#because of asian immigrant filial piety

[calmbigdipper]

woohoo final college semester woohoo

[doamarierose-honoka]

What is it about an often-hungry and kind of lazy panda who is obsessed with kung fu that has resonated with audiences worldwide?

The Kung Fu Panda franchise — now 16 years old and four films in — centers on Po (Jack Black) who, along with his friends (voiced by a star-studded cast including Angelina Jolie, Lucy Liu, Seth Rogan and Jackie Chan), goes on adventures spanning the mystical and spiritual.

"I think people love pandas and people love kung fu, and we've got a combination," Black tells ABC News.

"The art is so great, I think we've got the best animators in the world. It's kind of like a dance between the voice acting, and these animators who've completed the performance."

For those who haven't seen the films, Po is the designated "Dragon Warrior", a kind of legendary Chosen One who can wield limitless power.

The first film focused on him figuring out who he wanted to be; he discovered more about his parents in the sequel, Kung Fu Panda 2; while Kung Fu Panda 3 saw him begin to pass on his skills to a new generation of panda cubs.

In the latest film, Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman) wants Po to become the new Spiritual Leader of the Valley of the Peace, so Po must choose and anoint someone else as the new Dragon Warrior.

While Jolie, Chan and Liu don't return for this film, Bryan Cranston and James Hong reprise their roles as Po's dads. And rapper and actor Awkwafina joins the cast as Zhen, a fox burglar who crosses paths with Po during one of her thieving sprees.

When a shape-shifting sorcerer known as the Chameleon (Viola Davis) and her criminal network make themselves known, Po and Zhen team up to prevent her from getting her hands on the panda's staff of wisdom (which the Chameleon plans to use to summon Po's enemies back from the spirit realm).

"Zhen and Po are like the odd couple of the kung fu world, and it was exciting to explore their differences and watch them grow together," says Awkwafina.

"Zhen brings this scrappy, streetwise energy to the story, challenging Po in unexpected ways."

A mix of East and West

The humour and story of Kung Fu Panda is a part of why the films have charmed audiences globally.

The film series has also proven to be a massive hit in China, a highly lucrative but notoriously difficult market for Hollywood films to succeed in, because of limits the country places on foreign and Western films.

Plot threads often blend aspects of South-East Asian culture, like filial piety and duty to family, with more universal themes of working with others and having the confidence to forge your own path.

Awkwafina says it has meant a lot to her to see the franchise pay homage to Chinese culture.

"I think when [Kung Fu Panda] first came out, there wasn't a lot of movies that really took place [there], exemplifying those cultural traditions in that world," she says.

"So I'm really proud that it existed and to be a part of it now."

Black adds: "You know, any community that feels under-represented, one of the greatest ways to open up the stories to the world is to get creative.

"The ones that you've never heard before are often the most amazing ones."

The latest Kung Fu Panda also comes off the back of other successful animated films like Turning Red and Elemental, which explored similar themes of responsibility and loyalty, and growing up as part of an immigrant family.

"Those I really enjoyed, and I love Kung Fu Panda because they explore what it means to be a kid, have anxiety and what it means to be human I think in a way that's really unique," says Awkwafina.

"And I [want to] just continue watching stories that do that."

Into the future

Both actors say they related to the simple central message — to believe in yourself — that plays out across all the films.

"I definitely can think about certain times in my life, in my career, where I didn't believe in myself," Black says.

"Someone else gave me confidence and believed in me, and then I was able to push through my insecurities, and those moments and those people who gave me that strength mean so much to me, so I relate to it in that way."

Awkwafina adds, "I think it's hard to know when you're doing something right. It's hard to believe in yourself and Jack is right. It does take people to have to help you sometimes."

In terms of their characters' futures, Awkwafina says she wants Po and Zhen to "live, laugh, love".

"I'd like to see Po get even more spiritual," says Black.

"To somehow master the art of meditation and be able to create some inner peace."

Awkwafina jokingly adds: "I want to stop stealing, and we enter a program."

[faithintaiwan]

august 1st - lotus pond, qishan train station

Today was Amy's birthday!! Happy birthday!!

Our first stop was the Lotus Pond where we went to the Dragon and Tiger Pagodas and the Spring and Autumn Pavilion. It was absolutely gorgeous and something I had been looking forward to so I was really happy!

Unfortunately, the Dragon and Tiger Pagodas were closed for construction so we were only able to go through the mouths of the creatures and not up the towers. Then, we walked over to the pavilion where Peter told us about the Sea Goddess who is really popular in Taiwan because of the ocean trip that everyone had to take to immigrate here. This one was fully open and we were able to walk through everything. On the way back from Lotus Pond, some people in our group were stopped by a religious ? group and were given these cute little flower keychains.

After we went to another Mongolian BBQ place to eat lunch! I love a free lunch and it was delicious! I even got to watch more AOT during it so it really was perfect. Then, we headed an hour out to the Qishan Train Station.

Some people took some photos and there was a cute baby battery powered train. We also got these coupons for 30 NTD off so most of us bought matching banana keychains for only 29 NTD!! They're so cute and mine will be staying on my bag for Gainesville.

When we finally ended our program day it was time to celebrate Amy!! Fanny and I got her a birthday cake after going to two bakeries because the first was closed. A group of us celebrated by eating her cake and watching the sunset from the Great Harbor Bridge before going to a bar and dinner. Fanny and I had so much fun despite being exhausted from the long day and I hope she had an amazing birthday!!

Academic Reflection

Both the Pagodas and the Pavilion had images on the walls that depicted Confucius stories. Peter explained that when he was growing up he learned the stories of the good child. The stories are called the Twenty Four Paragons of Filial Piety or the Twenty Four Filial Exemplars and each strive to teach children the lengths to which they should go to honor and follow their parents. Some stories include the son lying down bare chested on ice to melt it in order to bring home fish for his mother or him sacrificing himself to the mosquitoes so his father will not get bit throughout the night. One particularly horrifying one to me is the story of a mother whose teeth fell out so her daughter sacrificed herself and breastfed her… I think we all know the stereotype of the tiger parent in Asian-American culture and now I understand where some of these ideas came from! On the walls of the pagodas and pavilion, I was able to see the ice one specifically and the rest were images of the rest of the stories. On the other wall was an illustration of hell.

Our second stop, the Qishan Train Station was located in a town with many bananas! It was even nicknamed Banana Kingdom according to Taiwan Everything. It used to be a distribution point for bananas and sugarcane which is why the image of bananas is plastered everywhere on billboards and on merch even within the station.

[fireandfolds]

just saw turning red. loved it. if i had the energy i would type out a full essay analysis, but for now i’ll just say this:

when i first heard that sandra oh was playing yet ANOTHER mother figure (is she getting typecasted?), i was concerned because turning red is about a chinese family. i questioned why she would ever agree to such a role. as a korean united-statesian, i was worried that she was taking the role from a chinese actor who could tell it better.

but i listened to some interviews, and i now get why she chose to play ming. it was the messages, the universal elements that everyone (or at least most people) can relate to. it was the setting, the time period. and on some level, sandra understands the asian immigrant family culture. she’s lived it. even if she’s not chinese.

this movie tackles so much. menstruation, growing pains, filial piety, tradition, coming of age, puberty, mother-daughter relationships and tension, matriarchal systems, intergenerational trauma, trying to find independence and individuality, asian immigrant culture, paying homage to your elders but forging your own path, friendship being an anchor, and probably more things that i didn’t catch.

we don’t need fantasy all the time. sometimes it’s the small personal stories that touch hearts.

thank you domee for sharing yours.

[mr-entj]

We come from really similar backgrounds, immigrant parents, poverty etc. My family environment is beyond dysfunctional. My parent’s had trauma due to their own experiences and have a really unhappy marriage. I recognise how their traumas affect them and do my best to empathise. I regularly had to deal with domestic violence and step in as a child to deal with their problems whether it was money, arguments, translating (I do not begrudge them at all for this last one). (1/5)

It’s lead to bad anxiety, depression and PTSD which I have been seeking treatment for over the last 3 years. Both my mental illness and their continued dependency on me has both severely impacted my grades and ruined many opportunities for me when I have to focus on them rather than myself (I went from a mid-tier M&A internship to being given a part time role opportunity while I continued my degree to a mental breakdown and had to quit and defer my studies). (2/5)

I have done my best to openly communicate this with them ask for them to change/handle a bit more themselves so I can build my future. In Aus its very common to live at home while at uni and it was impossible to move out due to financial constraints, but I’m doing everything I can to remove myself rn, (covid19 isn’t helping). I’m still dealing with my mental health and job hunting at the moment. (3/5)

I’m determined to move onto better things but to do that I can’t be around my family. I did not speak to them during the last semester, I scored 90+ on my subjects despite the difficult circumstances and transition to remote delivery coursework. The fact of the matter is my life is better without them. My question is, do you think I would be an asshole if I cut my family out of my life? feel like an asshole I recognise that they have sacrificed a lot for me as immigrants. (4/5)

I also recognise my mum’s efforts in trying to help me but despite trying she will not change and continues to repeat the same toxic behaviour patterns. It’s also difficult because my cultural identity is big part of who I am, and they’re the link to this. I have a lot of respect for everything you’ve overcome to achieve what you have. I’d really value your opinion on this. Sorry for the long ask, I appreciate the time and effort you take, sending all my love to you and yours xx especially mango

_______________________

We do come from very similar backgrounds, yes. To your question, no, I don’t think you’re an asshole for prioritizing your well-being because your relationship with your parents is clearly taking a huge toll on your health. I also think that cutting your family out of your life is a last resort and there are steps in between you can explore that you may or may not have tried before it even gets to that point. For my situation, I realized two main factors were contributing to my problem:

Culture. I’m Asian, family and especially filial piety are huge in our culture, so abandoning my parents in their time of need or separating from them didn’t seem like an option.

Poor boundaries. Related to the above, I felt obligated to fix my parents’ dysfunctional relationship because I wanted to ‘save’ my mother. I felt responsible for their marriage and somehow assumed the burden of making it work by getting caught in between them. 

If these two factors resonate with your situation, this is what I did to manage mine:

Set and enforce boundaries. This is the biggest game changer. The first step was accepting that I wasn’t responsible for my parents’ marriage. You’re not responsible for your parents’ marriage either. If you need to hear that from someone, then I’m telling you now that their marriage is between them. You’re not a bad child for not wanting to insert yourself in every quarrel two grown ass adults with poor communication need to resolve themselves. Define your personal boundaries, know what you are and aren’t comfortable with, understand the impact those actions have on your well-being, communicate those boundaries to your parents, and enforce them. The more I encouraged my parents to talk it out with each other, the less I found myself needing to be there. They were forced to learn to resolve their issues themselves and/or if they didn’t resolve their issues then at least I wasn’t drained from getting caught in between. The two new options I created for them were: 1) Resolve the issue yourselves or 2) Don’t resolve the issue but don’t involve me. There was no longer an option 3.

Create your peace. You’ve already touched on this in your question but I found that moving out of the family home and moving into my college dorms/apartments did help a lot. If it’s different where you are and leaving isn’t an option, I filled my time with work and school to avoid being home as much as possible. I studied at libraries, parks, or friends’ homes whenever I could to get peace and quiet. I left the house and returned at odd hours to minimize interaction with my family. I filled my free time with things that made me happy whether that was sports, writing, or being with friends. Peace is never something that’s given to you by other people-- it needs to be created. Create your own peace, find your safe spaces, build your circle of friends and family, and get your schooling done so you can move on with your life as quickly as possible.  

Seek therapy. For you and for your parents. For you, engage on-campus groups, psychologists, and counselors if needed. Even if these people can’t solve your problems overnight, and they rarely can, they’re your backup. They’re here to listen intently, give objective feedback, help you understand you’re not alone, and provide suggested solutions you may not have considered. Mental health professionals aren’t wizards who can wave their wands and make problems disappear, but they’re the cavalry, and if your problems are a giant boulder to lift then they’re there to lend a hand. For your parents, I engaged a marriage counselor for my parents. They needed an objective third party who had the formal training and “authority” to give relationship advice because as their child I realized I would never be seen as an equal. If therapy isn’t an option, find allies in your family like trusted aunts, uncles, and elders who can be that objective third party.

[asocier]

          now we’re gonna talk about leah’s family life/dynamic bc :^) i never get to but it’s so pivotal to her character so i gotta put this out there:

          leah’s considered second-generation vietnamese, which means her parents were born in vietnam and immigrated over to the states. history lesson aside, they basically came over during the 80s and made a life for themselves in california. leah’s mom is a nail technician while her dad is uhh -- he’s kind of had a lot of different jobs over the years, his most current one being the manager of a convenience store. lowkey though, her dad works a lot of different kind of informal jobs for those in the community like being a handyman or cutting other people’s yards, so he’s always busy.

          leah’s family is pretty tight knit; she’s an only child, so she got a lot of attention from her elders growing up whenever they visited, but she’s didn’t grow up in an intergenerational household ( meaning her grandparents/other relatives didn’t live with her and her parents; this type of home situation is fairly common in asian households due to filial piety, where the children take care of their parents for life essentially ). i guess you could say circumstances worked out such that leah’s parents were allowed to have their own home, though they both continue to play active roles in providing for their parents ( leah’s grandparents ) when necessary. leah isn’t the only young adult in her family though, nor is she the youngest -- she has plenty of cousins, though not all of them are in america. 

         i could go into a lot of depth about leah’s grandparents and her other relatives, but she doesn’t really talk about them a lot in threads because, well, they’re not as big of a part in her life as her parents. HOWEVER -- despite them not being directly influential in leah’s life, most of her extended family members share a very strong belief in very traditional catholicism, so what goes for her parents sort of goes for most of the family too. but it’s important to note not everyone in her family is catholic; some adhere to buddism and others are agnostic or atheist. again, not super important, but it’s something to think about since it allows leah to have some outlets if she needs different perspectives from those in her family. anyway --

         catholicism is something leah was exposed to since before she understood what it was. she was baptized as an infant, had her first communion, has been confirmed, and of course, has attended those catechism classes as a kid. there’s plenty of religious imagery and symbols in her house, and her family has made it a routine to attend mass every sunday along with obligatory services during certain times of the year. all in all, her family is devout and do a lot of things they do because of their faith. 

       while faith plays a big role in why leah’s parents are on the conservative side, it’s not the only reason. they hold very traditional views partly from growing up in a different culture, partly because of generational differences. it’s also important to note that saving face drives leah’s family dynamic quite a bit, and it’s a big reason why leah’s parents placed very high demands on her while she was growing up. how she dressed, what she did in school, who she hung out with, her romantic life ( or rather, her lack thereof ) -- all of this was dictated in part by her parents one way or another. 

          it’s really important to note that this isn’t because leah was a slacker in school, dressed in a way that was too revealing, hung out with bad people, had too many failed relationships -- it could be argued that her parents were just trying to look out for her, and in a way, that might be the case. but leah was a straight a student, dressed moderately most of the time, and had good friends. she wasn’t like cedric who was actually going out doing things and rebelling. leah was a good kid, but her parents still found things to nitpick. 

         she couldn’t wear jeans with holes in them or crop tops, couldn’t hang out with friends ( don’t even think about hanging out with platonic male friends ), was criticized for partaking in seemingly frivolous extra-curricular activities, had a strict curfew, was ( and still is ) forbidden to date -- the list goes on. one thing i really want to emphasize is the fact that leah’s parents aren’t abusive: they’re oversolicitous. this all stems from a genuine concern about leah’s safety, about wanting her to have a good reputation and her well-being. but also, her parents want to maintain their reputation as well, so in a way, it’s also selfish. whatever the driving force really is, by the time leah was in high school ( and still now in her canon timeline ), she feels suffocated by the fact she lacks the independence that her peers have. it became incredibly apparent in high school when her friends were able to drive by themselves to parties or outings and were beginning to date and experiment with their sexuality. it’s safe to say that by age 18, when leah was a senior in high school, she was not considered an adult by her parents. 

        a big, big, big thing i really wanted to talk about in this post is how leah’s parents played a role in the development of her sexuality and, for those interested in shipping with her, how much anxiety leah has about moving a serious relationship forward due to her parents in a true canon timeline. 

         leah, as mentioned earlier, isn’t allowed to date in her true canon. period. not until she has finished all of her schooling at least, whenever that may be. thus, anything romantic or sexual that has happened to her since her first relationship ( unless plotted otherwise ) is something she would keep to herself and a close group of friends. she doesn’t tell her parents anything about her love life let alone her sex life, so everything is bottled up tightly and kept under lock and key. sometimes i overlook this aspect of her character for the sake of ship development ( since it’s hard to really develop any kind of ship if leah is straight up just like “no, sorry, my mom said no” ), but to put it out there, this is how things would really be. 

        essentially, realistically, there would have to be a point in time in which leah gives your muse “the talk” about her parents, about how she keeps her relationships private and a tight secret. not because she’s ashamed, but because she doesn’t want her family to attack the relationship, nor does she want her family to consider her to be a disappointment for being disobedient. it’s an incredibly difficult subject for her to talk about, so by default, she never brings it up until she has to ( especially since it’s awkward af ). but yeah, dating is a risky game with leah in the long run. 

         also important is the fact that leah identifies herself to be pansexual, which, ( unsurprisingly ), would not fly with her parents. so any relationship that wasn’t heteronormative would cause a lot of tension between leah, her partner, and her parents. but i can tell you right away that when leah loves, she loves hard, and she’d be willing to drop everything for your muse. she doesn’t think the teachings of the catholic church is fair in that regard, so she’d fight her parents until the bitter end if your muse sticks beside her during it. 

       uh, uh, uh i think that’s all i wanted to talk about right now. i guess i really wanted to put out there that while leah is out here living her best life in the short run with interesting sexual encounters, lots of flirting and dating, and all that good ( and not so good ) college hook-up culture, in the long run, she’s incredibly anxious about letting her family in on her love life, so any serious ships would have to keep that in mind since i don’t think it’s realistic for things to be smooth sailing 100% of the times in ships. 

[arcticdementor]

On June 24, amid great cultural upheaval and unrest, Glenn Yu reached out to Glenn Loury, his former teacher, to record his thoughts about the current moment. An edited version of their conversation follows.

…

You may or may not have an opinion about that, but suppose the question were to arise in the dorm room late at night. Suppose you have the view that you’re not sure it’s racism, and then someone challenges you, saying, “you’re not black.” They say, “you’ve never been rousted by the police. You don’t know what it’s like to live in fear.” How much authority should that identitarian move have on our search for the truth? How much weight should my declarations in such an argument carry, based on my blackness? What is blackness? What do we mean? Do we mean that his skin is brown? Or do we mean that he’s had a certain set of social-class-based experiences like growing up in a housing project? Well, white people can grow up in housing projects, too. There are lots of different life experiences.

I think it’s extremely dangerous that people accept without criticism this argumentative-authority move when it’s played. It’s ad hominem. We’re supposed to impute authority to people because of their racial identity? I want you to think about that for a minute. Were you to flip the script on that, you might see the problem. What experiences are black people unable to appreciate by virtue of their blackness? If they have so much insight, maybe they also have blind spots. Maybe a black person could never understand something because they’re so full of rage about being black. Think about how awful it would be to make that move in an argument.

Suppose someone, a white guy, is arguing about affirmative action with you. Suppose he thinks that affirmative action is undignified because he thinks that positions should be earned, not given, but he allows that he doesn’t expect someone like you to understand that argument because you’re black. That would be terribly unreasonable— even “racist.” Yet I’m hard-pressed to see the difference.

…

People cry, “structural racism.” Is that why the homicide rate is an order of magnitude higher among young black men? They say structural racism. Is that why the SAT test-score gap is as big as it is? They say structural racism. Is that why two in three black American kids are born to women without a husband? Is it all about structural racism? Is everything structural racism? It has become a tautology explaining everything. All racial disparities are due to structural racism, evidently. Covid-19 comes along and there’s a disparity in the health incidence. It’s due to structural racism. They’re naming partners at a New York City law firm and there are few black faces. Structural racism. They’re admitting people to specialized exam schools in New York City and the Asians do better. This has to be structural racism, with a twist—the twist being that this time, the structural racism somehow comes out favoring the Asians.

This is not social science. This is propaganda. It’s religion. People are trying to win arguments by using words as if they were weapons.

…

And just so I don’t sound like a right-winger, observe that if I were a Marxist, I’d be furious at these people going around talking about “structural racism.” Structure, yes. Racism, no. Because if I were a Marxist, which I’m not, I’d understand the driving force of history to be the interaction between class relations and the means of production, the struggle between workers and capital in the quest for profit given the logic of capitalism. Though I don’t subscribe to it, that’s at least an intellectually serious theory. I know what people are talking about when they say we need more unions, when they say we need to break up big companies, when they say that the accumulation of wealth has gotten too great. When someone says that the logic of profit-seeking leads to war, at least I know what they’re talking about. I don’t necessarily have to agree with Das Kapital to understand that it’s a serious engagement with history.

Structural racism, by contrast, is a bluff. It’s not an engagement with history. It’s a bullying tactic. In effect, it’s telling you to shut up.

…

Yu: I’ve had conversations in the past few weeks that have ended very poorly; conversations that have spiraled out of control, where I’m suddenly a racist, so I’m on damage control. I just don’t know how to reach people in a meaningful way, and that’s very disturbing to me.

Loury: It is disturbing. I’m not a seer. My mouth is not a prayer book. I only say what I say based on my subjective assessment of it all. But it may be that, for a while anyway, there’s not going to be a whole lot of effective talking. It may well be that we have to imagine a world where effective deliberation and consensus is not within reach for us, and we’re going to have to manage that situation. It could get very bad. It could go to violence. This is what Sam Harris always says, and he’s got a point. He says that if we can’t reason together, then the only alternative for dispute resolution is violence.

I don’t know if you saw my piece in Quillette about the looting and the rioting, but I pick up these pieces published in the New York Times, respectable left-wing journals. I’m reading them, and the writer is saying, “America was founded on looting. What did you think the Boston Tea Party was?” Or, “You’re talking about looting when George Floyd lies dead? Oh, I see, black lives don’t matter as much as property.” These are, to my mind, incomprehensibly idiotic. I don’t mean that to cast aspersions. The civilization that we all enjoy rests upon a very fragile foundation. Look. I’m in my backyard. It’s very nice. I’ve got a lot of space. There’s a fence. The birds come. I have a lawn. It’s mine!

Now, if a homeless person comes and squats in my backyard, I call the police. I have him removed, forcibly. There should be no lack of clarity about whether George Floyd’s death somehow excuses or justifies burning a bodega to the ground that a Muslim immigrant spends his whole life building. Being confused about that, equivocating about that, splitting the difference about that—I don’t understand how we’re going to have a reasoned discussion. My thoughts go back to, protect civilization. Again, I know how that sounds. It’s hyperbolic. It’s exaggerated—but only a little! My gut response is that this is not the time for argument. This is the time to protect civilization and protect institutions. When people start toppling statues of Abraham Lincoln and spray-painting on statues of George Washington, “a slave owner,” things fall apart. The center cannot hold. We teeter on the brink of catastrophe.

…

Yu: If there’s no available policy intervention, and there’s also no way we can change people’s minds, then is it hopeless? Is disparity always going to be the case?

Loury: Yes. My answer is it’s hopeless. But let me rephrase the question, and I’m channeling Thomas Sowell now. You have two alternatives. You can live with disparities, or you can live in totalitarianism. Again, hyperbolic, I know. No, I’m not talking about Eastern Europe circa 1960, but look at it this way: there can’t be a disparity without somebody being on top. People don’t recognize this.

What groups are on top? What about the Jews? You could say, “There are too many Jews in positions of influence.” If there are too few black lawyers who are partners in big law firms, doesn’t it follow that are too many Jews who are partners at these big firms? If there are too few blacks who are professors of mechanical engineering at places like Carnegie Mellon, why aren’t there too many Korean professors at these places?

…

What is the nature of the world that we live in? Why would I ever expect that there would be parity across the board between ethnic, racial, cultural, and ancestral population groups in an open society? It’s a contradiction because difference is a very fact of groupness. What do I mean by a group? Well, it’s genes, to some degree; it’s culture; it’s networks of social affiliation, of intermarriage and kinship. I mean the shared narrative, the same hopes, the dreams, the stories. I mean the practices of parenting and filial piety and whatever else there might be.

A group is a group. It has characteristics. Those characteristics matter for whether you play in the NBA. They matter for whether you learn to master the violin or the piano. They matter for whether you pursue technical subjects or choose to become a humanist or a scientist. They matter for the food that you eat. They matter for how many children you raise and how you raise them. They matter as to the age when you first have sex. They matter for all those things, and I think everyone would agree with that.

But now you’re telling me that they don’t matter for who becomes a partner in a law firm? They don’t matter for who becomes a chair in the Philosophy Department somewhere? Groupness implies disparity because groupness, if taken seriously, implies differences in ways of living life. Not everybody wants to play the fiddle. Not everybody wants to dunk a basketball. Not everybody is frightened to death that their parents are going to be disappointed with them if they come home with an A-minus. Not everybody is susceptible to being swayed into a social affiliation that requires them to commit a violent crime in order to prove their bona fides. Groups differ. Groups are not evenly distributed across society. That’s inevitable. If you insist that those be flattened, you’re only going to be able to succeed by imposing a totalitarian regime that monitors everything and jiggers everything, recomputing and refiguring things until we’ve got the same number of blacks in proportion to their population and the same number of second-generation Vietnamese immigrants in proportion to their population being admitted to Caltech or the Bronx High School of Science. I don’t want to live in that world.

[thepapergirlandthespiegelman]

it’s that old [mixed race identity crisis]

As I’ve been exploring witchcraft more deeply over the past year, I’ve naturally also been thinking a lot about my personal cultural heritage. While there are many aspects of witchcraft that are shared or even perhaps universal, there are also many aspects that are unique to certain cultures. Even when the underlying principles are the same (which they aren’t always), the details are necessarily steeped in culture. One culture’s sun goddess is not a direct equivalent of another’s; Eos is not Ame-no-Uzume is not Sulis is not Xīhé.

As someone who is half Chinese—more Chinese than any other ethnicity in my makeup—I often feel like I ought to know more about Chinese culture. I feel like I should draw on Chinese culture for my spiritual practice. But I don’t know anything about Chinese culture, or at least very little, and very, very little about what my particular ancestors were like. The only member of my family to have actually lived in China is my PoPo, and even she came to the United States when she was very young. From what I know, she came from some village in Taishan. I don’t know what life in that village was like or what my ancestors prior to that time were like or where they were from. So even when I try to learn more about Chinese language, mythology, and culture online, it feels somewhat wrong. After all, anything that has proliferated enough to be available in the English language is probably the culture of the elite and/or the majority (and/or the culture that Western scholars deemed interesting or important), which could be quite far afield from the culture of that tiny village in Taishan, where they don’t even speak Mandarin. Sure, I have a relationship to broader Chinese culture too, but like...how much? How much can I feel like that culture is really mine? For all I know, I could be reading some myth or principle, and my much nearer ancestors had an entirely opposite perspective!

This brings me to my frustration with the conflation of ancestry with culture. At the end of the day, doesn’t it make more sense for me to just pursue things that resonate with me rather than struggling to discover my own ancestry and then, if I manage to succeed, perhaps finding that I have nothing in common with those people? And if that’s the case, why should I bother exploring Chinese culture at all? I feel much more drawn to Japanese culture, despite having no blood tie to it.

I also don’t like the idea that if I were to come out to others as, say, a Daoist sorcerer, people might assume that that practice comes from an unbroken line, continuously passed down from my mother to me and my grandparents to her and so on and so forth, rather than from whatever English-language resources I’m able to find on the Internet. I don’t have access to any special, secret knowledge just because of my Chinese ancestry. If a White practitioner refers to ancient European practices, no one assumes that they come from a pagan family, but if an Asian person refers to ancient Asian practices, people are much more likely to assume a direct connection. People assume that White families have lived in the United States for some time and been predominantly Christian for even longer, yet they’re likely to assume that Asian people are first-generation immigrants with a direct connection to the culture of their homeland, including its native religions.

I don’t like the glorification of blood relation. As someone who comes from an extremely toxic and dysfunctional family environment, I kind of have to believe that I’m not doomed to the fate of my parents, restricted to what they’re able to give me. I have to be better than they are.

At the same time...I do see the value in knowing the culture that is associated with my ancestry, if only because if I don’t do it, who will? If I don’t represent Chinese culture, then it will often go unrepresented, and I'm not really comfortable just standing by while immigrants are assimilated into the dominant culture and American culture becomes increasingly homogeneous. Even if my mother couldn’t care less about Daoism, that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t try to learn about it. Even if my PoPo prefers Greek mythology to Chinese, that doesn’t mean I can’t take an interest in it. I don’t have to let my immediate relations be an insurmountable chokepoint for my access to Chinese culture.

Unfortunately, even after working through all of this, there are some problems when I actually try to engage with Chinese culture. Namely...

Filial piety.

You can probably guess from what I’ve said thus far that I’m not a fan of filial piety. I don’t believe that parents deserve undying devotion simply for being parents, especially when said parents are abusive. I simply do not agree with this value, but it’s so deeply ingrained into Chinese culture, and I...don’t really know what to do about that.

In general, I find myself frustrated that so much of what I find in my research is disturbingly approving of hierarchy. I recently came across the legend in which  Nüwa crafts by hand the people who would go on to be elite and rich, while she simply swings a muddy bamboo branch to create those who would become the lower class. Like...literally, what the fuck? That’s a terrible story. I don’t want to be associated with that kind of thinking at all!

I don’t know. I know there must be other stuff out there. I know there must be stories about people questioning authority and challenging the status quo and loving across social groups and forming found families...Right??? I know that there must be a culture of The Resistance in China. I just don’t know how to find it.

[gaysianthirdspace]

“Stigma and the notion of those suffering from mental illness as being ‘crazy’ is a big problem in the Asian and Asian-American community,” says Wei-Chin Hwang, PhD, clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at Claremont McKenna College. “In general, we don't talk about mental illness and there is a common belief that people should just get over it or be stronger.”

The need to be "strong" ties into the idea of filial piety: Some Asian parents may expect their children to be self-sufficient and capable enough to handle their own problems. In many Asian cultures, kids are meant to show their elders a lot of respect, which often translates to: Don’t cause problems for your parents. Before my mom realized what was going on, she thought I was just seeking attention with my mental health problem — which in turn made me shut down to the point of never bringing up my depression again. I didn't want to cause an issue.

“For families who are still struggling to ‘make it’ in a new country, discussing mental health may not feel like the most important priority,” she says. “Because immigrant parents have invested so much of their effort and resources into immigration and have an emotional stake in signs of success (e.g., parents making a good living, children doing well in school), mental health problems may be seen as signs of weakness and failure.”

The idea that asking for help means failure is only reinforced when your parents are immigrants, and you have the weight of the model minority stereotype (the expectation that Asians will be smart, hard-working, and uncomplaining) weighing down on your shoulders.

The shame around mental illness isn’t just limited to Asian culture. But we’re less likely to ask for help, and Dr. Okazaki says that even when we do, it’s hard to find therapists or counselors who are culturally competent enough to understand our intersecting identities.

But as scary as it may seem, when we do talk about the emotional problems we’re going through, they can be easier to conquer.

[neaato]

#Repost @isabelle.du BORN OF AN IMMIGRANT. I’ve been told that my name sounds “too white” for a Vietnamese girl. Apparently I also don’t sound Vietnamese enough nor do I look Vietnamese. Whatever the địa ngục that means. I’ve also been questioned if I’ve even been back to the motherland. Clearly, you’ve only just begun to know me. . Our refugee parents gave us Westernized names because they believed it would help us assimilate and “belong”. But I’ve got a Vietnamese name — it’s Du Phương Thảo. Birthed from the word “hiếu thảo”, which means a filial piety to my parents. My parents told me there was no such word that existed in the English language. . My first language was Vietnamese because it’s all I spoke at home. Kids called me “retarded” for my thick accent and so I was pulled out for English as a Second Language classes. Now I sound just as American as you. . And WHY do I need to look the way YOU think Vietnamese people look like? It’s simple: my parents are Vietnamese and I look like them. We can look like this too, you know. I don’t need to justify my ethnicity and my heritage to someone who doesn’t recognize their own. . I lived in Vietnam for 4 years. I couldn’t have felt more like a foreigner in what was home to my parents. And yet, I couldn’t have been more quick to become familiar with what has always been a part of my blood. . As a second generation Vietnamese American, I get backlash from both cultures that I’m not enough of this and that. I’m TIRED of it. I’m proud of my bicultural identity and shouldn’t have to defend it. Yet, I recognize that as hard as I’m holding onto this nguồn gốc of mine —- what of my children? Would they feel as strongly as I do? If I passed this shirt to them, will they embrace what it means? . By asking these questions, am I passing on judgement unto them as other people who have said I’m not Vietnamese enough? . I suppose all of the above is what it means to be Asian American and to be born of an immigrant. . . #bornofanimmigrant #vietnamese #vietnameseamerican #vietkieu #việtkiều #vk #vq #asianamerican #408 #714 #secondgeneration #prose #writing #essay #blog #missvietnam #missvietnamu https://www.instagram.com/p/Bo8dhCABF3R/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1mys8fpj27380

[your-dietician]

Psychotherapy With Students From Mainland China

New Post has been published on https://depression-md.com/psychotherapy-with-students-from-mainland-china/

Psychotherapy With Students From Mainland China

A wide cultural gap exists between Western-trained college mental health clinicians and mainland Chinese international college students, which we as clinicians attempt to bridge in counseling sessions. Our interventions aim to help these emerging adults cope with life in a different society, progress in their psychological maturation, and become their own individual while staying in connection with their family and culture of origin. In therapy, we delve into a number of languages beyond the spoken ones: the idiom of cognitive behavioral skills, the vocabulary of emotions, the physical symptoms of emotional distress, and the language of therapy itself. We take into account the student’s immigration history, and the sequelae of the multigenerational trauma wrought by the social upheaval of the Cultural Revolution and China’s one-child policy. Multicultural counseling competencies help us devise culturally appropriate interventions while guarding against imposing Western social expectations or stigmatizing differences in separation/individuation patterns in Asian families.1

Constituting the largest number of international students in the United States,2 mainland Chinese students underutilize counseling sessions. They are concerned about cultural stigma and have doubts about the efficacy of the treatment, and therefore often wait until they experience a crisis before reaching out for help.3 This struggle is well-depicted in the animated 8-minute movie “My First Sessions” by New York-based filmmaker Wendy Cong Zhao.4 The story follows Fan Jiang, who overcomes her initial hesitation to therapy and begins to open up to her therapist. Much to Jiang’s surprise she feels accepted, not judged. After completing her master’s degree in counseling in the US, Jiang is now co-leading a mental health start-up in China. In conversation with the authors, Jiang revealed that talking to strangers about interpersonal conflicts or psychological distress is not in the toolbox of an average Chinese individual. Even though young people in contemporary China have heard about psychological counseling, psychoeducation about the therapy process remains insufficient. They often have little experience in formulating mental health concerns in psychological terms and imagine talking about them to be unhelpful.

Case Vignette

For reasons of confidentiality, we changed any identifiable information in this composite case. The scenario describes a frequently encountered reaction in psychotherapy with many mainland Chinese international young adults. This can be understood in the context of several generalizable themes regarding this specific population. 

Mr L, a 19-year-old freshman from northern mainland China, had difficulty making friends in an American university. Even though his English was quite fluent, adjusting to American social customs (eg, saying hello to strangers, making small talk with unfamiliar schoolmates) was uncomfortable. He experienced these interactions as superficial, or fake. Unsure about how to connect socially, he felt isolated and homesick.

He presented to the counseling service of his college with symptoms of depression and anxiety. The intake coordinator informed him that he would be referred to a bilingual therapist, which he happily agreed to. During our first session, I greeted him in Mandarin, his native tongue. For reasons I later came to understand, the student responded in English. He explained that speaking Mandarin would be too painful for him because it reminded him of happier days back home. He stated his goal in therapy was to get advice on how best to overcome anxiety and self-criticism.

He was an only-child from an affluent family. During childhood, he was often left in the care of his grandparents or a nanny, while his parents were attending to their expanding business. At age 12, the family enrolled him in an international boarding school in China. Students in these private boarding schools are privileged. They can apply to overseas universities directly and do not have to prepare for the widely feared competitive Chinese local college entrance exam called Gao Kao.5 

In our second session, he spoke Mandarin. When asked about the language switch, he explained that he was feeling better and therefore did not mind speaking Mandarin. Our sessions continued in his native language but were peppered with English expressions.

He filled his therapy sessions with accounts of events and facts without acknowledging any personal feelings. My attempts to help him identify his thoughts and emotions were met with staunch resistance. As time went on, he became increasingly dismissive of my interventions, and criticized our efforts to identify feelings as “too Western” an approach. He believed that paying such close attention to emotions resulted in rampant rates of depression in the US and therefore should be avoided. He often denied feeling anything. He looked dysphoric and fell silent, because he was frustrated at not getting useful advice from the therapist. We found ourselves at an impasse.

Historical and Socio-cultural Factors in Mainland China

Social upheavals in 20th century China pushed millions of families into survival mode. The Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) forced one-third of Chinese youth to leave home for reeducation programs in rural areas.6 In addition, families suffered separation through other forms of forced labor or imprisonment. The mainland Chinese students in treatment with us were often unaware of how their families lived through decades of war, famine, and political terror, as their elders tried to protect them from the painful past. 

China’s one-child policy (1979-2015) ended only recently. The current cohort of mainland Chinese international college and graduate students in the US belong to the one-child generation. They are the sole carrier of the older generation’s hope for a more prosperous and successful future. Attending a prestigious university in the US is a dream come true for the parents and grandparents, helping them compensate for their own lost opportunities for higher education.

The decision of a Chinese family to enroll their young adult children in universities in the West, thousands of miles away from home, is motivated by a host of factors and often requires advance preparation in the student’s childhood. Many prosperous Chinese families choose to register their children in boarding schools at quite an early age, believing these schools to be educationally superior to day-schools. For children, it is adaptive to refrain from expressing sadness or anger about these separations from their parents dictated by cultural norms and economic ambition. Educational attainment is a filial obligation and economic exigency trumps yearning for family togetherness.

When boarding their children in this culturally normative fashion, the parents may not be aware of the unconscious repetition of the traumatic family separations they themselves were subjected to during the Cultural Revolution.7

The Complexities of Acculturation in Late-Adolescence

The student in our vignette entered an international boarding school when he was an early adolescent. He was launched on an educational trajectory aimed toward higher education overseas. His lack of control in this preordained decision-making process resulted in sadness, homesickness, and grief about being exiled from his familiar community. These sentiments would be worth exploring in therapy; however, the student had never been permitted to question his parents’ plans for him. He expressed his anxiety by being frustrated with what western psychotherapy had to offer.

Acculturation to a foreign society while transitioning from late adolescence to adulthood and forming one’s identity is extremely challenging. Chinese young adults grow up in a quasi-monolithic authoritarian society; they are typically not encouraged to express emotions or differences of opinions but are educated to function as a cog in the collective social machine. Being asked to articulate their personal reactions in the service of individual freedom leaves them in a state of identity and value confusion.

The most frequently encountered psychological and psychiatric issues in mainland Chinese students are social isolation, mood and anxiety disorders, eating disorders,3 as well as low self-esteem, procrastination, and maladaptive perfectionism. Acculturation stress can trigger these issues or exacerbate pre-existing mental health conditions. Unfamiliarity with talk therapy and mental health stigma constitutes another barrier to treatment. Asian students in general and only-children in particular are hesitant to reach out for professional help and prefer a more directive style.8

The Many Languages Used in Therapy

In dynamically-oriented psychotherapy, we explore childhood memories, which can easily cause a loyalty conflict for the student. The centuries-old Confucian practice of stipulating filial piety, obedience, and indebtedness to the parents is still at the center of a child’s moral development in modern China.9 Given these cultural and moral tenets, any questioning of the parents’ authority might provoke feelings of shame and guilt that the student needs to defend against. Seeking advice from a professional authority figure rather than confronting family conflicts aids the students in protecting their loyalty to family and culture of origin. 

The vast majority of mainland Chinese students have sufficient English-language skills to get them through language tests and coursework. They acquire English as a second language from textbooks primarily as a practical tool for professional activities, not for the description of emotions. With family and friends, they still speak Chinese, think in Chinese, and use Chinese words to describe experiences. Speaking English in therapy will require a translation in mind.

Although having therapy sessions in one’s native language is a major advantage in a multicultural context, it is not a magic wand. In addition to the linguistic translation, Chinese students also have to reconceptualize psychological concepts in order to communicate their inner world to a counselor. Studies have found that non-English languages have fewer words describing emotions, and that cultural-specific variance is significant.10 Chinese culture rarely encourages one to verbalize one’s feelings. There is also evidence suggesting that Chinese parenting style promotes less emotional valence to memory sharing.11

Many Chinese students rely on somatic complaints to draw attention to their emotional distress. They often present to primary care physicians but are reluctant to acknowledge underlying psychological suffering. In therapy, they often defensively bypass their emotions and define their experience as culturally normative. By way of describing their quandaries, they may quote 1 of the very popular idiomatic Chinese sayings called Cheng Yu.12 These idioms are usually quotations from ancient Chinese literature. Used in a psychological context their meaning can be blurry and is reminiscent of proverbs or cultural clichés. As Mr L liked to say, “Shun Qi Zi Ran,” or “go with the flow.” This saying is derived from a concept of Taoism, which he cited as a reason for not wanting to make any decisions that could elicit conflicts. However, therapy can feel stuck in the superficial if this culturally normative defense is not further explored.

Sometimes, the shared native language and cultural knowledge can hinder, rather than facilitate the progress of treatment. The role of speaking the mother tongue in a foreign country, together with the specific associations and transference issues that it elicits is a topic worth in-depth examination. Understandably, recent immigrants would prefer counselors who speak their native language. While this preference may be motivated by convenience, communicating in one’s native language can generate intense and possibly overwhelming affective states. Psychoanalysts who treated Holocaust survivors post-WWII in German or Yiddish highlighted the association of the mother tongue with the emotional weight of early childhood experiences and attachment.13 Later psycholinguistic studies also found that emotional and physiological reactions to taboo words are much stronger in the native language.14

A native-language-speaking therapist also adds more than his or her language skills to the therapy. Invariably the students will wonder about the therapist’s immigration history and their political stance. Because expatriate communities typically are small, Chinese students will benefit from a specific reassurance of confidentiality.

For students who are fluent in both Chinese and English, the choice of language or a language switch can carry meanings beyond what is communicated semantically. Analyzing the meanings of native words in the second language (ie, English) facilitates exploring topics that might be traumatic or too emotionally charged to discuss in the original language. In the vignette above, it was tremendously helpful to use English to carry us through our first session when Mr L was overwhelmed by sadness and grief.

Hopefully, the case presented here will inspire therapists to become proficient in multicultural counseling techniques. The Association for Multicultural Counseling and Development has operationalized multicultural counseling competencies.1 Counselors are encouraged to become knowledgeable about the cultural background of mainland Chinese students, who (especially at the beginning of therapy) might best respond to cognitive behavioral interventions. For a bilingual therapist, it is crucial to examine the impact of the native language on therapeutic relationships. Simply matching the student with a therapist who is a native Chinese speaker might not be a universal solution, because this commonality is not sufficient to create a therapeutic connection. Depending on their immigration or trauma history, students will have specific preferences. In university orientation sessions, mainland Chinese international students might respond well to bilingual handouts to educate them about process of counseling services. Peer-to-peer outreach by other Chinese students might increase the recently arrived students’ ability to navigate the new society and make them confident enough to seek help. Finally, counseling staff might suggest that university student services create affinity groups that are not clinically focused.

Acknowledgement

Drs Qi and Kring acknowledge the contributions of the College Student Committee in the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry (GAP): Alexandra Ackerman, MD; Helene Keable, MD; Malkah Notman, MD; Lorraine Siggins, MD; David Stern, MD; and Julia Shiang, PhD.

Dr Qi is a psychiatry resident at NYU School of Medicine. Dr Kring is a college mental health psychiatry specialist at NYU Student Health Center.

References

1. Arredondo P, Toporek R, Brown SP, et al. Operationalization of the multicultural counseling competencies. Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development. 1996;24(1):42-78.

2. Institute of International Education. Infographics and Data – United States. 2019. Accessed January 19, 2021. https://www.iie.org/Research-and-Insights/Project-Atlas/Explore-Data/United-States

3. Zheng K, West-Olatunji CA. Mental Health Concerns of Mainland Chinese International Students in the United States: A Literature Review. VISTAS Online. 2016. Accessed January 19, 2021. https://www.counseling.org/docs/default-source/vistas/article_20fcbf24f16116603abcacff0000bee5e7.pdf?sfvrsn=62a9442c_4

4. Zhang H. “My First Sessions” Explores the Relationship Between Therapy and Culture. The New Yorker. July 29, 2020. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-documentary/my-first-sessions-explores-the-relationship-between-therapy-and-culture

5. Liu GXY, Helwig CC. Autonomy, social inequality, and support in Chinese urban and rural adolescents’ reasoning about the Chinese college entrance examination (Gaokao). Journal of Adolescent Research. 2020.

6. Zhou X, Hou L. Children of the cultural revolution: The state and the life course in the People’s Republic of China. American Sociological Review. 1999;64:12-36.

7. Brassard MR, Chen S. Boarding of upper middle class toddlers in China. Psychology in the Schools. 2005;42(3):297-304.

8. Yoon E, Jepsen DA. Expectations of and attitudes toward counseling: A comparison of Asian international and US graduate students. International Journal for the Advancement of Counselling. 2008;30(2):116-127.

9. Ho DY-F. Filial piety, authoritarian moralism, and cognitive conservatism in Chinese societies. Genetic, Social, General Psychology Monographs. 1994;120(3):347–365.

10. Moore CC, Romney AK, Hsia TL, Rusch CDJAA. The universality of the semantic structure of emotion terms: Methods for the study of inter‐and intra‐cultural variability. American Anthropologist. 1999;101(3):529-546.

11. Wang Q. Chinese socialization and emotion talk between mothers and children in native and immigrant Chinese families. Asian Am J Psychol. 2013;4(3):185.

12. Wu C. On the cultural traits of Chinese idioms. Intercultural Communication Studies. 1995;5:61-82.

13. Greenson R. The mother tongue and the mother. Int J of Psychoanal. 1950;31:18-23.

14. Harris CL, Gleason JB. Taboo words and reprimands elicit greater autonomic reactivity in a first language than in a second language. Applied Psycholinguistics. 2003;24(4):561-579.

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[itwas-sohuman]

mulan thoughts

okay so i’ve watched mulan twice in two days and am ready to share thoughts. the first time i watched the movie, i just wanted to enjoy. the second time watching it, i gave myself the space to think more critically. these are my thoughts, in no particular order. there are spoilers – you’ve been warned

wow v high production value. cinematography is amazing. the movie looks beautiful

ugh this is $30. this can easily be shared/split with friends but instead i’m encouraging my friends to donate to a gofundme to help support chinatown businesses in exchange for the use of my Disney+ password lol

MING-NA WEN ILY

in june i heard her say that she was in the movie but like an hour in, i was like “has anyone seen her?” lol

I ALSO LOVE ROSALIND CHAO AND TZI MA (met him last summer when he visited boston around the time the farewell came out)

back to mulan thoughts – this is a story of a chinese legend written and told by white people

soooo much phoenix – TOO MUCH PHOENIX

why did she have a sister in this movie? xiu had like four lines. i honestly don’t think the movie would’ve been significantly different without her

i later learned that in the book mulan: before the sword she has a sister but idk how historically accurate this children’s book is

there wasn’t much growth for mulan???

mulan’s personality was just really good warrior?

we didn’t really see mulan grow as a soldier and become friends with the guys in the army

they all seem to have one moment together where they are talking about their dream girl around the lunch table, but it didn’t seem like much bonding

why did they have to add a fourth virtue? four is a bad number in chinese culture (its basically a homophone for death)

“孝“ is the first character of “孝顺” which means filial piety. my baby chinese didn’t recognize it immediately but after talking to a friend she said she doesn’t think the character typically used by itself

speaking of languages, the same friend told me she heard some mando spoken/being whispered by ppl in mulan’s village when she returned home?? i don’t know much mando so this wasn’t something i was listening for

ALSO ON LANGUAGES, a different friend texted me and seemed angry about the fact that there aren’t chinese subtitles for the movie. this was news to me – i cannot read so i don’t look for chinese subtitles

then i did more digging and disney+ doesn’t offer chinese subtitles for any movies. disney+ isn’t available in china

she was like “what about people who want to show mulan to their immigrant parents?” 

asian americans make up 5% of the US population. i don’t think that’s enough to make disney want to add subtitiles

ALSO, it’s not only chinese americans who identify with mulan. so idk if disney added chinese subtitles for this one movie, would they also have to add subtitles in other asian languages?

why does it seem like the only reason mulan and the witch are such good warriors because of their chi?

also would love to learn more about the witch’s journey

and her father occasionally and randomly narrating at times – again, i love tzi ma, but hua zhou, this is NOT your story

things that were significant in the animated movie that weren’t in this one

hair cutting – i read another article about how long hair was sacred in chinese culture and can now understand why they didn’t keep this part

defeating the enemy with a fan / a women’s accessory

THE FLOWER THAT BLOOMS IN ADVERSITY

i read a handful of reviews comparing this film to the 1998 animated version, which i thought was... interesting... because the 1998 animated film did very poorly in china. i think a lot of people found it offensive in china? anyway i thought this was supposed to please chinese audiences but i’m not sure this movie will do that either

also i agree with what jeff yang said here

i need to rewatch mulan: rise of a warrior (2009). if you can get over the one-inch barrier, it’s an incredible film

[wednesdayhustlers-aas218-blog]

Blog #5: Filial Piety

finFilial piety is a Confucian philosophy that preaches respect and duty towards one’s parent by caring for their needs. These ideals of familial obligation and filial piety are deeply ingrained in Chinese roots and upbringing.

I’ve been delving into Asian and Asian American literature this year. It’s something I have always wanted to study more, but alas, high school english and literature are dominated by old white men. There’s only so much a white dude can tell me, an Asian girl, about struggles and morals. Luckily, this year I found a book Bone by Fae Myenne Ng that really resonated in me. While I can’t relate to every struggle the narrator faces, the struggles she undergoes reminds me so much of my own mom.

The main character Leila has shouldered the responsibility of taking care of her parents and tending to their needs. Leila shows her loyalty to her parents by keeping their ideals in mind, taking time to sort out their government and financial aid, and taking care of their general needs and wellbeing. This aspect of Leila is common among many elder children who feel it is their responsibility and duty to take care of their parents, in return for their parents bringing them up when they were children.

Both my parents and grandparents are all immigrants. I’m forever thankful for them for sacrificing the comfort of staying in China in order to give my brother and I a chance at a brighter future in America. While my parents have been able to integrate in America and have learned how to navigate through the complexities of being functioning adults raising a family, my grandparents don’t necessarily have the same ease. My parents learned English that drastically helped their transition, but my grandparents never did. This makes it difficult for them when tackling legal papers like social security, financial aid, and even going to the doctors and getting the right medication. Despite America being built on immigration, the country offers very little ease for them.

I spent years seeing my parents help my grandparents as much as they can. They’ll diligently drive them to any government office, wait hours while paper work gets sorted out, play translator between them and the doctor, offer to do the shopping for my grandparents, and more. And as we grew older, my brother and I started to take some of that responsibility as well.

It made me realize how deeply ingrained this sense of loyalty and duty that we have for our parents/elders is. Especially in a country they weren’t born in, we want to help them as much as possible, because they are family and making sure of their comfort and ease, is the least, we children of immigrants can do to lessen the burden.

[neverlearnedtoread]

The Bride Test

⭐⭐⭐; would have been a 4-star read had it not coincided with a fandom sinkhole so strong i hit the earth’s core head first

Oh?? 👌😉😏

#ownvoices neurodivergent rep - male love interest (and deuteragonist) is on the autism spectrum

diversity!! most characters are PoC - either american-vietnamese or vietnamese. the story itself also touches on racial identity and asian diaspora, and both main characters are bilingual

intense secondhand embarrassment not withstanding - dudes being dudes and talking about sex in a mature and open manner because they’re adults, dammit!

girl is more sexually experienced than the guy, but isn’t pushed into a ‘femme fatale’ archetype. sexy 🤝 cute rights!!

familial relationships - even if they are not a ““traditional”’ family! family is family because they love and support you as a person, not because a billion years of filial piety and tradition forced them to

No.. ❌🤢🤮

some leaps of logic and plot progressions that felt rushed to keep the story moving forward

weird miscommunication stuff (less than there was in The Kiss Quotient)... sometimes they talked it through, and sometimes they simply...did not

‘almost get married to the wrong brother so your real love will have to reconcile his true feelings’ is a trope that happens, which lowkey squicks me out

not really that big of a deal in the long run but that one time got Mỹ got blueballed so hard i felt shortchanged....big oof. pour the whole six-pack out for her lads

Summary: A mixed-race girl working as a cleaning maid in Ho Chi Minh City, Mỹ Tran gets the once-in-a-lifetime chance to travel to America, where the father she’s never met came from. If she pulls this off, she could get her family out of poverty, give them the better life they deserve. The only catch? She’s technically supposed to be there to seduce the youngest son of some rich Vietnamese-American lady who waylaid her in the hotel bathroom. Despite her generous benefactor’s high hopes for the match, Mỹ learns that the son in question, Khải, believes he’s just not cut out for loving people, having struggled internally to match the depth of emotion he’s observed in others his whole life. What’s a girl to do when the better life you’re trying to build rests on marrying someone who’s convinced they’ve got a heart made of stone?

Concept: 💭💭💭

I read the blurb for this book in the back of the Kiss Quotient, and I really liked the set-up - technically I’m not asian diaspora, but also I kinda am? So I definitely gravitate to reading stories like this one, especially with both characters being PoC while also having a different relationship with their shared culture. And I’m not gonna lie - I like the arranged marriage trope. It’s all about the fiction of living in close proximity with someone you don’t know well and that somehow actually working out great for you! The inherent romanticism of developing genuine intimacy through artificial domesticity!! 

Some spoilers under the cut!

Execution: 💥💥💥

I got what I wanted, and I wanted what I got, which was a cute fluffy story about two people really attracted to one another who have to live together and then they fall in love and everything is great. Good vibes all around, serotonin aplenty in the air - it was a great read, up until the point I fell into shipping hell for a pairing I have only experienced through tumblr osmosis. The sheer quality of fan content I had accidentally stumbled into slapped me full across the face and before I knew it, it had been four whole days since I had thought about this book, having burned a hole into ao3 with the force of my speedreading. For better or worse, there’s nothing like reading fanfiction.

Personal Enjoyment: ❤❤❤❤

That being said, I did really like this book! I was definitely taking my time with it before I fell into fandom hell, rereading chapters and bookmarking cute parts. The interactions between the two main characters felt a lot more nuanced, the plot development less choppy, especially compared to the author’s debut novel. There were some parts I felt were kinda rushed, like the race to clear everything up by the ending, but it was definitely better handled and more believable this time around! I liked the brothers’ interactions in particular - siblings being there to annoy and support each other every step of the way is always the best. And I think Hoang is going to centre her third book on Quan, so I’d be interested to see him in the spotlight!

Favourite Moment: When Esme cut Khải’s hair and he explained that he liked firm touches but not light ones. In general I liked the exploration of his character, because I liked the variation in Hoang’s neurodivergent characters. Plus it opened up a lot of cute opportunities for both of them to figure each other out, and then learn to reach a new equilibrium. The hair cutting scene was an intimate scene without necessarily being a sexy one. I liked those well enough too but there’s something about letting your love interest gently touch your face as they make you look nice, you know?

Favourite Character: I loved Esme (or Mỹ)’s character arc. Khải was great! But Esme’s personal development and her decision to take this opportunity to find her father and maybe give her kid a better life, alongside her determination to just work really really hard to achieve her goals...oof. Oof. The Real Immigration Wish-Fulfillment Fantasy (TM). We love to see a good person get their happily ever after by simply never giving up!

[thecoroutfitters]

A few years back, reporter and journalism teacher Erika Hayasaki traded a couple of e-mails beside me wondering why there weren’t more visible Asian US long-form article writers within the news industry. After speaking about several of our own experiences, we figured an element of the problem wasn’t just deficiencies in variety in newsrooms, but deficiencies in editors who worry enough about representation to proactively just take some authors of color under their wings.

“There has to be much more editors out there who is able to behave as mentors for Asian United states journalists and provide them the freedom to explore and flourish,” we published. Long-form journalism, we noted, is a craft that is honed in the long run and needs patience and thoughtful modifying from editors who care — perhaps perhaps not no more than exactly exactly what tale will be written, but additionally that is composing those stories.

We additionally listed the names of some Asian US article writers who have been doing a bit of actually great long-form work. Aided by the Asian United states Journalists Association meeting presently underway in Atlanta, Georgia (if you’re around, come express hello!), I desired to share with you a few of my personal favorite long-form pieces compiled by Asian US article writers within the last few years that are few.

1. In A perpetual present (Erika Hayasaki, Wired, April 2016)

Susie McKinnon features a seriously deficient autobiographical memory, this means she can’t keep in mind information about her past—or envision what her future might look like.

McKinnon may be the very first individual ever identified with a disorder called seriously lacking memory that is autobiographical. She understands loads of information about her life, but she does not have the capacity to mentally relive any one of it, the manner in which you or i may meander straight back inside our minds and evoke a particular afternoon. She’s got no episodic memories—none of these impressionistic recollections that feel a little like scenes from a film, constantly filmed from your own viewpoint. To modify metaphors: think about memory as being a favorite guide with pages that you come back to once more and once again. Now imagine access that is having to your index. Or perhaps the Wikipedia entry.

2. Paper Tigers (Wesley Yang, New York mag, might 2011)

Wesley Yang’s study of the stereotypes of this Asian American identity and just just just how Asian faces are identified ignited a number of conversations about how precisely we grapple with this upbringings and learn how to survive our very own terms.

I’ve for ages been of two minds about any of it series of stereotypes. Regarding the one hand, it offends me personally significantly that anyone would want to apply them in my opinion, or even to other people, merely on such basis as facial traits. Having said that, in addition it generally seems to me personally there are a complete great deal of Asian individuals to who they use.

I want to summarize my emotions toward Asian values: Fuck filial piety. Fuck grade-grubbing. Fuck Ivy League mania. Fuck deference to authority. Fuck humility and effort. Fuck harmonious relations. Fuck compromising money for hard times. Fuck earnest, striving middle-class servility.

3. How exactly to compose a Memoir While Grieving (Nicole Chung, Longreads, March 2018)

Nicole Chung contemplates loss, use, and working on a novel her late father won’t get to see.

I’ve never quoted Czeslaw Milosz to my parents — “When a writer exists into a grouped household, the household is finished.” — though I’ve been tempted a few times.

But I wasn’t actually born into my adoptive family members. As well as for all my reasoning and currently talking about use through the years, for many my certainty I had never really considered how my adoption — the way I joined my family, and the obvious reason for our many differences — would tint the edges of my grief when I lost one of them that it is not a single event in my past but rather a lifelong story to be reckoned with.

4. Unfollow (Adrian Chen, The Latest Yorker, November 2015)

Just just How social networking changed the thinking of the devout member of the Westboro Baptist Church, which pickets the funerals of homosexual males and of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Phelps-Roper found myself in a extensive debate with Abitbol on Twitter. “Arguing is enjoyable whenever you think you’ve got most of the answers,” she stated. But he had been harder to obtain a bead on than many other critics she had experienced. He had browse the Old Testament in its Hebrew that is original had been conversant into the New Testament also. She was amazed to see which he signed all their websites on Jewlicious because of the handle “ck”—for “christ killer”—as if it had been a badge of honor. Yet she discovered him engaging and funny. “I knew he had been wicked, but he had been friendly, therefore I ended up being specially wary, as you don’t desire to be seduced out of the truth by way of a crafty deceiver,” Phelps-Roper stated.

5. Just what a Fraternity Hazing Death Revealed About the Painful seek out A asian-american identification (Jay Caspian Kang,the latest York occasions Magazine, August 2017)

Jay Caspian Kang reports from the loss of Michael Deng, an university freshman whom passed away while rushing an Asian United states fraternity, and examines the real history of oppression against paper writing service Asians within the U.S. and just how it offers shaped a marginalized identification.

“Asian-­American” is just a mostly meaningless term. No body develops speaking Asian-­American, nobody sits down seriously to food that is asian-­American their Asian-­American parents and no body continues on pilgrimages back once again to their motherland of Asian-­America. Michael Deng and their fraternity brothers were from Chinese families and spent my youth in Queens, and additionally they have actually absolutely nothing in accordance beside me — an individual who was created in Korea and spent my youth in Boston and new york. We share stereotypes, mostly — tiger mothers, music classes while the unexamined march toward success, but it is defined. My upbringing that is korean discovered, has more in accordance with this associated with the young ones of Jewish and West African immigrants than compared to the Chinese and Japanese into the United States — with who I share just the anxiety that when certainly one of us is set up from the wall surface, one other will likely be standing close to him.

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[aastalkgens-blog]

Background~

The Asian American community has grown rapidly in the past few decades, following the passage of the 1965 Immigration Act. With an increase in immigration, an increasing number of individuals were exposed to a new culture. For many, it was difficult to find the balance between the new American culture and familiar Asian culture. Many first-generation immigrants clung on to their Asian culture, but second-generation immigrants assimilated the American culture quite quickly and relatively faster than the previous generation. These gaps between the generations even occur at other generational levels.This blog seeks to examine the different Asian American intergenerational relationships for to reveal the true relationships that Asian Americans have with their parents and/or grandparents. Tensions and conflicts may arise due to differences and clashes in beliefs, which lead to strained relationships and a higher risk of mental health issues.

Looking at immigrant families, the acculturation process varies across generations. Previous research shows that parents are more likely to hold on to the values and customs of their culture of origin. On the other hand, the children are more likely to accept the values and customs of the new culture. This leads to discrepancies in how each generation views different topics which can lead to the breakdown in communication and the differences can be exacerbated. Often times, there are intergenerational conflicts within Asian immigrant families.

Additionally, many children feel the need to adhere to the Asian ideal of filial piety because of the sacrifices that their parents made for them to be where they are in America today. This puts an enormous amount of pressure on the children and can have negative consequences for all parties involved, especially the children. Lastly, while the experience is applied to the broad generalization of Asian Americans, it is important that the different ethnicities have different experiences, so it inaccurate to homogenize them.