Photo (of a Singaporean beaten up in London for illustration purposes) :
An unfortunate counterbalance to this luck and circumstance is to be Asian, living in a Western country. As you will hear from the growing chorus of those telling their story, I’ve been called a chink, a gook, a charlie. I have been asked countless times “where I really come from” and I have been told to “go back to where I came from”. I have been told that my face is too flat, that I could be blinded by a shoelace, and asked whether I see in widescreen. I have been beaten to the point of being unconscious for being Asian and having a nice phone, and ironically, on a separate occasion was accused of stealing people’s phones because I was Asian and had a nice phone. At McDonalds, I was once asked if I was in the wrong place because “they don’t serve sushi here.”
These taunts have ranged from entirely innocent to clearly malicious, but intention has no correlation with impact. On my first day of school, kids sung the timeless classic, “Ching Chong Chinaman,” and I joined in because I didn’t realise they were singing it at me, not with me (I realised when I was chased and spat on shortly thereafter). I was told by a girl I kissed in high school that her parents applauded her because ‘they feel sorry for you, because… you know… well…Asian guy…’ (How fortunate I had been to receive such charity.) When ‘Gangnam Style’ became a hit in 2012, it went from being the proudest I’ve ever felt to be Korean, to the realisation that Korean culture was not being celebrated, but being made a joke of - I couldn’t go to a pub without being asked to ‘do the dance’, like a monkey in a cage seeking approval. In the past year alone, I have been spat on and sneered at and had to wonder whether I had done something wrong, or whether it was because of, well… what I suspect it was because of. My whole life, I have been taught that to be an Asian man is to be lesser, and that to be spat on, trod on and degraded is par for the course. Suck it up, princess.
On all of the above, my story is sadly common, however being adopted made matters even more confusing for me. I lived with white parents, in what I would describe as a ‘white suburb’, eating what you may describe as ‘typical white people food’ while doing ‘typical white people stuff’. If you are white and live in a similar environment, imagine if someone were to ask you “why do all Asians smell weird?”, or “why are all Asians good at math?” or “do all Asians do kung-fu?” When it all started, my answer was “I don’t know, why don’t you ask them?” But I quickly realised that for no other reason but the colour of my skin, I was them, and I would need to answer on behalf of them (us), and I would ride the shame or glory of whatever they (we) did.
I quickly grew resentful of our differences, and felt I had to buck the trend. By high-school I had learned that the secret to success in this country is to “be less different”. I refused to hang out with groups of Asians (because, how embarrassing!) except for a few other adopted Korean mates and other Aussie born Asians that were in retrospect, going through the same struggle I was. I rejected the idea of going for Asian girls (because, how gross!) and pinned myself to the idea of dating a white girl, a goal that I would rarely realise.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/growing-up-australia-racism-how-i-finally-learned-respect-tom-sorrell
https://forums.fuckwarezone.com.sg/...n-australia-treated-worst-than-a-dog.6846534/
An unfortunate counterbalance to this luck and circumstance is to be Asian, living in a Western country. As you will hear from the growing chorus of those telling their story, I’ve been called a chink, a gook, a charlie. I have been asked countless times “where I really come from” and I have been told to “go back to where I came from”. I have been told that my face is too flat, that I could be blinded by a shoelace, and asked whether I see in widescreen. I have been beaten to the point of being unconscious for being Asian and having a nice phone, and ironically, on a separate occasion was accused of stealing people’s phones because I was Asian and had a nice phone. At McDonalds, I was once asked if I was in the wrong place because “they don’t serve sushi here.”
These taunts have ranged from entirely innocent to clearly malicious, but intention has no correlation with impact. On my first day of school, kids sung the timeless classic, “Ching Chong Chinaman,” and I joined in because I didn’t realise they were singing it at me, not with me (I realised when I was chased and spat on shortly thereafter). I was told by a girl I kissed in high school that her parents applauded her because ‘they feel sorry for you, because… you know… well…Asian guy…’ (How fortunate I had been to receive such charity.) When ‘Gangnam Style’ became a hit in 2012, it went from being the proudest I’ve ever felt to be Korean, to the realisation that Korean culture was not being celebrated, but being made a joke of - I couldn’t go to a pub without being asked to ‘do the dance’, like a monkey in a cage seeking approval. In the past year alone, I have been spat on and sneered at and had to wonder whether I had done something wrong, or whether it was because of, well… what I suspect it was because of. My whole life, I have been taught that to be an Asian man is to be lesser, and that to be spat on, trod on and degraded is par for the course. Suck it up, princess.
On all of the above, my story is sadly common, however being adopted made matters even more confusing for me. I lived with white parents, in what I would describe as a ‘white suburb’, eating what you may describe as ‘typical white people food’ while doing ‘typical white people stuff’. If you are white and live in a similar environment, imagine if someone were to ask you “why do all Asians smell weird?”, or “why are all Asians good at math?” or “do all Asians do kung-fu?” When it all started, my answer was “I don’t know, why don’t you ask them?” But I quickly realised that for no other reason but the colour of my skin, I was them, and I would need to answer on behalf of them (us), and I would ride the shame or glory of whatever they (we) did.
I quickly grew resentful of our differences, and felt I had to buck the trend. By high-school I had learned that the secret to success in this country is to “be less different”. I refused to hang out with groups of Asians (because, how embarrassing!) except for a few other adopted Korean mates and other Aussie born Asians that were in retrospect, going through the same struggle I was. I rejected the idea of going for Asian girls (because, how gross!) and pinned myself to the idea of dating a white girl, a goal that I would rarely realise.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/growing-up-australia-racism-how-i-finally-learned-respect-tom-sorrell
https://forums.fuckwarezone.com.sg/...n-australia-treated-worst-than-a-dog.6846534/
