargument, I’m probably talking about you, so sit down. It’s a weird cross between the Asian sterotypes of yesteryear and the Asian reality of today. We’re supposed to be the good minority. We don’t rock the boat. To be a success, ironically, we’re supposed to not worry about what we want and be the doctor that our parents wanted us to be. Why? So we can help people? No, so they can brag to their other Asian friends. Embracing the arts is generally a failure. Doing what you want to do is generally a failure. Making lots of money is generally a success. Most of the time, you’re even encouraged to do it at the expense of your peers if necessary. I challenge any Asian-American between the age of 18 and 34 reading this: What inspires you? Do you even know? Have you even bothered to spend a few years figuring it out? Who did you really want to be?
I am not sure about the Asian Americans but I know here in Japan the Americans are hiding most of the times. In my hometown we had a strong Hispanic influence and they were the majority of what I saw. A close friend of mine was a minority because she was Laosian and only her family were from there. However living in a military town there were lots of people of Asian heritage.
It seems like every Asain American family owns a resturant where I live, kinda sad, cause you know not every family has a good cook, so where do they get off thinking that their resturant will be good. Also the part about music I really don''t agree with, chopin, bach, mozart they all teach the basics of paino and music and personally I fell like art the epitome of good music and technique. If you would like to learn how to play the violin you are not going to study some J Pop artist, no you will study a master who will teach you what trills, crescendos, dynamics, scales, runs, arpegios, not what some song writter that has little musical background will teach you. I think learning a lot of instruments is good for you, it adds a dimension to music. I for one play horn and paino and want to start up on violin, whenever I listen to classical music I find it fun to pick out the part and enjoy what the composer has done with it. Now with Jpop and other lame types of music that don''t even require real instruments the music is shallow with nothing but some repetitive lines and come computer composed beat. Since when do we worship the sounds off DDR...
Don''t know that I can really add anything of great value to this, since I''m not Asian, know very few Asians, live in the stix and have a rather warped view on society in general, but. . . I think the point might have been missed here. I too am kind of curious where all these people that have somehow managed to get a "good" stereotype of being a little brighter than the rest of us. . . where are they in the creative world? In entertainment, in writing, etc. etc.? Nevermind the doctors and mathmeticians. . . I think the point was, especially for this age group, REBEL A LITTLE! Just a little. ANYHOOOOOOOOOO. . .
Well not being an Asian-american I can only comment from what I know from my many friends of Asian decent. I have found that most seem to stay only in their little sub groups that do not intermingle and in some cases show open hostility. Those who are Japanese don''t like the Chinese and both hate the Koreans. My friends do seem not to be interested in group activities outside of their small circle of friends & family. They don''t show at company picnics or parties or if the do stay at one table. I have been lucky to be able to bridge some of the gaps by learning about their different cultures and of course Anime makes a good starting point. |
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