The #NotYourAsianSidekick hashtag and lessons on Asian stereotyping

©Connie J. Sun

On Sunday evening a Twitter friend called my attention to the hashtag #NotYourAsianSidekick originated by freelance writer Suey Park. The tweets kickstarted an ongoing conversation on feminism, sexism, racism and stereotypes faced by the Asian-American community, and, according to AlJazeera, the hashtag was tweeted nearly 50,000 times in the space of one day.

Even the BBC picked up the trend and announced: #NotYourAsianSidekick  goes global. BuzzFeed also published a summary of tweets.

To me the discussion generated by the hashtag felt a little over-ambitious and too wide in scope to lead to any conclusive outcomes, but I guess the value of the debate was in raising awareness rather than providing immediate solutions.

Perhaps the most effective thing the hashtag did on Twitterverse was to simply highlight how much discontent lay buried underneath the seeming "quiet" façade of Asian Americans. But the discussion didn't stay contained within the US. Asians from all over the world enthusiastically jumped onto the hashtag bandwagon and aired their frustrations on Twitter.

The simmering anger within the community was palpable and really struck a chord with me.

Not every Asian is Chinese
It reminded me I recently ranted on Twitter and Facebook that I was not Chinese, that automatically calling an Asian person Chinese was racist, offensive and off-putting. Friends and colleagues found it hilarious and asked me what had happened for me to go so public with it.

For the record, I am NOT Chinese, ok? Automatically calling an Asian-looking person Chinese is racist, rude and offputting. 'nuf said.
— Chie Elliott (@OrangeBlossomer) December 7, 2013

Someone I had met on Twitter had sent me a patronising email about a blog post I'd written, and, to make matters worse, said they thought I was Chinese, which pushed me over the edge. On my Twitter profile I specifically state that I am Japanese Brazilian, but they still labelled me Chinese.

It wasn't the first time I was told that, nor will it be the last, but it grates with me every time.

The faux pas don't normally stop there. First dates with me are often like this:

Man: "So...you speak Mandarin?"
Me: "Erm..no. I'm not Chinese. I speak Japanese. I was born and grew up in Brazil, but my parents are Japanese."
Man: "Oh wow, you must speak Spanish too then?"
Me: "No, Brazil is the only South American country where Spanish is not spoken."
Man: "Sorry, I meant Brazilian."
Me: "Erm...Brazilian is not a language... Did you mean Portuguese?"

Needless to say by this point I am so dismayed by my date's cultural ignorance, any chance of a second date has gone well down the drain. Guys, if you are ever taking an Asian woman out, do your friggin' homework first!

Sushi, kimonos and geisha fantasies
Even for those who luckily passed the first test of getting the languages right, soon comes the next pitfall question: "Can you cook sushi?"

When I was newly married, my husband also asked me if I could make sushi so he could invite and impress his friends. I asked him why they should be impressed, and he said, "Well, I now have a Japanese wife." In his head Japanese wives made sushi.

The first thing that came to my mind was this image of a geisha, clad in a kimono, delicately rolling sushi rice and serving her husband's guests, with white paint on her face, saying very little, shuffling her small feet, being quietly admired as some kind of a fetishist object of white male desire.

Please... It makes me want to puke. Are all Filipinas internet brides? If you want sushi, go to a sushi restaurant! I'll cook you a wicked Italian lasagne instead.

Stereotyping is often sexist, chauvinistic and insensitive, but, above all, it is a sign of gross cultural ignorance.

First of all, sushi is not the only dish in Japanese cuisine, and it is usually only made at home on special occasions. Secondly, if you are born Japanese you don't automatically know how to make sushi. You may not even necessarily speak the language (because sometimes Japanese people are born outside Japan), and you certainly don't wear kimonos all the time. In fact I have never worn one and wouldn't know how to wear one either.

Finally, Asian women are not all subservient geisha types. And geishas, by the way, are not prostitutes, in case you were thinking the two were interchangeable.

Ni hao my a*se!
One of the most irritating things that can happen when I'm outside, in the street, is someone passing by in their car, shouting "Ni Hao", which is hello in Chinese. I don't acknowledge nor respond, as I consider it a racist taunt, but I have to take a deep breath and count slowly to 10 to stop myself from shouting an expletive there and then.

Below are two tweets from Tracey (@txc84), which I endorse:

Myth: we're all Mandarin-speaking Chinese. Pro tip: it's never OK to go up to a random Asian stranger & say "ni hao." #NotYourAsianSidekick
— Tracie (@txc84) December 15, 2013

White people on online dating sites, stop asking me out for sushi on a first date. I'm allergic to seafood. 😝 #NotYourAsianSidekick
— Tracie (@txc84) December 15, 2013

The other day a colleague asked me if a Thai publisher would translate a certain piece of text into "Thai-wanese". I did not correct them but my heart sank, as it was so representative of how little people actually know about Asian cultures and languages, which are widely different from each other.

Our joke is not your joke
Once, upon returning from a business trip to Korea, in a previous job, I was asked if I had eaten dog. A senior member of the sales team even joked at a Sales Conference about having dog for a meal in Korea, while I cringed in my seat. Had I been of Korean descent, I would have left the room.

I work in International Sales, and every single member of our team is non-British. We wind each other up with racist jokes all the time and laugh our heads off but no one takes offence. That is more or less the equivalent of a group of Muslim friends calling each other terrorists among themselves, for a laugh. Minority groups' jokes are only funny within that circle. As soon as an outsider says it, it becomes an offensive racist slur so watch out what you say and where.

Teaching acceptance
As a woman, I am often at the receiving end of unwanted attention from men who are "into Asian girls". Nine times out of 10 their illusions about Asian girlfriends/wives are completely distorted, unrealistic and, quite frankly, laughably naïve. I can smell them from miles away and avoid them like a plague.

They may think they are being non-discriminatory and non-racist, even somewhat "superior", by going to the other extreme and being obsessed with anyone and anything Asian. They are in love with a fantasy image of what they think Asians are like, often based on fiction, movies and stereotypes they grew up with.

Understanding other cultures, taking a genuine interest in their customs, their values, language and history is the only way stereotyping can be reduced, equality can be achieved and different races can freely interact without causing offence.

These changes should start, as the hashtag #NotYourAsianSidekick pointed out, with the media, but schools and playgrounds also need to strive for complete racial integration and a multi-cultural education for our children. If a child can be taught to be curious about and accepting of differences in others, as opposed to being judgemental, they will also learn to respect the fact that they too are unique and different from their peers and that being different is perfectly okay.

Colour blind
Living in multi-racial London opportunities abound for meeting people from every corner of the world. My own circle of friends is "borderless" and consists of people of virtually all nationalities and ethnicities. When I look at them I see one colour only, the colour of human souls, but I am painfully aware most people are not like that.

People have an instinctive need to stick labels on everyone they meet, pigeonholing them into this or that stereotype, as we tend to feel uncomfortable with what we do not know. I wonder if we are uncomfortable because we were brought up to think that it is shameful to ask questions, to say "please tell me about you and show me something about your culture as I want to learn".

Ask
If you are not sure, don't assume. Ask. We may not be your Asian sidekicks but we make very good, interesting friends, lovers and...why not..wives. And, if you ever did unwittingly cause offence, have the humbleness to apologise and ask to be corrected. I promise you it will open up a whole new world for you that will enrich your life.

Whatever you do, don't cowardly walk away, and don't unfollow/block people on social networking sites just because they made you realise there are gaps in your knowledge of the world. Ask questions, talk, debate, learn.

More, not less communication, is the first step towards dispelling myths and ignorance. I thank Suey Park for reminding us.

International Women's Day: some random thoughts

Today is International Women’s Day, a day for remembering and celebrating the achievements of women past, present and future.

The fact that there isn’t an International Man’s Day seems like an indication that women have always had it much harder than men to get to the same places.

Men certainly seem to dominate the upper echelons of print and broadcast journalism and although some of my favourite journalists are in fact female, their careers seem to be generally blighted by sexism and ageism, which get better or worse, depending on what the part of the world they work in.

Age concerns
It wasn't that long ago that BBC boss Mark Thompson came under fire for replacing a mature female judge in a popular dance show with a pop star 36 years her junior.

The fact that in television, older, grey-haired male presenters carry on commanding respect well into their retirement age, whereas their female counterparts get sidelined as their age starts to show, could be a reflection of a society's warped views about women, and not exclusive to the industry.

Women's value and employability should not be conditional to age or appearance, but women in highly "visible"jobs such as television or film, do not always have a choice.

Anna Ford (photo right), a journalist worshipped by her male peers as something nearing a sex goddess in her heydays, decided to retire in April 2006, at 62, saying:

"I might have been shovelled off into News 24 to the sort of graveyard shift.”

But I am placing my bets we would be perfectly happy to accept a geriatric Paxman on a zimmerframe presenting Newsnight.

The BBC announcing the recruitment of “older female newsreaders” soon after the Strictly Come Dancing judge swap saga, strikes me as being laughable. I can visualise a screaming headline: “Older women join ethnic minorities and the disabled under positive discrimination scheme.” Or, more bluntly, as The Independent put it: Must be Female. Young Need Not Apply.

The future is not orange
The very idea that women are so vulnerable they need to be placed in a special category of their own is preposterous.

I worked for many years in publishing and have always been outraged by the existence of the Orange Prize for Fiction, a literary prize awarded solely to women. Some might say it provides women authors with an extra opportunity to have their work recognised. My view is that it implies women writers are so lacking in talent that competing for the Man Booker Prize alone doesn't suffice.

It is most unfortunate that the current sponsors of the unisex Man Booker Prize are an investment company called Man Group, giving the prize its present name. Had they not decided to retain the “Booker” from its original name, Booker-McConnell Prize, the country's most prestigious literary prize for fiction would simply be called Man Prize.

It is ironic when you think women read more fiction than men.

Too many women spoil the broth
Publishing may be a sub-sector under the media umbrella, and pay equally poorly at entry level, but unlike in print and broadcast journalism, women reign in the world of books .

In an industry known for the predominance of female workers it is not uncommon for women to climb their career ladders to become directors and publishers in their 30s and 40s. A female-dominated industry can make it easier for women to break the glass ceiling; it may even offer better working conditions, such as flexitime for working mothers and good maternity leave terms, but publishing also has its drawbacks.

For young, single female workers hoping to meet future partners at a book fair or book launch party, the prospects of finding an eligible bachelor among the married and gay men are dire. Let's put it this way: book fairs and book launch parties are not exactly a speed dating scene.

Had I known this in my early 20s, I might have chosen journalism sooner. The idea of being able to approach an intellectual-looking sub in a newsroom to consult about the correct use of commas is a major turn-on compared to the girls' club that publishing is.

Women in uniforms
Some women-dominated professions seem to deceptively put them in a position of power, when they are the ones most susceptible to malicious exploitation.

I am thinking of nurses and flight attendants. The uniform makes them look as if they were in a position of control, and yet they are less threatening to men than an executive woman in a power suit. This seems to enhance their sex appeal.

Perhaps you will remember Virgin Airlines' 25th anniversary "Still red hot" TV advert. A group of model-like gorgeous flight attendants march down the airport with the pilot, wearing the airline’s red suit – short skirts and red pin heels – while men ogle, drop phones and hamburger fillings in astonishment. The ad concludes with a passenger saying, “I need to change my job,” and the other “I need to change my tickets.” Despite complaints that it was sexist and insulting to women, the Advertising Standards Authority dismissed them, saying the ad was " unlikely to be seen as a realistic depiction of the profession", as reported in The Guardian.

We may be well aware real-life stewardesses don't actually dress or walk like the ones in the Virgin ad, but it does add fire to some people's fetishist fantasies.

Flight attendants working for Japan Air Lines (JAL), the bankrupt airline recently rescued by the Japanese government, are facing not only the risk of losing their jobs but the double humiliation of having security chips sewed on to their uniforms to prevent them from selling them to the black market when they've been laid off. The story was broken by Sky News and appeared in The Times, The Telegraph and the The Daily Mail.

Last week the carrier announced 400 cabin crew jobs would be axed, and the local sex industry was already going into a frenzy to lay their hands on their uniforms for customers keen on role-playing. A JAL suit on online auction sites are said to be selling for thousands of pounds. Go figure.

Bras on fire
Is there a solution to women being exploited, patronised or sidelined because they look too sexy, too vulnerable or too old? Should we be stomping off to Westminster to burn our bras in front of Parliament like the feminists of the 60s? What would we achieve? What do we want to achieve?

I guess no single answer can sum it all up, as each woman has her own battle to fight. For some, it may be as basic as learning how to write their name so they can access better opportunities (65% of the world's illiterate population are women). There is still so much work to be done.

Whatever it is that may be constricting women from achieving their right to achieve, be it a brasserie they can easily unhook, or a social stigma or discrimination that are harder to undo overnight, today is a day for reviewing milestones past before we set goals for the future.

The long path already travelled, makes us what we are today, collectively, for we women are more powerful than we imagine.

As Alice Walker said:

"The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any."