Getting in touch with your roots

[kimpossible]

bluecollarjap inspired this topic idea. In general, if anyone would like to share stories, tips or ideas on how they maintained, or got in touch with their Asian roots, feel free to share. Yeah, and I'm sorry this sounds so touchy feely, I have a fever and my brain isn't at 100% right now.

BCJ> have you thought about applying to the JET program? If you have a degree already, this is the route I would take. You get paid in U.S. dollars, they set you up very nicely and you get to maintain a certain amount of freedom as an adult. A couple of my friends have done this. One was yonsei, didn't speak a bit of Japanese and did the program for about... a year and a half I think. His Japanese is pretty good now.

I did some overseas study in college and stayed with some of my relatives outside of Tokyo for a while. In retrospect, it wasn't the best way to go. My lame excuse is that I had a relationship and had to turn down some better opportunities in Japan.

[optiontoo]

My mom used to spend a lot of time (with me) in Asian-type places like Chinatown and Pho 57 and such. Now I'm talking the old LA Chinatown before the white people discovered it. Dim sum at the now burned-down Fairview Gardens back in the 80's.

When not in the Asian places I reverted to white mode. I didn't truly discover my Asianity until college, Cal Poly Pomona. Lots of Asians in my dorm there, and I kinda naturally gravitated toward them. We did have a lot of white friends too though, so I didn't consider our group to be a clique as much as a get-along gang.

After Cal Poly I went to MIT which was predominatly caucasian. (My department at least.) I was only there for a year so I can't say this is a good sampling of the campus overall because I didn't get out much then. When I moved back to Cali, one event infected me with the yellow fever but hard: A trip to Yaohan.

Don't laugh. I think repressing my nutsack for an entire year and having no contact with women made me "impression" myself on Asian females at Yaohan. You know, like when a baby chick emerges from her egg and the first thing she sees is now "mama."

So with the yellow fever in full swing, my first job as a network engineer, I was sent to Singapore for a year to do Y2K rollouts for a large publishing company. A white-lookin dude, with yellow feva, in Singapore, with all the hot skinny fobby girlies, is a hell of a combination indeed.

When I got back to LA I pretty much immersed myself in Asian culture. I'd go so far as to say I practically detached myself from anything non-Asian. Fortunately I forced myself to open up to other things too.

[SunWuKong]

i like singaporean girls :D

and i think i must be the only person i know who actually think that girls are cute when they speak singlish.

[optiontoo]

Originally posted by SunWuKung@Oct 17 2002, 07:47 PM
and i think i must be the only person i know who actually think that girls are cute when they speak singlish.
Naw dude, Singlish is bad-fuckin-ass.

"Why you go so fast! You want to kill me issit?"

Just not enough people have experienced it.

[thaite]

Well, I make a trip to Thailand about every other year. See my grandma, hang out with family, visit various spots.

In the US, there are no Thai towns that I am aware of, so sticking to my Asian roots means Thai restaurants, books and the Buddhist Temple.

There aren't many Asian people in my state, but when in Calif, I'll visit the various Chinatowns and stuff, but really, it's only a substitute. I'm pretty defensive that even though Asian cultures have similarities, they aren't the same. I'm won't adopt a Chinese identity, just because I can't find a Thai identity.

And I went for dim sum with some Chinese friends. I asked for some rice, and they were teasing me, "Silly buoywonder, Chinese people don't have rice with dim sum!" Well excuuuusz me, Thai people have rice with everything.

Not much to say about my Dutch/German roots, don't really have much connection with that except for Oktoberfest and food -- most of which I don't like.



<!--EDIT|buoywonder|Oct 17 2002, 02:03 PM-->

[SunWuKong]

Originally posted by optiontoo@Oct 17 2002, 03:08 PM
Originally posted by SunWuKung@Oct 17 2002, 07:47 PM
and i think i must be the only person i know who actually think that girls are cute when they speak singlish.
Naw dude, Singlish is bad-fuckin-ass.

"Why you go so fast! You want to kill me issit?"

Just not enough people have experienced it.
yeah hahha i think i have a fetish for s'pore girls, especially if they speak thick singlish. and the best thing is you can speak chinglish with them, but they're not as white-washed as the average ABC.



<!--EDIT|SunWuKung|Oct 17 2002, 03:57 PM-->

[bluecollarjap]

just found out that my school participates in that jet program. i'll have to check it out. but looks to be some sort of study abroad thing for undergrads. i'm a bit locked in at the moment in grad studies. also aside from some european features i look japanese. will i get some grief going over there and not knowing things, like japanese etiquette. i would think japanese people would be more forgiving to obvious foreigners. or am i just a wuss

[kimpossible]

Originally posted by bluecollarjap@Oct 17 2002, 01:13 PM
just found out that my school participates in that jet program. i'll have to check it out. but looks to be some sort of study abroad thing for undergrads. i'm a bit locked in at the moment in grad studies. also aside from some european features i look japanese. will i get some grief going over there and not knowing things, like japanese etiquette. i would think japanese people would be more forgiving to obvious foreigners. or am i just a wuss
JET, the English teaching program, is only avaible to people with a degree I thought. Anyhow, yeah, they do prefer to blue/blonde for teachers because the think somehow the English instruction they get from a uber-white looking foreigner will be better.

But, like I said. My friend's yonsei (4th generation Japanese American) and he just did about a year and a half. Don't worry, your clothes, way you walk, body language, everything about you will indicate that you're a foreigner. No one was a bigger twinkie/banana than the yonsei guy. Me too for that matter. I had never been outside of the United States before I went to Japan.

You might be popular with the ladies too. I'll PM you with a link in a bit.

[ChinaLama]

the only way i maintain my chinese birth roots at ALL are that I kept my pinyin Chinese name (despite pressure from my dad to Anglicize it so it'd be easier for other ppl to say, but honestly, if someone can't say MY easy-to-pronounce name, then that person isn't worth my acquaintance) and I sign my name in English followed by Chinese.

[AliBabaIncorporated]

Originally posted by Hello_Hapa@Oct 17 2002, 10:23 PM
You might be popular with the ladies too. I'll PM you with a link in a bit.
hehe ... JET romances. 3 days of orientation hookups and people holding hands at breakfast followed by being sent off to rural villages on opposite ends of the country.

how did I maintain touch with my Asian roots? HKers spending all high school yelling at me very slowly in Cantonese, and forcing me to order for them when we went to restaurants even though no one could understand me, making me watch TVB series with the sound turned off and listening to me read aloud off the subtitles, making me translate their essays from Chinese, etc. actually it was kinda humiliating, now that I look back on it. but if it wasn't for that, by today I'd be illiterate, speaking only badly-accented Hakka and no Cantonese, and, since I was already pretty alienated from many ABCs in my high school, I'd probably be hanging out only with white people and be completely whitewashed.

[BeTheReds]

Originally posted by Hello_Hapa@Oct 17 2002, 06:30 PM

BCJ> have you thought about applying to the JET program? If you have a degree already, this is the route I would take. You get paid in U.S. dollars, they set you up very nicely and you get to maintain a certain amount of freedom as an adult. A couple of my friends have done this. One was yonsei, didn't speak a bit of Japanese and did the program for about... a year and a half I think. His Japanese is pretty good now.


Im doing that right now.

I get yen, not dollars.
My house was not set up at all.

I get freedom tho.

[kimpossible]

Originally posted by Bethereds@Oct 22 2002, 07:02 PM
Originally posted by Hello_Hapa@Oct 17 2002, 06:30 PM

BCJ> have you thought about applying to the JET program? If you have a degree already, this is the route I would take. You get paid in U.S. dollars, they set you up very nicely and you get to maintain a certain amount of freedom as an adult. A couple of my friends have done this. One was yonsei, didn't speak a bit of Japanese and did the program for about... a year and a half I think. His Japanese is pretty good now.


Im doing that right now.

I get yen, not dollars.
My house was not set up at all.

I get freedom tho.
Then BCJ has a go-to man. You two should talk.