Chinese New Year is coming this week!
Okay, so I'm not really that excited about it. My family has never really participated much in the celebration of it outside of finding it an excuse to eat out [at a most-likely-Cantonese restaurant because we can't get enough of any place that happens to serve pan-fried Hong-Kong style seafood noodles].
...for the record, in case you didn't know already, I'm Chinese-Indonesian (and technically mostly/like 98% Chinese). For some reason people keep thinking I'm Japanese because of my last name (actually an elderly Japanese lady even mistook my dad for one when we were in Hawaii; I guess it runs in the family), except that if my last name really were Japanese, there'd be a vowel between the r and the s, as in the bastardized Japanese spelling of my last name that I used that one year I took Japanese: スワルサ (su-wa-ru-sa). I guess it doesn't help that I actually am into a lot of things Japan-related.
That fact often leads me to feeling in a odd sort of state of what-would-you-call-it racial limbo.
So back in the old days (from what I remember being told anyway- I can't 100% vouch for the accuracy of the following) everyone in my family used to get a full Chinese name, except that sometime during the 1950-60's the Indonesian government instated a new policy that forced all Chinese in Indonesia to change their names to an Indonesian one, and hence the state of my current last name that my grandpa decided to adopt; otherwise my last name would've been Li. (One of my uncles was living in Germany at the time so he was able to get away with keeping his name, and hence everyone in our family still calls him by his Chinese name).
This also meant that everyone born after my parent's generation no longer received a Chinese name, and the government also closed down the Chinese schools while they were still in the elementary school years so that no one could effectively speak or read Chinese either. Indonesia basically became very racially antagonistic to Chinese during those years- such as the violent anti-Communist/Chinese genocide of 1965 as discussed in sources like the documentary The Act of Killing that I saw a couple of years ago- whose effects are still felt today (the government today includes people who participated in and have never formally apologized for it- which is what happens when history is dictated by the winners).What this all amounts to is that for as long as I've known, I've always felt sort of... divorced from my Chinese heritage, to the point where my friends today just basically say that I'm not Chinese. Culturally speaking, I guess they have a point.
But if I would believe the actions and events of the past, I wouldn't exactly be considered "Indonesian" either. I've met actual native Indonesian people in Indonesia, and my family and I don't really look much like any of them... although I also learned recently that are also a ton of widely different ethnic groups represented across the entire country- more than 300 of which 95% are considered "native".
If anything, "Chinese Indonesian" is probably the most accurate labeling, considering that they do have a significant subculture within Indonesia that shouldn't be ignored, with their own cuisine and everything that I realized from this last trip comprises most of the home/restaurant food I've been exposed to. That, and just about every Indonesian I've met in the States is actually of Chinese descent as well. (The natives don't seem to come out to the US apparently... although I might venture to say that the Chinese families in Indonesia are more likely wealthy enough to make the trip over here.)
If anything, "Chinese Indonesian" is probably the most accurate labeling, considering that they do have a significant subculture within Indonesia that shouldn't be ignored, with their own cuisine and everything that I realized from this last trip comprises most of the home/restaurant food I've been exposed to. That, and just about every Indonesian I've met in the States is actually of Chinese descent as well. (The natives don't seem to come out to the US apparently... although I might venture to say that the Chinese families in Indonesia are more likely wealthy enough to make the trip over here.)
Either way, this divorce itself leads a lot to my feeling distanced from most of the ethnic communities I've seen or experienced here. There isn't much a Chinese-Indonesian immigrant community near where my parents lived in California*; I grew up going to majority white schools in the heart of Orange County, and hence it was pretty rare for us to ever actually run into other people of like-descent, and most people we met would mistake us for some generic brand of Asian anyway... except probably not Chinese. When one of my friends back then started making racist comments about Chinese people and I brought myself up, he said he considered me Indonesian so I didn't count... which wasn't really saying anything about Indonesians other than the fact that he didn't know anything about them.
In high school I inadvertently found myself around a lot of Vietnamese people (considering we lived right next to Little Saigon- Westminster) and at one point even accidentally walked right into a Vietnamese Student Association meeting during lunch while talking to some friends and wound up sitting there just because, lol. In college this switched to a lot of mostly Chinese friends, from whom I've gotten a better sense of what it's really like to be Chinese-American in America, hearing their stories of growing up and lot more of the issues current among them today**. At the same time, I find it difficult to participate in the same conversations if only for the fact that I wasn't exposed to a lot of the same in-group cultural issues growing up (other than the obvious stereotypical drive to do academically better than most people... and I guess whatever experiences that come about from being lumped with Asian people).
I get chided or made fun of every so often for not knowing basic Chinese things in spite of my descent: not knowing the correct pronunciation of (or rather just straight up not knowing) words and phrases from a language I was never taught or exposed to; not really celebrating Chinese holidays or traditions; eating what essentially is "bastardized" Chinese food; the fact that the only reason I can recognize Chinese characters is because I took Japanese, and rather later in life at that ("you're learning it from the wrong direction man"); all this coming from Chinese-Americans by the way and not even native Chinese- and all this to the point where sometimes I feel like the bastard son whose family ostracizes him for not being born the same way everyone else did. Oh wait, that's how it's always been historically anyway, so that's okay, right?
If I didn't know any better, I would say from all of these experiences that I'm glad I'm not really a member of a conceited culture that seems to pride itself on being "original" and "superior" to everyone else, that prioritizes honor and merit and appearances at the expense of individual choice and emotional well-being and god damn it other words that I can't even formulate properly because I haven't had the upbringing and experiences and cultural exposure and context to even be able to word it correctly and this rambling thought shows how much I've internalized its repulsive sense of racial supremacism. I would just flat out say I'm glad I'm not really Chinese after all-
...because if I were to admit any desire to legitimately be one, I'd be acknowledging my inferiority to all of those assholes who've called me otherwise.
But the reality is, upbringing or not, my ethnic identity is what it is. I'm proud of my cultural heritage; I think the food of my people is delicious; I find my family's history fascinating; and I'm glad my experience is unique relative to most of my friends and yet traceable back to a culture that I can still relate to and appreciate in many other senses I can't fully describe here. (I've also felt more at home culturally among Chinese-Americans than any other community I know- oddly in some respects moreso than Chinese-Indonesian-Americans, but that's another story and more likely the result of spending most of my conscious adult life among them... and the fact that I rarely run into the latter anyway).
If there's anything that pisses me off in life, it's to have one's identity- mine or anyone else's- derided as fundamentally inferior and denied its self-worth and right to be acknowledged like any other. A lot of people in my circles tend to be vocal about these kinds of issues to the extent that even I sometimes have grown tired of hearing about things like "ethnic identity and racial reconciliation" (my small group in college lol), but the fact is that their voices and concerns do matter and do need to be heard, because people in our society struggle with these issues all the time, regardless of whether or not anyone hears them speak up about it. My story may be unique in its inflections, but it's also common in the same way as anyone else who's had their identity denied to their face, whether it be from strangers or their own communities or their own families or even internally within themselves after being told so by all of the former.
You may say I'm just overreacting to a lot of words spoken in jest by my friends, and that I'm not really being inconvenienced much by any of this- because everyone's a little bit racist, right?- but my own personal feelings aside, I think resorting to that kind of a response sets a dangerous precedent when there are actual ongoing issues and discussions stemming from the clash of races and cultures today- whether it be the recent premiere of the series Fresh Off The Boat that pervaded my Facebook feed earlier this month, the surge of protests in the last few years due to incidents between black males and the police, the shootings instigated by radical Islamists in Europe and the backlash against Muslim communities, and so on.
Okay, so I know my personal issues are not on the same level as all of the above, but I believe that they do all stem from something fundamentally broken and yet characteristically human in all of us: that ubiquitous barrier we experience when interacting with a culture or way of life that appears both fundamentally alien and yet still somehow reminiscent of our own. I am of Chinese descent and yet at the same time culturally something else (Chinese-Indonesian-American-what-have-you), and a lot of people in my life don't know how to react to that other than just flat out telling me that I'm not Chinese at all. And to be honest, it hurts sometimes, to be denied a part of your own heritage. But I know better than to go on listening to them and agonizing over it.
tl;dr: Racism sucks. But races themselves are awesome. Be glad for who you are and what you've inherited, don't let anyone else's words make you think any less of yourself for it, and don't think any less of other people for theirs either.
While not technically on the same subject, I'll end with a quote from this article that I was reminded of while writing this:
We are in a dangerous place when people can be told, to their faces, that they are not real—that their identities make no sense, and that they are impossible Americans.
*aside: don't quote me on this, but I think the Indo communities are generally where the food is- like West Covina, and south-South Bay. I say this because almost every Indo restaurant I've been to in California carries copies of the same magazine that lists all the Indonesian restaurants in the state, and those are where the restaurants are. That it's even possible to list off all those restaurants in a single periodical shows how relatively small the communities are; it also happens to be easier to find Malay restaurants here than Indo ones.***
** I'd recommend my friend Nate's blog - he touches on a lot of these topics really well, from a Christian perspective.
*** Speaking of which, I know I've told people in the past that reading a Malaysian restaurant's menu for me is like reading a bastardized misspelled edition of an Indonesian one (because they use a lot of the same words spelled different - like one of my favorite foods, mie goreng vs mee goreng), but I take that back here. I mean, I like Malaysian food too... just not as much as Indonesian food for the obvious reason being that I was raised on the latter. But it's still great cuisine, and I honestly don't care how they spell their food anyway.
In high school I inadvertently found myself around a lot of Vietnamese people (considering we lived right next to Little Saigon- Westminster) and at one point even accidentally walked right into a Vietnamese Student Association meeting during lunch while talking to some friends and wound up sitting there just because, lol. In college this switched to a lot of mostly Chinese friends, from whom I've gotten a better sense of what it's really like to be Chinese-American in America, hearing their stories of growing up and lot more of the issues current among them today**. At the same time, I find it difficult to participate in the same conversations if only for the fact that I wasn't exposed to a lot of the same in-group cultural issues growing up (other than the obvious stereotypical drive to do academically better than most people... and I guess whatever experiences that come about from being lumped with Asian people).
I get chided or made fun of every so often for not knowing basic Chinese things in spite of my descent: not knowing the correct pronunciation of (or rather just straight up not knowing) words and phrases from a language I was never taught or exposed to; not really celebrating Chinese holidays or traditions; eating what essentially is "bastardized" Chinese food; the fact that the only reason I can recognize Chinese characters is because I took Japanese, and rather later in life at that ("you're learning it from the wrong direction man"); all this coming from Chinese-Americans by the way and not even native Chinese- and all this to the point where sometimes I feel like the bastard son whose family ostracizes him for not being born the same way everyone else did. Oh wait, that's how it's always been historically anyway, so that's okay, right?
If I didn't know any better, I would say from all of these experiences that I'm glad I'm not really a member of a conceited culture that seems to pride itself on being "original" and "superior" to everyone else, that prioritizes honor and merit and appearances at the expense of individual choice and emotional well-being and god damn it other words that I can't even formulate properly because I haven't had the upbringing and experiences and cultural exposure and context to even be able to word it correctly and this rambling thought shows how much I've internalized its repulsive sense of racial supremacism. I would just flat out say I'm glad I'm not really Chinese after all-
...because if I were to admit any desire to legitimately be one, I'd be acknowledging my inferiority to all of those assholes who've called me otherwise.
But the reality is, upbringing or not, my ethnic identity is what it is. I'm proud of my cultural heritage; I think the food of my people is delicious; I find my family's history fascinating; and I'm glad my experience is unique relative to most of my friends and yet traceable back to a culture that I can still relate to and appreciate in many other senses I can't fully describe here. (I've also felt more at home culturally among Chinese-Americans than any other community I know- oddly in some respects moreso than Chinese-Indonesian-Americans, but that's another story and more likely the result of spending most of my conscious adult life among them... and the fact that I rarely run into the latter anyway).
If there's anything that pisses me off in life, it's to have one's identity- mine or anyone else's- derided as fundamentally inferior and denied its self-worth and right to be acknowledged like any other. A lot of people in my circles tend to be vocal about these kinds of issues to the extent that even I sometimes have grown tired of hearing about things like "ethnic identity and racial reconciliation" (my small group in college lol), but the fact is that their voices and concerns do matter and do need to be heard, because people in our society struggle with these issues all the time, regardless of whether or not anyone hears them speak up about it. My story may be unique in its inflections, but it's also common in the same way as anyone else who's had their identity denied to their face, whether it be from strangers or their own communities or their own families or even internally within themselves after being told so by all of the former.
You may say I'm just overreacting to a lot of words spoken in jest by my friends, and that I'm not really being inconvenienced much by any of this- because everyone's a little bit racist, right?- but my own personal feelings aside, I think resorting to that kind of a response sets a dangerous precedent when there are actual ongoing issues and discussions stemming from the clash of races and cultures today- whether it be the recent premiere of the series Fresh Off The Boat that pervaded my Facebook feed earlier this month, the surge of protests in the last few years due to incidents between black males and the police, the shootings instigated by radical Islamists in Europe and the backlash against Muslim communities, and so on.
Okay, so I know my personal issues are not on the same level as all of the above, but I believe that they do all stem from something fundamentally broken and yet characteristically human in all of us: that ubiquitous barrier we experience when interacting with a culture or way of life that appears both fundamentally alien and yet still somehow reminiscent of our own. I am of Chinese descent and yet at the same time culturally something else (Chinese-Indonesian-American-what-have-you), and a lot of people in my life don't know how to react to that other than just flat out telling me that I'm not Chinese at all. And to be honest, it hurts sometimes, to be denied a part of your own heritage. But I know better than to go on listening to them and agonizing over it.
tl;dr: Racism sucks. But races themselves are awesome. Be glad for who you are and what you've inherited, don't let anyone else's words make you think any less of yourself for it, and don't think any less of other people for theirs either.
While not technically on the same subject, I'll end with a quote from this article that I was reminded of while writing this:
We are in a dangerous place when people can be told, to their faces, that they are not real—that their identities make no sense, and that they are impossible Americans.
*aside: don't quote me on this, but I think the Indo communities are generally where the food is- like West Covina, and south-South Bay. I say this because almost every Indo restaurant I've been to in California carries copies of the same magazine that lists all the Indonesian restaurants in the state, and those are where the restaurants are. That it's even possible to list off all those restaurants in a single periodical shows how relatively small the communities are; it also happens to be easier to find Malay restaurants here than Indo ones.***
** I'd recommend my friend Nate's blog - he touches on a lot of these topics really well, from a Christian perspective.
*** Speaking of which, I know I've told people in the past that reading a Malaysian restaurant's menu for me is like reading a bastardized misspelled edition of an Indonesian one (because they use a lot of the same words spelled different - like one of my favorite foods, mie goreng vs mee goreng), but I take that back here. I mean, I like Malaysian food too... just not as much as Indonesian food for the obvious reason being that I was raised on the latter. But it's still great cuisine, and I honestly don't care how they spell their food anyway.
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