My so-called racial privilege allows me a certain amount of invisibility and the luxury of not having to defend or even discuss my race.  This is how I imagine dominant society lives on the continental United States.  O’ahu is one of the few places where I am continually around other mixed individuals.  It is a form of comfort.

One thing that currently stands out to me is that most other mixed people have the same experience of having parents of different ethnic and racial background and thus the parents do not form some kind of cultural/ethnic alliance.  Parents and kids have different experiences in the world.  Some have racial privilege, some do not, some pass, some cover, some are vocal, some silent.

If anything, I feel like I am passing for local or even raceless.

Note: because the mixed race population in the islands is high compared to most other places in the country, there are many people who have parents who are also both mixed race and thus may have commonalities that those of us with parents of different races do not.

Dumb!

Migraine leaves woman speaking with Chinese accent?

In other news, you can actually suffer brain damage from a migraine!? Wow – that’s scary!

I choose “multiracial.”

I’m glad that ambiguity is becoming something that we can openly embrace.  Yet, lately, I find myself tired of all the mixed race talk.  I am not saying we are beyond race or anything like that, but I’m changing.  I find myself surrounded primarily by Asian Americans and Mixies and honestly, I don’t feel anything but Asian American.  Here, in San Francisco, I don’t use the word Hapa, I don’t care what kinds of questions people ask me.  I’m bored with the whole thing.  Recently, I spent a few days in LA with an all Asian American group of friends (save for my friend Alvaro) and it was just (I hate to use the word normal) simple, easy.  My race was irrelevant.  I ate Chinese food.  I used Mandarin when I could.  It was a kind of belonging that felt right.

Perhaps with time my racial ennui will subside, perhaps not.  I’ll let you know.

Wrong! Not Mirai Nagasu – it’s Japanese skater Mao Asada. You fail.
How do people still do this?
Anyway, as I mentioned in the previous post, people in Ohio would always call me “Michelle.” My hypothesis was that 1) It was fairly close to Melissa and 2) I’m Asian American (which apparently was really obvious to white people in Ohio) and the only Asian American they were familiar with was Michelle Kwan. Some people just did it to be racist jerks. Asian face + M-name = Michelle?

Sorry, I’m an angry asian today.

~Melissa

Pic from Angry Asian Man.

Its hard not to notice the influx of amazing Asian and Asian American skaters this year! I can remember watching Kristi Yamaguchi when I was younger and thinking that she was really the first Asian American woman I had seen on TV doing something incredibly awesome, unrestrained by stereotypes and cliches. I think she’s really the reason I started watching skating to begin with. I thought it was pretty cool that another Asian American woman, Michelle Kwan, came along a couple years later and was equally amazing. (Although, I swear that people in Ohio still mistakenly call me Michelle because of her. jerks.) Up until that point, I think most of us hadn’t seen many Asian Americans on TV doing something non-stereotypical. . . or athletic, for the matter. So I think its pretty cool to see all these Asian Americans, some probably inspired by Kristi and Michelle, doing really well at the Olympics this year. Yay!

Anyway, here’s an article from LA Times about Asian American kids inspired to become ice skaters.

I’ve already looked into ice skating lessons for Allie )

On another note, here’s are look at the funniest figure skating faces from the Olympics thus far. I dare you not to laugh!

~melissa

Since, Lauren asked for a picture. We’re on a dog-kick this week. I mean we’ve been sharing lots of dog-related things. (i.e. http://hipsterpuppies.tumblr.com) Anyway, this is Holly. I grew up with this dog – we went every where together and she looked out for me. She was super protective of me. She died about 4 or 5 years ago. I still get teary if I think about it too much – I don’t think I’ve ever mourned as much for a human being.

On another note, I read Allie “Hachiko the loyal dog” last night. If you haven’t seen this book because you don’t have a little rugrat at home it’s the true story of a dog who continued to wait for his owner at a train station 10 years after his owner had died. There’s even a statue of Hachiko at the Shibuya station outside of Tokyo where he waited every day for his owner’s return. It’s a beautiful, sweet, sad story – I’d suggest checking out it next time you’re in Borders if you don’t mind bawling like a baby there. There’s also a DVD release of a movie based on this story coming out next month – with Richard Gere as the lead character. Really? Him? WHY? ick. Anyway, I’ll probably be skipping the movie, but the story is really incredible when you think about it. The book itself is written as though it’s for kids, but it’s pretty heavy. The owner dies, the dog dies. . . no happy endings here.

After I read Allie the book last night she hugged me tightly and said “Mom, if you ever die I’ll wait for you. ” Now, if you’ll excuse me – I have something in my eye.

~Melissa

This is how I feel everyday!:

I don’t think I’ve ever loved a comic as much as I love Calvin and Hobbes. I loved it as a kid for its humor and silliness. I love it as an adult for its wit and intelligence. I know almost everyone loves Calvin & Hobbes, but I always felt it held a special significance for me. It reminds me so much of my childhood and the way I grew up especially the comics of Calvin and his toy tiger either sledding or riding their wagon through the woods. When I read the comics when I was younger I suspected Calvin lived in Ohio because the scenery looked so much like the scenery that surrounded my own home. Later I found out that Bill Watterson is also from Ohio. Makes sense.

My parents were never big on the whole “playdate” thing, so like Calvin I spent most of my childhood alone with our dog, Holly. In a way I felt sheltered and it probably accounted for a lot of my early social awkwardness. At the same time, I had so much freedom. We seemed to live in the middle of nowhere, forests surrounded 3 sides of our land with big empty fields on the other side. Our closest neighbor was just a couple hundred feet up the rocky dirt lane, but far enough away that we couldn’t see his house from ours. I spent hours wandering those fields and forests alone with Holly. I’m not sure I would let my own daughter do the same now. In fact when I was her age (4) I was already spending most of my days running around outside alone while my mom slept (she worked nights). It’s kind of scary when you think about it and at the same time it was completely fine. I think we shelter our children so much now but they’re a lot more capable than we acknowledge. I think I find it amusing now because the way I grew up was so completely different from the way my daughter grows up now. We’re now surrounded by hundreds of houses, we have about 6 square feet of grass for a yard, we spend most of our time indoors during the week, have play dates every weekend. When I was her age, my dad was already taking me out in the woods and teaching me the different ways to navigate through them: moss grows on the north side of the trees, the underside of the tree leaves blow upwards when its going to rain, poison ivy has three leaves, don’t eat chokeberries, and if you get lost, trust the dogs – they always know how to return home. When I was a little older, I began exploring them on my own – my parents put so much trust in our dog, Holly, I think they felt relatively safe letting me wander through the woods with just her. All these little things seem to be a natural part of my growing up, but now I know so many people who have never experienced or learned these kinds of things. I miss the feeling of being alone in the middle of a giant forest – the cool, mossy dampness, the sound of the leaves rustling in wind, the absence of humans. I even miss the winters when its so cold you can see your breath and the empty tree branches would groan and creak in the wind – a sound that terrified me at night as a little kid.

I’d disappear in the woods to think, explore, climb trees, have silly conversations with my dog, and to escape my parents (during those angsty teenage years). I miss that.

Last year, my parents moved and sold that house. I was hoping to have the chance one of these years to go back there and walk through the woods again. I guess not. Sadly, already some of the field across from the old house has been sold off and the suburbs have begun to expand out. I wonder how much longer the woods will be there.

Its too bad its taken me 27 years to realize how special it all was. Maybe I’m just really missing my childhood because I have a daughter who’s in the prime of hers. I find myself wanting to get in touch with those feelings I once had. I guess I will just have to rely on Calvin and Hobbes to help me relive it.

~Melissa

I love dance, in all its forms – I’m a terrible dancer, I have no rhythm, I think way too much. But there’s something about the feeling when you are dancing that’s so freeing. For a moment you’re mentally excused from the present. The satisfaction that comes from having your mind control your body and doing things that the normal person couldn’t do every day is very rewarding.

My love for dance was initially inspired by the ballet, The Nutcracker. Every year around Christmas my dad would take us to go see it. I’d come home, put the soundtrack on and dance around like the Sugarplum Fairy in my kitchen for the next week.

However, one part always made me cringe – you know what I’m talking about: Tea/Chinese Dance, whatever you want to call it. In the production we’d watch every year the dancers would shuffle around on stage with their pointer fingers sticking up in the most horrid, Orientalist display of “Chineseness” ever. My mom would always angrily remark “Asian people don’t do that!” Afterward, she’d remark that she enjoyed everything “except the Chinese dance.”

This is the shit I’m talking about – who the hell came up with this stupid-pointer finger-in-air thing?

This weekend Lauren and I went to a show at a local bar in town – specifically we had gone to see a burlesque troupe, but they had invited a number of other acts to perform. Anyway, a good number of the performances were Middle-Eastern inspired dances. I know that no one goes to a show of this sort expecting authenticity of any kind, but I felt sickened watching these women writhe onstage with scarves, veils, etc attempting to evoke mysteriousness and sexuality. It seemed like the epitome of Orientalism.

However, I have no problem with non-Asians who wish to learn or even master Asian forms of dance. Why not?
My Korean dance teacher is white woman who grew up very close to where I grew up in Ohio. She had experimented with various types of dance, came to Hawai’i and tried Korean dance and just “got it” – it made sense to her, the rhythms, the movements, etc. She’s been doing it for 30+ years now and is one of the foremost experts on Korean dance in the U.S. But you know what I like about her? She never creates a spectacle. Sometimes, the dances aren’t the most exciting or most technical, but she never tries to change them for acceptance by a larger audience. She’s respectful of tradition and teaches the dances just as she learned them. I’m really in awe of her of having stuck with it when often faced with disapproval from some in the Korean American community.

I don’t know where to go with this.
Where do we draw the line between an Orientalist spectacle and a non-offensive cultural performance? Do I need authenticity to feel comfortable? I don’t necessarily think so but is it possible to have non-authentic Asian dance that isn’t Orientalist and offensive at the same time? Does it all have to do with who is performing the dance? I don’t know, just some thoughts that have been on my mind – blah, my head is full.