*Bealtes*

AmoroAgain

I've been waiting to see you post all day because I need to do a bit of grovelling. 

I'm very sorry to have offended you with the Chinglish thing yesterday.  I have a hard time understanding the offended part of it because everyone I've ever known of a different ethnicity than mine has been more of the "confrontational" when jokes are misused, but they generally don't get up in arms about stuff like this.  My Pakistani bf in college called himself a coconut, and as a Muslim he took a lot of crap.  Instead of getting upset, he'd try to educate.

When we lived in Italy, my H was confronted several times by Italians pretending to be funny and making Asian eyes at him, or speaking in faux Chinese.  H would just calmly look at them and say, "You look/sound like a dumbass" and they person would just look embarrassed and walk away. 

Everyone I've ever known has used either humor or intelligence to deal with any ethnic slurs instead of anger, so I guess that's how I approach it too.  When you treat a subject with humor, I suppose I've felt that it becomes less "serious" and people start seeing how silly it is to make fun of someone for something so minute.

However, this doesn't excuse the response I gave you, and I'm sorry.  This doesn't mean that Chinglish won't pop up from time to time between a select few people, but I really don't want you to be offended by it.  I also didn't think of any sort of influence I might have over the rest of the board because, well, that just seems silly to me.  But, it definitely could happen. 

Anyway, I hope that you understand it wasn't meant in a negative way.

beatlesgirl25

Well thanks, Amoro. I really appreciate you coming back to say more about it, because it's been on my mind too. And sorry in advance for the novel, I just have a lot to say about this I guess.

I agree that humor is a great tool to use for things like this. I think where we were differing in our views on it is in how the humor is being utilized. For me, there is joking about the stereotypes that are commonly held, which usually are based in some sort of truth, and the other way is in imitating and impersonating a person of that race. I use the former, and consider the ROR stuff the latter.

So I definitely do use humor, and it's mostly among my friends who are in the Korean community. Like my fellow half-Koreans call each other "halfers," like heifers, and I'm in an FB group called, "You know you're Korean-American if..." It's fun and generates a sense of camaraderie and familiarity to share things like that with people who are from the same cultural background. I think it's hilarious to share stories about being embarrassed to go to buffets with our Korean parents and grandparents, because they will go home with a purseful of "free" napkins and sugar packets. And I have non-Asian friends who can joke with me about this stuff too, like asking me if I can get Lucy Liu's autograph at the next "meeting." I will joke with anyone about stuff like that.

I don't mean for this to sound like, "you can only joke about it if you're Asian," because I don't agree with that either. I'm trying to say that the way I joke about it is different than how others (including Asians and white people) might feel is acceptable. Like the second way of using humor that I mentioned: imitation and impersonation.

I've never been a big fan of the humor of imitating racial stereotypes, like what those Italian men were doing to your H. I really admire the way he handled it, and I would have done the same thing, but it still would have made me mad. As a child, my features looked more Asian than they do now, and I was mocked a lot because of it, even though I am very proud of my heritage. It just doesn't feel funny when the making fun is in a derogatory way.

So I won't compare your use of Chinglish to the Italian men's behavior, because you didn't mean it that way and clearly you love Asians (or at least one of them very much, haha). But other people do mean it in a derogatory way, and when they see others do it, it normalizes it for them. When I hear people say, "flied lice" and shitt like that, it makes me livid. I've seen people mock my mom and her use of English, and that's what I think of when I hear that. AND it's usually done by illiterate fuucks (not you guys) who hardly have a grasp on the language they were born with, let alone two languages like my mom has had to learn.

beatlesgirl25

Oops, forgot the rest...

So again, thank you for discussing this further with me. And I think we are both coming from the same place with it and want to joke as a way to deflect actual haters. I can get behind that, and I know others will still make the jokes. It just felt wrong for me to not say anything and wonder if others like me were feeling the same way but unable to say anything. I mean, I've been here a long time, but I was still nervous bringing it up because the majority of the people posting seemed to be having so much fun with it. I can only imagine what it would be like for a lurker or newb to get the courage to say something.