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Dear Mabdulra,
Before I begin, thank you for showing me this site. Thank you also for Kangaroo, the only fanfic I currently follow regularly. Since I have this sneaking suspicion that you are Asian, I feel that you would enjoy this. I'll start posting actual fanfics later; but for now, enjoy!
Sincerely,
Chongryong
So I was in my AP English class and my teacher, Mr. Z, asked us to find a photo of ourselves and complete a write up with the prompt of “What were you thinking?” I dislike photographs and didn’t have a recent one of myself so I brought in one of me walking along a horizontal tree trunk when I was five, back when I lived in South Korea. There’s this typical white, SoCal, blonde girl next to me who asked,” Jong, you do kung-fu?”
“No… I’m just trying not to bust my head open.”
The point of this little anecdote is that Asians have the most stereotypes of all other races. Some are good, some bad, some truthful and some not, and some just plain insulting, regardless of the validity of the statement.
I am a Korean, not Korean-American, as I have no intention of becoming a citizen. I have had the vast majority of these stereotypes directed at me, to the pain and misery of many of those involved. I am not a “Commie,” though communism is a valid political and economic ideal; nor am I from the North. North Korea is not best Korea. So with that said, let’s talk about the positive stereotypes and move from there to the ones that can potentially get you hurt. Seriously.
The one I get most is, “Jong, you’re Korean. Come and help me with this math problem.” NO. Asians are not all good at math, science, and computer tech. Granted, I took calculus a year early, but I also got a C in AP statistics. Pick any, ANY, Asian in calc right now and give them your algebra homework. I guarantee you he/she will be slower than you are. Higher math doesn’t mean better math. And the same goes for science. For all the times you hear about some Asian dude building his own computer, he hasn’t told you about the crapload of burnt scrap metal he has in his closet.
Oh, and let’s get to the most common, non-academic stereotype: all Asians know kung-fu. Some of my white friends tell me they won’t pick fights with Asians. Yea, it’s scarier to fight an Asian than some white boxer. That, I agree with. With a boxer, you know what to expect. With an old Chinese dude trying to convince himself he’s a tiger, you don’t. Point is, insanity does not make up for skill. Not every Asian knows what he’s doing in a fight. And related to that, no we don’t all know fifty pressure points that can kill you. I know around thirty very painful points, five of which I know for sure can kill you.
Some other positives, that aren’t always true, are that we own at table tennis, tennis, and badminton; play the piano, violin, and flute; are ambitious; studious; and great at video games. Oh, and apparently Koreans are great at archery. I mean, we do dominate the Olympics. Maybe it’s just that I’m legally blind, but I can’t play an instrument, suck at sports, and fail miserably at almost every video game. And Christ help you if you ever see me with a bow and arrow. Take Counter Strike, I can’t see the crosshairs, never mind shoot straight. Or Mario Kart, “Where’s the map again?” The only game I’m good at, and I know this somewhat validates the stereotypes on Koreans, is Starcraft. I will own you.
And please, no matter what you do, stop assuming every Asian has a mental drawer of wise proverbs to share when you feel like crap. Maybe you just suck at basketball, ok? Fortune cookies were first made in San Francisco and Confucius died a loooong time ago. If you must insist on proverbs, here’s a good one for you, one that I only heard when I came to America. “If you assume, you make an… You know how this one ends.
Let’s stop with glorifying Asians for a bit and take a look at basic appearance. We are yellow, short, have little body hair, have a Confucius ‘stache, black hair, small eyes, and wear colorful and silky clothes. And despite our relative hairlessness, an Asian man with a long, white beard is the personification of wisdom. Apparently, you westerners think he’s a god too. Speaking of clothes, we made them ourselves, back where we’re from. We also have poor eyesight from too much Starcraft. And a small penis. Is that true? You grab a sample size and you tell me. As for myself, I don’t swing that way. Ahem, moving on.
Don’t judge a book by its cover, especially if that book is about 4’11”, yellow, and has a hairdo half his height. Or you might find yourself breaking rocks at a work camp in an undisclosed location in a nation smaller than the state of California. But seriously though, personality wise, we SUCK. We are not all quiet, shy, and reserved. Kim Jongil comes to mind. We are extremely proud, and hate to admit we’re wrong. About ANYTHING. Great Leap Forward anyone? Asian parents are, sad to say, as strict as the rumors indicate. “If you not doctor or lawyer, you not a Chung!” And whoever tells you that Asian women are submissive, go slap them a good one. Asian mothers especially are awful. They are excellent with money, so excellent in fact, that they find a way to save fifteen cents off a bag of Doritos at Target. You think you Americans got bad ‘cause your mom won’t get you a car? South Korea has the highest teen suicide rate in the world. Chew on that for a bit.
Oh, and I don’t really have any grounds for saying this, but I feel like Koreans are the most racist people in the world. Which Korean? Both! We have two nations because we can’t even stand ourselves. The North locks itself in a bubble and builds nukes to destroy everyone else, including the South. And the South insists on building the most secure military barrier on the planet, ironically called the Demilitarized Zone.
Now let’s talk about some neutral stereotypes. Asians all like pho, sushi, ramen, eggrolls, dumplings, and kimchi. We also keep three different tea types in our homes. At least. Our languages all sound like your wind chimes; we all have a karaoke machine, and likes K-pop. We can all fold paper cranes, like old swords and other weapons, and take off our shoes when entering a home. Oddly enough, minus the pho, these all apply to me. And we’re all Buddhist or Shinto. Ok, so that part’s not true. We all watch Korean drama, like manga, and can recite at least the first 151 Pokémon.
But you know, many of these stereotypes exist because we bring them on ourselves. We do play a lot of Pokémon and have multiple crushes on K-pop singers. Legends hold that paper cranes really are lucky so kindergarteners are taught to fold them, or at least that’s where I learned. And a lot of us do like the myriad of foods listed above. Even with that, these next few stereotypes are just rude, even if some of them are true.
For one, Asians can’t drive. So true. My dad drives too fast, my mom doesn’t know proper traffic laws, and my friend drives with two people in his trunk. But actually. Asians eat the weirdest stuff. Again, true. In our defense though, Asia covers such a large number of countries and cultures that this is natural. Ok, so maybe dog isn’t a normal menu, but bugs and other invertebrates are pretty common. Asian parents insist that we must date our own specific countrymen, or at the very least, another Asian. And you know what? I don’t know even one full Asian who doesn’t have at least one parent in the home drink or smoke, usually the father. If you’re Viet, your family owns a laundromat or a nail salon, or both. This one is kind of funny. My first day in seventh grade after transferring to Manhattan Beach, I had two people ask me if I was a “gangsta” in the Chinese mob because of my sunglasses. Basically, we all know someone in the Yakuza or the Triad.
On a more serious note, Asians are slave drivers. Sad to say, but the nations of the Orient provide the most lucrative markets in modern slavery, that is to say, prostitution. Over half of North Korean women fleeing their country get relocated to brothels and or into wife-for-sale programs. Japan is the world’s leading maker of child and teen prostitution videos. Not every stereotype regarding Asians is positive.
Most of the stereotypes that I’ve listed, some common knowledge and some not, are true to a general degree. If not, they were inspired by what seemed at the time to be true. For example, there are professional Starcraft players in Korea that do nothing but play the game for eight to ten hours a day. The first Starcraft hall of famer is an international celebrity with the nickname “Emperor of Terran.” But as often as not, these stereotypes are the products of shallow Western assumptions about the “chinks” as a whole. A perfect example is martial arts. True, messing with an eighth dan tae-kwon-do master can get you killed, but us normal Asians trying to act like a crane only looks stupid and crazy. But whether funny or serious, true or false, positive or negative, these stereotypes define us. We are Asians and if you believe everything people tell you, we’re great at sports, school, arts, and everything in between, with just a few ethical kinks.