Admittedly anecdotal but I recall when my brother went on a school trip to Japan, him and his school mates were expected to do an embarrassing dance number akin to the Haruhi Suzumiya dance for the students of a Japanese school; I also recall folks who went to teach English in Japanese schools who were merely hired as aides to repeat what the teacher was saying but in a goofy manner. I was like “What a racist cult- oh wait we do that too”.

I remembered Ken Jeong and hearing him speak in an interview and was shocked he didn’t have that accent he puts on in his movies. I then remembered some Asian Americans who said you have to sell out deeply to be accepted in America, and if you say one thing that can be interpreted as pro-China (even calling out Japanese war crimes against China), you lose everything. We like our non-white Americans to be stereotypes and we get scared when we can’t otherize them; we’re also quick to distrust them.

  • Alaskaball [comrade/them, any]@hexbear.net
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    7 months ago

    Probably because I’m around an internationally diverse group of working class coworkers all the time I don’t have to do shit to “fit in”. Outside of the usual initial introduction bullshittery jokes that usually comes with saying I’m Korean, the most “foreigner humiliation” esque shit I ever really encounter is from the footsoldiers of Capitalism aka middle management and up. Petty boogie fucking gentrified white boy club that stay in their own social circles and are ever so surprised by reality every time they step outside of it and realize people that aren’t like their 2D personality selves aren’t all walking stereotypes.

  • vegeta1 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    7 months ago

    You wanna know a quick way us poc gain white friends in the west (or even from countries like south africa etc)? And I mean life long ones (and I don’t mean all of course but this problem is so widespread ) ? Trash your culture and virtues. (Oh my asian, black culture is so backward). Play up charicatures. For a bonus you get a pat on the head and called ‘one of the good ones’. These types are sneaky and try to ease you in with racial jokes. This is like a shit test to see if you’re really “down”. Or pretend you didn’t hear that.

  • TechnoUnionTypeBeat [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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    7 months ago

    The point about Kim Jeong is how I feel about Uncle Roger. I like cooking content on YouTube, but every time there’s any sort of Asian food involved someone references this minstrel show character as if some Malaysian stand-up comedian with a fake accent is the authority on all Asian cooking even if it’s neither Chinese or Malaysian

  • WhatDoYouMeanPodcast [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    7 months ago

    Of the two I would choose the dance number. A minute of dancing to old JPOP with students, especially if they’re younger than high school, sounds cute and good actually to me. If you’re going to learn about a culture, dance seems like a great place to start. Compared to what you described for Asian actors this seems incredibly light hearted and inviting.

    I can’t speak to the variable quality of being an aide, though it does sound like shit work to just repeat things. I wonder if it reflects the capability of that particular aide, a bias of the teacher, a culture of distrusting the aides, or any combination of the above.