Above is a clip of Dave Chapelle’s stand-up talking about Asians (contains some swearing, probably NSFW.)

In it, he points out that Asians “have beef with other Asians,” and uses the example of mistaking a Korean person for a Chinese person. I have to say that this is an unfortunate truth in many cases, especially in the States. Many Asians are really proud of their heritage and are offended by being mistaken for another race.

From my experience it is because of this pride that causes Asians to butt heads with other Asians–comparing percentage level (i.e., a full-Japanese person has more authority over a half-Japanese person), acting like an authority on their race among a group of non-Asians, seeing who better plays into their racial stereotypes (wearing Hello Kitty, Fruits.) So it is no wonder that non-Asians will get a lot of angry reactions like Chapelle points out in the clip.

The thing is, you can’t expect non-Asian people to be able to tell the difference between a Thai face and a Chinese one. Even fellow Asians will get each other confused–my Japanese mom has been mistaken for Chinese and Vietnamese on several occasions (most likely because as an Okinawan she doesn’t look typically Japanese.)

I think there is nothing wrong with being proud of your heritage, but living in America means we get an interesting opportunity to come together and educate non-Asians on our own respective cultures–not use them to single each other out and see who is more pure or a better representative of stereotypes.

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Foxes | culture | Saturday, August 2nd, 2008 | Trackback