This is so interesting to me, because I am constantly in a state of awareness of my Asiaphilia - fairly minor, I'm no otaku, but I do like food and Pucca and kimono and the general, to my eyes, weirdness - mostly because I keep having Asian people in my life. And I'm very, very conscious that I am conscious that they are Asian, that sometimes I really want to ask them more about their culture, and that sometimes they will just say "I don't know" or change the subject because they don't want to be a performing bear. I'm constantly torn between wanting to know more, and also how to do things *right*, and not treating them like research specimens. The majority of my Chinese friends have been raised in the West, but they are fundamentally very much Chinese on one level - one they seem to want to keep private - and it's both frustrating and understandable. My Japanese friend grew up there, and is a mine of fascinating information about cultural difference and her own unpleasant experiences here (in NZ), but very much on her own terms. Sometimes I find myself wanting to talk about some Japanese strangeness I have just discovered online, but sensing she's just not into being Miss Representative Japan today.
I sometimes wonder if the nutty desire to know more and more comes from my own cultural cringe, for one thing - NZers of my age traditionally thought of other cultures as "better" and those of us with pretentions to sophistication want to get it "right" - and also the awareness of the double edge Asian people, especially Japanese people, bring to NZ society. Our granddads shot their granddads, and vice versa. So it's all a bit... on tippy toe, for me.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2006-05-09 03:00 am (UTC)This is so interesting to me, because I am constantly in a state of awareness of my Asiaphilia - fairly minor, I'm no otaku, but I do like food and Pucca and kimono and the general, to my eyes, weirdness - mostly because I keep having Asian people in my life. And I'm very, very conscious that I am conscious that they are Asian, that sometimes I really want to ask them more about their culture, and that sometimes they will just say "I don't know" or change the subject because they don't want to be a performing bear. I'm constantly torn between wanting to know more, and also how to do things *right*, and not treating them like research specimens. The majority of my Chinese friends have been raised in the West, but they are fundamentally very much Chinese on one level - one they seem to want to keep private - and it's both frustrating and understandable. My Japanese friend grew up there, and is a mine of fascinating information about cultural difference and her own unpleasant experiences here (in NZ), but very much on her own terms. Sometimes I find myself wanting to talk about some Japanese strangeness I have just discovered online, but sensing she's just not into being Miss Representative Japan today.
I sometimes wonder if the nutty desire to know more and more comes from my own cultural cringe, for one thing - NZers of my age traditionally thought of other cultures as "better" and those of us with pretentions to sophistication want to get it "right" - and also the awareness of the double edge Asian people, especially Japanese people, bring to NZ society. Our granddads shot their granddads, and vice versa. So it's all a bit... on tippy toe, for me.