yiduiqie

The Asian Women Blog Carnival presents: Who I am When I'm (not) With You

One of the big things for me in presenting as an Asian woman is that when I think of my identity, and of my performativity, I don't think 'Asian,' I think 'Chinese' and I think 'Malaysian' and I think 'mixed-race' and I think 'Caucasian.' So when I was compiling these amazing posts by these great Asian women, I thought about indicating their ethnicities - just about every one of them mentions their ethnicity in their posts (myself included). But part of performativity is choosing how we represent our identities, and our ethnicities. This edition of the carnival is, after all, about how we choose to present as Asian women. So instead of describing the posts, for the most part, I've simply excerpted from them.

We are who we are, but we're not always how you see us.

vi draws performativity



Annieeats reminds us that every action is different depending on what you're thinking and where you're thinking; and on duality: Don't even get me started on my sub-selves:

To view bowing as an act of humiliating subjugation is a western idea. In the east, it's almost as informal as a handshake, but tied to the underlying cultural Buddhism that completely infuses Asian countries. Bowing is humility, respect, deference, honor, and a lessening of self that ultimately leads to something greater.

If my brother can bow to me, the older sister, why can't I bow to a statue of a Buddha, a teacher? Teachers are revered in Asia. In Japan when children get in trouble, the authorities call the teacher before the parents. In Korea teachers get more respect than doctors, and people compete for the opportunity to major in education. When people become old and respected, their titles change from Mr. or Mrs. to Teacher.

My Asian self can bow to the Buddha. My American self bitches about it. This is a problem that I don't know how to fix.

Elaran blogs Who I Am When I'm (not) With You (mirrored at dreamwidth), concious and unconscious.

I really like this topic in that I'm interested in reading responses and yeah, everyone's experiences will be different but I suspect there will be a fair bit of head-nodding in agreement on my part.

Well I haven't read anything people have posted yet but I have this inkling. Probably because interacting with other people who are Asian, about family or exchanging moments of explaining things to those outside your culture have often resulted in a lot of oh yeah, I totally get what you mean and yep, been there, done that too.

dimension view talks about hijab and self actualisation:

I am now without a hijab when I go to classes or wander around the city. My parents, relatives and friends from my former religious high school do not know this. One day, they will. Not now.

From Jolantru, who writes Walking the Wild.

I am not just Chinese, not just Singaporean. I am also a walker between worlds. My world is not merely made up of Chinese traditions and customs, of chopsticks and tonic soups. My world is not exotic. It is real, it is true, it makes up who and what I am. Dig deeper, and you realize I have stories to tell.

I am walking the wild. Are you listening?

The Rigorous M writes The Gift of Giving, on the performativity of giving and family.

All of my time spend with my Korean side of the family involves a variation on the following exchange: giving of gifts; waffling over whether or not the gifts can be accepted (NB, when the gifts include money, the waffling sometimes takes the form of a pseudo-argument); acceptance. One of my earliest memories from spending time with my aunt in Los Angeles is pulling out of her driveway with a check flapping underneath the windshield wipers. (We stopped a block later and took it into the car.)

The editor should never include herself! How gauche! I know, I know, and yet: and it looks like:

So here's the thing: I'm totally more Chinese when you're around.

dmp writes At Home We Called it Têt:

Together with the teacher, we would read the book out-loud about all the Chinese New Year traditions. Reading this book, I wished I could celebrate Chinese New Year the way all the little village kids did in the book: with exploding firecrackers in the streets, stringing paper lanterns outside doorways, practicing calligraphy I didn't understand and watching dragons dancing in the streets. Instead of in a classroom with that kid who bullied me at recess flicking all of the veggies in his lo mien onto the floor, or my classmate next to me asking if I could write those same characters in the book, and whether I could write her name out in Chinese too. The best part were the fortune cookies, because that was the only time I could have more than the one I'd usually get at take-out restaurants.

And then I'd go to my grandparents house and celebrate Têt, the real New Year's.

handyhunter writes here (and mirrored here) on code switching and performativity:

There was a time when I hadn't told anyone I was Chinese online. It wasn't so much that I wanted people to think I was white as I didn't think race should matter (of course, if it didn't, why would it trouble me to be not-white?) and the internet provided some anonymity in that regard. People reacted to what I wrote first, rather than what or who I am, and there was something appealing about that. I'm a lot more candid and opinionated online than in offline interactions. I don't talk about race or racism offline because I don't feel comfortable doing so when I'm the only POC around and I express myself better in writing and there are some friendships that I don't want to test for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture.

allangtegek writes I Am a Title; Read Me:

I also never know what to say, because for nearly every one of my identities, sometimes/often/mostly I feel like I’m not [identity-in-question] enough. I’m mixed-race. I’m half-white. I’m pretty much totally whitewashed/naturalized/whatever. I look mostly “white” and a bit “Asian” around the eyes (maybe, sort of), but that’s not nearly all I am. Oddly enough, I look like a multiracial person. And so does my brother, who looks nothing like me, but who’s no less my brother for it. This genetics thing isn’t A+B=C—not that we’re just A and B, but let’s not go into that right now. I do have a plane to catch, y’know. And it’s a long story.

bossymarmalade writes fire in mi wire:

I say what I want about brown people without feeling like I'm selling out my own, and I hold them to a higher standard because you know we have to be twice as good to be thought of as half as good. I snarl at people who "ruin it for the rest of us". I say dumb, mean-spirited things about other Indian people that I would never say in front of non-desis. I fail Hindi class and feel secretly relieved because I'm more comfortable speaking French and Spanish with a broad English accent rather than Hindi with the same.

wistfuljane writes on who I am when I'm not with you

I'm the girl who grew up watching wuxia. Who learned tứ sắc on her mother's lap. Who walked the walls of her temple, a trail of child wishfulness behind her.

I'm the girl who traveled to U.S. on a plane at eight. Who was quiet because she didn't know your language. Who wished she could join you in your childhood games of Seven Up and Candyland and Snakes and Ladders.

I'm the girl who didn't understand your pop culture reference. Who for you to understand hers must find words like Hong Kong TV miniseries drama and Vietnamese musical variety shows and Chinese astrology. Who must used titles such as Goddess of Heaven or Goddess of Mercy for you to recognize her deities.

I'm the girl who wears Phật Quan Âm around her neck. Who ăn chay in fasting. Who still can't name the tenets of Buddhism if you ask her.

I'm the girl who speaks in half-Vietnamese, half-English. Who thinks and writes in English. Who lacks the cultural fluency of her native country.

glass icarus writes who am I when I'm (not) with you?

once: It was my mother taught me to make dumplings, mixing together ground pork and shrimp and jiǔ cài and chopped cabbage, drizzling in soy sauce until it was just this side of brown. Dipping our fingers in the dish of water to wet the edges of the skin, we used to sit around the table, my mother and sister and I, racing each other to see who could wrap the most, the prettiest, the quickest; which of us would scrape the last of the filling out of the bowl. Sometimes we'd boil them and sometimes we'd pan-fry them, but I always loved the fried ones best, watching the wrapper turn crispy golden-brown at the edges.

(People used to complain of the smell sometimes when I brought them to school for lunch, but after a while I figured they were just jealous.)

ciderpress writes (identities erased) we'll give ourselves new names

one.

In my mind and in my own experience, my identity is more like a consensus reached from endless negotiations between who I am inside and who other individuals, society and the world I interact with expect me to be. I also know that that the line between internal identity and external identity is blurred, and that I can often no longer tell if my selfhood, my personality, my choices and my actions are purely of my own internal desire or the results of internalisation of external expectations of a certain kind of identity.

troisroyaumes writes names and naming:

Two questions that people have asked me about my name:

1. "What's your Korean name?" when they don't realize that in fact, I don't have separate English and Korean names.

2. "How do you pronounce your name, /hænɑ/ or /hɔnɑ/ (IPA)?" when they don't make that assumption.

Happy Lunar New Year, if you celebrate it! And thank you to all these awesome women for submitting. There's as yet no-one hosting the next carnival, so check out the AWC website and maybe think about it! [and I want someone to host a carnival about intersections :o) ]