Something I Think (A Lot) About

I was in a grocery store perusing the shelves of condiments and sauces when I saw a bottle of soy sauce whose logo was a Chinese man: the coolie hat, queue, little mustache, and unnaturally yellow skin.

I bought another brand of soy sauce. Its logo was written in "Chinese" font. I suppose that's a bit better.

***

During my first weeks in Denmark, I met a lot of new people. Naturally a common question is "Where are you from?" This time it came from a Danish girl I met briefly at a party.

I replied that I was from the United States.

"Oh but you're not American, are you?"

"I am."

***

I remarked in my facebook profile that I didn't realized how much I felt at home in America until I left it. I feel this most keenly when I am confronted with incidents surrounding race, in particular ways in race and ethnicity are not discussed in the States. It's something I think a lot about as I have addressed it here, here, here, and here. But none of those incidents directly concerned me as an individual. Today I am going to get really personal about exchanges I have had with people I know here in Århus.

Excerpt from the Study Abroad Handbook given to all MSU students when they go abroad. It represents not only the university's official recognition of race and ethnicity for its students abroad but I think typifies a sensitivity that many people have in general.

As in the United States, some societies and groups are more open to accepting diversity than others. People react differently to looks and behaviors they are not accustomed to or that appear unusual. Reports from students of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds are varied, from those who felt exhilarated by being free of the U.S. American context of race relations, to those who experienced different degrees of curiosity about their ethnicity.

While I have no illusions that the complexity of global race relations can be conveyed in a paragraph in a handbook, this excerpt describes most the kind of exchanges about race I have had in Århus: different degrees of curiosity about their ethnicity.Most of the time questions about my heritage are sincere. The atmosphere amongst exchange students is, for the most part, open and welcoming. Since we're all from different places, the people we meet have different customs and cultures.

But at other times I glimpse into the way race is conceptualized by people whose home countries have very different or altogether nonexistent dialogs about race. Most of the exchange students I know here come from ethnically homogeneous countries. That's just the fact. One student told me that it would be very rare to see a black person on the streets in her city.

It's one thing to simply note incidents of indirect racism and it's another to discourage such incidents from happening. Because indirect racism is subtle, it's all the more difficult to challenge, especially if the person expressing it is a friend. Not long ago, I did confront to an exchange student friend of mine about some racist humor that was circulated on facebook. No, confronted is not the right word. I merely made my known that I didn't think his joke about Asian people was funny. It was regarding the gesture is to pull one's eyes toward the side of one's head as if to emulate Asians.

The reaction I got was a common one: I was dismissed as lacking a sense of humor, overly sensitive. I wanted both my personal my feelings and the recognition of its offense to the wider Asian population to be acknowledged and but instead I was treated as if I was the one with the problem of not being able to take a joke.

I recognize that perhaps in other countries this gesture is an acceptable way to joke about a group of people. (Recall a Spanish basketball team photo in which every player gestured this way.) But I think this is very rude, childish, and tasteless. On the playground in elementary kids made slant-eye gestures but in later years made Jokes and gestures are time-honored way to mask poor judgment and pass on ignorance.

***

Coming back to my earlier comment about feeling at home in America. It's true. I really do feel at home there. I think our country is making sincere efforts to address race and ethnicity in meaningful ways. Of course at times I feel like some efforts are mere tokenism. Of course we're not living in a "post-race" country. But here in Århus, it's all the more evident to me that America is a multiracial and multiethnic society. Not only that but we recognize our diversity. but I am very glad for it.

All Chinese people wear coolie hats.

I follow the Disgrasian blog on my google reader and today the blog posted this AP photo from a German Rose Monday parade. (Like many European countries, Germany celebrates the days leading up to Lent with parades, dressing up, and other festivities.)
the

It's supposed to satirize U.S.-China ties. But srsly? Can we PUH-lease ditch the coolie hats?

Apparently not because Danes think Chinese people wear coolie hats too, specifically, Danes WHO HAVE ADOPTED CHILDREN FROM CHINA! I wish I had a photo of these shirts to show you all. I was at a Chinese New Year celebration at the Århus concert hall last Sunday. One of the tables set up in the foyer of the music hall was an organization of Danish parents who have adopted children from China. In addition to displaying pamphlets, they were also selling t-shirts with their organization's name and a "cute" graphic of an Asian child WITH A COOLIE HAT! Srsly?? Presumably all these parents had been to China to pick up their kids. Hm? Was everyone there wearing coolie hats? I think not

Getting to Denmark in More Ways than One

Last week I felt like I was living the idea of the "university student" because I went to a fascinating lecture on the origins of the state by a scholar in international affairs.

I may not have attended this lecture by Francis Fukuyama at the Kellogg Center last night if  Francis Fukuyama's picture had not been popping up on the Aarhus University homepage. I've been frequenting that website since it is where I will be studying abroad in the spring semester. Several months ago I noticed that he is Visiting Professor there.

Even though no doubt both Fukuyama and I are traveling to Denmark, Fukuyama is concerned with the modern state, which Denmark is represents. His lectures are titled "Getting to Denmark: Where the State, Rule of Law, and Accountable Government Come From". (It's same as the title as his forthcoming book, I think.) Basically, the premise is that Denmark is a mythical country with effective and uncorrupt institutions, peace, democracy, good living standards -- all the things that developing countries want. These three components: state, rule of law, accountable government are all necessary for political order.

Fukuyama's thesis is that ancient China was the first modern state. Other great civilizations at the time -- Romans, Egyptians, Mesopotamians -- were not modern states as he defines them. Basically a modern state is impersonal, administered by meritocratic bureaucrats who levy taxes, muster armies, redistribute land. It is not a patronizing society. He said that in a modern state, you don't hire your cousin to be the chief tax collector; you hire the person who is best at administering tax collections.
I thought this was a fascinating lecture, not only because it filled my heart with Chinese pride, because Fukuyama's broader approach to modern state. His examples were from ancient, like, 1000 B.C.E., Chinese history and similar times in Indian history.

While China was the first modern state, it is missing the rule of law and accountable government. Without these two, Fukuyama said that China is just a more perfect tyranny. This has its advantages and disadvantages. The government can do whatever it wants very quickly. Want to build a dam and displace three million people? Done. Want to build world's highest railway from to Tibet? Just do it. The millions of people who will be displaced can stamp their feet but their interests are ultimately not considered.

Initially I was disappointed that I would not be in East Lansing for his third and fourth lectures, as I will be in Denmark, of all places. But I found videos of previous versions of these lectures he gave at Johns Hopkins University.

His first lecture, which I didn't go to, was on the origins of the state. I mean, the origins, like from


Jumping back to my life, I'm literally going to Denmark in about a month and a half so I'm deeply mired in the logistics of setting up life there for six months. Over the weekend I booked my round trip flight to Copenhagen, January 3 to June 22, 2010.

Mixing metaphors

"She remembered Nana saying once that each snowflake was a sigh heaved by an aggrieved woman somewhere in the world. That all the sighs drifted up the sky, gathered into clouds, then broke into tiny pieces that fell silently on the people below. As a reminder of how women like us suffer, she'd said. How quietly we endure all that falls upon us."
- Khaled Hosseini A Thousand Splendid Suns

Earlier this evening swept away by this book. I picked it up from the bookstore intending to skim the first page and I was wrapped up in it for the next several hours, neglecting the homework I had spread out before me. It's a little bit like being out of control because I wanted to continue reading the book but I also had a lot on my to-do list. I would have finished A Thousand Splendid Suns in one sitting if the Barnes &Noble didn't close at 10pm.

The feeling captured in this quotation (and in much of A Thousand Splendid Suns) reminds me of a Chinese expression 命苦，literally a bitter life, as in to have a bitter life. This meaning of bitter is endurance through a lifetime of pain, grief, and harshness is used a lot in Chinese. I guess it's also used to some extent in English, though I think bitter more often describes cynical and rancorous outlook on life.

I admit Hosseini's plotlines are rather melodramatic but I can't deny that I was moved by stories of women against the backdrop of violence, political turmoil, and the snow-capped mountains.I think this is what drew me to A Thousand Splendid Suns rather than The Kite Runner, which explores the relationships among men, fathers, and sons.

It hasn't snowed yet this winter though I think it will soon. And when it does, I will think about the snowflakes. 

I want this in a picture frame on my desk

Today I found that my maternal grandparents were married in 1949. I also saw this photo of them.

My mom says that in China our family still has a clipping of their wedding announcement from the local Suzhou newspaper, the city where they got married.

And my mom was right all along when she insisted that my grandfather was very good-looking in his youth. He's hot stuff.

Sex and Asian American Families

*This is a long entry but writing it meant a lot to me, so I hope you will stay with it. Thanks.

I've got a million things to do right now but I came across this blog tonight that I can't stop reading: Asian American Health.

One entry highlighted in a very personal and touching way one girl's experience with sexuality and her parents' attitudes toward sexual activity. It's called "White Flowers: A Personal Take On Culture and Sexual Health".

The blogger writes that she became sexually active with her boyfriend at when she was 16. Then for some reason she missed her period twice, which made her panic even though she took six pregnancy tests that all turned out negative. In the time before her next period came, she considered an abortion, if she was indeed pregnant. But she also reflected on her parents' attitudes toward sex.

I recommend you read the whole (short) entry, but I'll just quote a bit from it now:
She writes, "when I told [my mom] I had a boyfriend, the first thing she said was that I was not allowed to kiss him or hold his hand, much less anything about sex.

Her mom's attitude toward dating and sexuality was neatly summed up in her insistence that her daughter shouldn't hold hands with or kiss her boyfriend. This seems almost laughable since that's the minimum what most people expect to do with a boyfriend. Holding hands and kissing are the most innocuous of romantic gestures. But seeing that those are her mother's expectations, it makes a discussion of sexual activity nearly impossible.

Then she writes about her pregnancy scare:
"My parents were pretty obviously absent from this experience. In the end, of course I got my period, but the white flowers always stuck with me because of how messed up it was that I seriously thought about self-inducing an abortion rather than talk to them. Looking back, five years later, I realized my anxiety was not over whether or not I was pregnant—week after week of negative results should have convinced me. Instead, I was terrified of my parents' reaction to me having sex."

While I can't say I have experienced the anxiety of suspecting I might be pregnant, I can relate to her inability to speak with her parents about sex. I wonder if I'm ever going to get a talk from my mom about sex. (Talking about it with my dad is out of the question. He may drop dead of discomfort instantly.) I've gotten very brief snippets throughout the years, but those were more about relationships. (I can have boyfriends as long as I "don't get too serious" and "don't get hurt".) But these talks never directly addressed sexual activity. I've never asked my mom, "Would you be okay if I had sex before I got married?" She never asked what I did with my boyfriend and I wondered what she thought we were doing.

I am relieved that my parents have a somewhat realistic expectations about my relationships. My mom is okay with kissing and holding hands because she saw us doing that and didn't object to it. (Though I'm embarrassed that she saw even that.) I won't generalize to say that Asian American parents all hold conservative values like my parents and the blogger's parents, but that makes at least two.

My parents' attitudes toward sex, and indeed anybodys, are in part due to the cultural norms. My parents grew up in China where the norms at that time were much more conservative. Even contemporary Chinese norms are much more conservative than the ones here in the U.S. but comparatively liberal since my parents were young.

But I think it's also important to add that attitudes about sex are also shaped by smaller circles of influence, our families and our individual experiences. Not all Americans subscribe to liberal attitudes about sex despite America's place as a key generator of these behaviors.

I think her experience and mine show a generational and cultural gap between Asian American parents and children when it comes to issues like sex, though certainly not limited to it. The silence doesn't mean that Asian American teens and young adults don't have to come to terms with their sexuality and their families.

*A version of this is crossposted at choiceusa.org/choicewords.

Deposed Little Emperors?

I'm seeing something of a pattern develop in my blog posts. NYTimes articles, China

It's been a day and a month since the 5/12 earthquake and I wished I had said something about this earlier but I have finally gotten around to it now. Though there has been much coverage of the earthquake, this article in from The Guardian, "Sichuan earthquake: Tragedy brings new mood of unity", will suffice to highlight some of the things I noticed about the earthquake response.

The outpouring of volunteerism surprised everyone. As in America, volunteers are generally people who can set aside some time and money (in lost income). This requires a certain amount of privilege. In China, this is generally college students because only the very smartest students can enter elite colleges and only their parents can pay for them. Zhang Qiyu interviewed in the article is a student at what the article called "an elite university in Beijing" and there are many in the capital. These examples in the Guardian article and others I have read give me great optimism that volunteerism will continue.

In recent years much of China has become many times wealthier, which would suggest that there should be more people giving up their time and resource for others with no material benefit. But since the early 80s, urban dwellers have been prohibited from having more than one child per couple. I've heard a lot of criticsm of this population policy, that singletons are selfish and coddled by the attention of many grandparents and relatives, that it will strain the public social security system as all nations will low birthrates have a small workforce to support a large aging population. A journalist coined these singleton children "little emperors". So now the one-child generation ismaturing, going to college, and entering the world. By these examples of young people being involved in their community, I hope it will calm some of the concern about this competitive and self-centered generation.

I also hope that mental health will be given more weight in China as well. As part of the earthquake efforts, psychologists were available as well as physicians. There is in no way China has nearly enough psychologists, psychiatrists, and therapists to serve all the people's needs. In addition, it will take much time and effort to dimish the stigma of mental illness and to make people view mental illness as a legitimate condition.

Supposedly my people eat everything.

I take the NYTimes as my primary source of information. I like it most of the time. I just read about a health disparity study and the Asian American model minority myth, and these articles got me thinking and I'm trying to form something coherent about it to write down later.

But sometimes the Times disappoints me. Like the most recent article I've read tonight was "Scorpions for Breakfast and Snails for Dinner". Perhaps making the Times the target of my frustration is somewhat misplaced, or more accurately, too narrow, since I find this generalization rampant throughout American culture.

The author sums up Chinese food as such, "Both Roy and Alice were born and raised here in China, where people eat anything. I’ve seen animal markets in the southern city of Guangzhou where vendors sell live porcupines, pangolins, badgers, crocodiles, cobras and civet cats, all destined for the tips of chopsticks in the city’s costlier restaurants." You know, if all the Chinese eat snails, there would be no more snails in the world. And what is a pangolin??

Some people who read this article are going to say that the warm fuzzy moral of this article is an admiration for the tough, enduring character of the Chinese people despite hardship and famine, as reflected in their non-fussy palate, blah blah blah.

Well the author evidently didn't love the Chinese culture so much as to continue to send his kids to Chinese schools. They went to a French school. His characterization of the Chinese through their food might call for praise of the people, but it continues to distance salmon and granola Americans from those Chinese who "eat everything". Even if this was an ode to the Chinese, it's a very backhanded one.

Furthermore, the author seems try to establish his children as being just like the locals and embracing Chinese culture, including its gustatory one by describing them eating all kinds of things I've never even seen on a menu. Why have I not seen these things on a menu? I don't think I've ever been to that expensive of a restaurant. The anecdote about trout skin was appropriate to describe the poverty level of the people who ate gross non-food items THEN. Now civets or whatever aren't the grub of poor people. It's what you take people to eat on the expense account and want to impress them.

Dear friends, I challenge you to find an article about Chinese cuisine that doesn't gross out its American readers about all the gruesome non-food items that the Chinese eat with relish.

At least the Chinese don't sit down with their family to eat dinner brandishing knives and spears. The pale-skinned people are such barbarians.

Freer Gallery - American and Chinese collections

Freer Gallery

I thought I had spent a long time in the Freer Gallery but now that I think about it, I didn't get there until 2 so I only had three hours until closing. Charles Freer made his fortune in the late 19th century in, I think, the railroad industry. But that's not the focus of my visit today. His business success is only what enabled him to spend the time and resources for his legacy that is the Freer Gallery, both the building and collection inside it.

The American Collection

Because I had heard of the Freer as a collection of Asian art, I was initially disappointed when I learned that the tour I was going on explained the American art collection. (And I was very irritated that a little girl of about 6 or 7 was on the tour only because she and her family used the Freer as a shelter to wait out the thunderstorm.) But then our docent began to talk about the collection. It consists mostly of Whistler paintings (and a few Dewing and Sargent) because Freer was a major patron of Whistler.

The crown jewel of the American collection, and perhaps of the whole museum if American art is your forte, is the Peacock Room. Since Whistler believed his art as studies of form and color more so than depictions of actual things and following Whistler's naming convention, I think this room should be called Composition in Teal and Gold. Every inch of the room is richly painted teal or gilded in gold. When I first walked into the room, it looked almost too busy. At one end of the room is a large gold painting of a pair of peacocks and three large panels along the adjacent wall also of peacocks. The wall color is a rich teal covered with a peacock feather motif, as is the ceiling. Built into the walls are also wooden shelves now also gilt to cover up the brown wood where porcelain plates and vases are displayed.

Only one or two galleries held American art. Freer had commissioned John Dewing to decorate the parlor of his home and those paintings are on display here now. The main colors are misty greens and the chief subject ethereal women and Dewing was like Whistler in wanting to create atmosphere more than object. "The fact that there are women in the painting is beside the point", said the docent. The focus of the series of Dewings was a four-panel folding screen. On each panel was a woman seated among green grasses. I thought it seemed familiar when I first saw it. The docent said that it was inspired by a Whistler screen now on owned by the DIA so maybe I had seen it there, or perhaps just something similar in a photo. The problem with the Dewing was that the gauzy effect made me feel like I was straining to see through a fog or that I needed new glasses.

I was not surprised that Leyland, the English businessman who commissioned the room to be decorated, was appalled by the final product. Leyland wanted a room to show off two things: A Japanese inspired Whistler painting of a white woman in a kimono and Leyland's collection of blue and white Ming porcelain but the painting and the porcelain are overpowered by the peacock motif and peacocks. In fact, teal and gold aren't present in either of those things. So Leyland refused to pay Whistler for the room and so here Whistler left his only narrative painting, since he cared about color and form only. It was inconsequential that his paintings showed people or identifiable "things". The painting of two peacocks shows one peacock with a ruffled neck and a wing outstretched pointing at the other peacock: the angry patron is dissatisfied with Whistler's work.

Incredibly and fortunately for us, the decorations on the walls of the room were never done on the actual masonry of the building but on wood panels basically stuck on to the stone so that it could have been removed from Leyland's house in London, installed in an addition to Freer's Detroit home especially built for it, then after Freer died, it dismantled again and finally reassembled in the Freer Gallery.

Interesting note: The courtyard of the Freer Gallery at some point held live peacocks too for visitors to see, but as the docent said, "They bit people, so they [the museum] had to get rid of them."

The Chinese Ceramics Collection

What to me, and I think most people, is so typical of "Chinese porcelain" was originally not from China at all. Blue and white porcelain became prize in China because it was exotic. China did not yet make blue glaze because it had not yet discovered cobalt. But artisans in the Middle East had blue glaze and Chinese traders brought back their work. So at first cobalt was imported to make blue glaze and after China excavated its own cobalt and production of blue and white porcelain began in earnest in the Ming dynasty(14th - 17th century), peaking in early Qing.

This visit changed the way I thought about Chinese porcelain. I was very surprised that not all fine porcelain is the blue and white variety popular since the Ming dynasty. There are few blue and white porcelains on display at Freer and the ones in the Peacock Room and those pieces weren't the focus. Porcelain making had been perfected since the Song dynasty (10th - 13th c) and through the Jin and Yuan dynasties as well during which pieces were white, black, or black and white.

Northern China doesn't seem to get the glam and glitz of the South. Silk, tea, and trade are all concentrated in the South and because of trade, southern coastal cities have always been, and still are, richer than the inland North. I had thought that porcelain production followed these lines because most people who know of only one porcelain kiln knows the name Jingdezhen, the city in Jiangxi province where this blue and white ware kiln is located. But the white Ding-ware was made in Hebei province.What I love about these pieces, besides their pure white color, is that they have finely carved and molded detail. (These pieces were fitted with a metal rim because the pieces were fired upside down, resting on their rims, to prevent sagging and distortion.)

My two favorites from the whole collection of Chinese porcelain are a bowl with thin molded lines radiating from the center and a plate with a lively scene of mandarin ducks and lily pads. I've completely fallen for white porcelain now for its understated beauty. Blue and white seems too loud.

Dish with Molded Decoration of Mandarin Ducks

China, Hebei Province, Ding ware
Jin Dynasty, 12th - 13th century
Porcelain with transparent ivory-toned glaze; metal rim

(click to enlarge)

Bowl
China, Hebei Province, Ding ware
Northern Song dynasty, 11th - early 12th century

Porcelain with transparent ivory-toned glaze

(click to enlarge)

Other than white clay with white glaze, southern China also made black porcelainware, though the dark glaze can actually range from dark brown to a shimmery iridescent black. The most prized Jian-ware, as they are called, has mottled or blossom-like patterns in the glaze.

Freer Gallery website: http://www.asia.si.edu/

Other things I saw but I didn't get a chance to talk about: Amazing Chinese calligraphy and brush paintings, Maxine Hong Kingston's inspiration for "Song of the Barbarian Reed Pipe", Japanese vs. Chinese tea bowls.

Yesterday I felt like a tourist, today an out-of-place college student.

Dear Friends,

Today I checked out my commute from GWU to K and 16th street. It's a 20-25 minute walk or just one stop on the Metro, but I'm going to try to walk as much as I can for the exercise. My route takes me up 23rd street, past the GWU hospital, turn right at Washington Square onto K street. Then it's straight along K from 23rd to 16th.

Along the way today the people I passed were mostly professionals. Most of the buildings along the way were office buildings and an occasional coffee shop or fast food restaurant that probably the people in these office buildings use. Many people I saw wore ID cards from their work around their necks or clipped on to their shirts. I wanted to see the name of some international organizations or federal agencies, but all the words were too small to read.

I'm at a Starbucks at the corner of K and 16th, next to the office building where I will work tomorrow. I'm here in part because I'm tired from walking around all afternoon, but also because I thought that a coffee shop would be a familiar place for me since in my mind college students are chief patrons of coffee shops, using them as places to study. (I wasn't looking for a Starbucks in particular, but I couldn't find this local coffee shop that I saw on google maps...) But this is not the case at this Starbucks nestled among office buildings. Of all the tables, there was only one occupied by two college-age girls studying. But this seems to be mostly used as a meeting place for people to talk business. Around me are young and middle aged people in suits and ties talking to each other or on cellphones or looking at their thick agenda planners. All this makes me feel anxious and giddy at the same time. I've never been around so many people in business dress. I feel as if I am leaving an academic environment for the first time in my life.

I have lived in China, Ann Arbor, and East Lansing. China in some ways seems like a very different place from the two college towns, but I feel that living in Washington D.C. this summer is totally unlike all those cities because I'm not in school, I'm working, and I'm far from my parents.

For all but a few years of my life I have attended school. I have finished 14 years of school, 15 including kindergarten. And I think I can say that I know what is expected in school. You read the assigned reading. You go to lecture. You participate in discussion. You see your professor and TA. You write papers and take exams. You study. You learn.

For all of my life, I have been surrounded by academia in one way or the other because my parents have always worked and still work at universities. But the specific cities and neighborhoods I have lived in are oddly similar. I've known are schools, universities, hospitals, and medical laboratories. I have always lived close to universities and in college towns. In China, we actually lived within the university campus, which is where most of the university employees lived. And of course Ann Arbor (especially now that Pfizer is gone) and East Lansing are dominated by universities. Everyone who hangs out in "downtown Ann Arbor" is also in Central Campus. I studied at UM libraries when I was still in high school in Ann Arbor. Our family friends also mostly work at UM too. I feel that all my life has been influenced by the university where my parents worked, where I know go, and the K-12 schools I had attended.

Despite having finished two years of college in East Lansing, this will be the longest time during which I will not see my parents for nearly three months. I know that people who go to college out-of-state have probably already experienced this, but it's new for me that my parents won't be able to help me much. They can't buy groceries or pack me food they made. They can't do my laundry.

I have never worked a 9-5 job before or a job not in a laboratory environment. (My job here is technically 10 to 5.) I have worked as a research assistant in medical research labs and even then it was only part-time while taking classes too. Lab work suddenly seems so hand-on, dealing with animals, machines, and equipment. The difference in dress code is a very noticeable difference. The dress code maximizes comfort and utility because you're working with chemicals, bodily fluids, and animals. Perhaps all the work I will do here is "paperwork" not in the sense that it's office work but that they are policies and laws. I'll have to refer to my work location as "the office" and not "the lab". This will be a huge change.

I'm actually dressed more like a tourist right now, of which there aren't many on these streets, because I wanted to be comfortable walking. I wanted to blend in with the business dress crowd I was walking amongst, but not today. Tomorrow I start working and I might actually look like one of them.