Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: societal norms

Gender and society in general, part six

Posted on by • 0 Comments

Let’s talk more about gender as it affects how I act in society. In my post yesterday, I wrote about how the label ‘agender’ seems to freak out some people even more than being trans. It surprises me, even though it shouldn’t. Anyone who wants out of the societal norms is looked upon with suspicion.

You would think I would have learned after the negative reac9tions I received to being bi and to not wanting children, but I’m a slow learner. Plus, each big issue only happened every five years or so, so it wasn’t as if I had constant reminders of how out of the norm I was on the big issues.

By the time I reached thirty, I knew better than to talk my mad shit in casual company. As I accrued more and more weirdo traits (not wanting to get married, not wanting to be in a longterm monogamous relationship (being ENM), and not wanting to live with anyone, for example), I kept it to myself. Oh, let’s not forget Taiji weapons and now Bagua. I’m specifying weapons because Taiji in and of itself isn’t that strange. Well, at least the Westernized vision of it. It’s pretty funny, though, that the one movement that is always featured in any movie/TV show which Taiji in it is my least-favorite movement.

It’s called Cloud Hands (more like Moving hands like clouds, but Cloud Hands is the shortened verison), and it pretty easy to do it in a basic fashion. In other words, you can look like a master fairly quickly with this one miracle posture, er….

Of course, if you want to do it well, it takes longer to truly master. That’s a given, and not really the point of this post.

One of the reason I don’t talk about certain things is because I know that I have it easier than other people do. At the same time, being ignored/invisible/denied existence is a special kind of hell on its own. And I do have to deal with bullshit even if it’s not life-and-death bullshit.

So now the newest thing is being agender. If I was thirty years younger, I probably would have reluctantly embraced nonbinary. It’s not really me, though. It’s still a gender, which is not what I want. I am not interested in gender, much as I am not interested in religion. When I was thinking about religion and my (non) relationship to it, I really didn’t like atheist for several reasons. One, I did not have that kind of confidence that there was nothing bigger out there. I mean, to me, it was more ridiculous to believe the Big Bang Theory came out of nowhere. You mean to tell me there was absolutely nothing and then BAM! We get the earth? (Yes, I know there are more steps in there, but no matter what steps exist, it’s still unbelievable to me that it came out of nothing.)


Continue Reading

Speaking out tactfully, part four

Posted on by • 0 Comments

I want to talk more about knowing when to speak up and how. It’s something that many neurodivergent people struggle with. I have less issues with it than most because I was taught at a very young age that what other people thought/felt was more important than what I thought/felt. In other words, I was always tailoring myself to other people. There was a time in my thirties whwen I swung to the other extreme and said my opinion much more than I really needed to. Even to this day, if I get a hair up my ass about something, I will defend it to the death. Even if it’s better for me to back off. Even if it’s such a small thing in the big picture, that I would be better off stepping down. In fact, sometimes, I think it’s when something is small potatoes that I find it easier to let loose.

I get mad at myself when I lose control over my temper over some silly little thing. In the past, I had a very tight rein on my temper and it took a lot to make me lose it. After my medical crisis, though, I lose it much more easily. I’m pretty sure it has something to do with my stroke, but I can’t say for sure.

I envy people who just talk fearlessly. Who have no misgivings about saying whatever is on their mind. I’m not sayng it’s a good thing overall as filters exist for a reason. Also, oftentimes, what they say is shit. But since they say it with such confidence, it’s taken as fact. There have been many studies that show how far you can get with just a clipbord and a confident demeanor. Alarmingly so, actually. Therre are many reasons for it, but the bottom line is that it works.

That was not what this post was about, though, so I’ll set it aside.

When I was in my twenties, I tried to hard to contort myself to fit in with other people. To an embarrassing degree. Taiji has helped me correct that to a certain extent, but I’m still way too much of a people pleaser. It’s one reason I like being on my own most of the time. That’s when I can just relax and be me.

Back to speaking out. In the last post, I talked about how it’s better not to go full bore when you’re with people you don’t know well. The problem is that many people  aren’t aware of their surroundings and/or don’t have a very high EQ. The latter is something that appears common for neurodivergent people, but it can happen to anyone. I mean, it’s more of an issue with neurodivergent people, but there are plenty of neurotypical people who have low EQ as well.

It’s hard to say how difficultI would find it if I hadn’t been trained to put others first since I was a kid. It’s so second nature to me by now, sadly. But I’m working on finding the middle between always thinknig about others and only thinking about myself. I’m not sure where that line is, but I try to stay on the right side of it.

Continue Reading

Knowing the line before you trip over it

Posted on by • 0 Comments

In the Discord I’m in, there have been two instances of guys (relevant) tripping over the invisible line of what is and isn’t (silently) acceptable in the Discord. I’ll call them John and Bob. I want to talk about it because it’s part of how people are instinctively supposed to know the line when it comes to jokes in any given group. And the penalty can be harsh when people get it wrong.

The first person had never posted before and went right to two channels and posted a long post about some fan fic he had written that was, ah, shall we say NSFW. I did not read them because of the explanation he had given before posting the link (was NOT touching that with a ten-foot pole). He posted it in two places, which were the right channels for it if it were simply something he had written. But, given what it was and his long-winded explanation (including other examples), it was very much not a good first impression.

When called on it, he defended himself by saying that it was similar to the grot the content creators exchanged with each other on the regular. I’ll let that sit there for a minute while I exlpain the other much more complicated situation.

The second guy, Bob, has been around for a while. He doesn’t post very often, but when he does, he manages to piss someone off almost every time. One time, it was me when it was right after the American election, and he was acting as if he were a political savant when the truth was that he didn’t even live in this country. I’m not saying people outside the country  can’t comment on the election, but they certainly don’t know what it’s like for an American, especially for a triple minority like me. He himself is a racial minority, but in a different country. One that is pretty directly affected by its relactionship with America, but still, not an American. Plus, he was negating my lived experience as said triple minority American. Which, not cool at all.

I’m saying this because I want it to be clear that he’s said some pretty insensitive things during the time he’s been on the server. He tends to show up once a week or so and just say something inflammatory. He’s not doing it on purpose (in other words, not malicios), but he’s definitely ruffled many feathers. He’s autistic (he’s said it himself; I’m not diagnosing him), and he definitely cannot read a room.

Today, he crossed a line in a similar way to the guy above. He made a really gross ‘joke’ that really wasn’t a joke and offended several people. The joke (which I’m not going to repeat) falls in the category of ‘say that among friends you really know well’. When people told him he had crossed the line, he doubled down. He compared it to something one of the content creators we follow would say on the show, which is similar to what John said when he made his faux pas as well.


Continue Reading

What’s it to you? Part eight

Posted on by • 0 Comments

Let’s talk more about traditions and why they should be cast aside. Or at the very least, they should be examined thoroughly. In the last post, I talked about how I was an anarchist at heart, but also a pagmatist. I know that I’m not going to change the world, I know I’m barely a blip. I’m five years into my rebirth (well, starting my sixth), and I really don’t have anything to show for it.

That’s not fair to me, actually. I have taught myself a few weapon forms and started a whole new martial art. Bagua. I think I started learning it last year? Maybe at the end…hold on. Damn. I started learning it at the beginning of 2024. That’s further back than I thought. Has it really been that long?!

At any rate, one of my goals for this year was to teach myself a new weapons form, and I’ve done that. It’s the Bagua Knives Form; it took longer than I thought it would. Or rather, I made it take longer than it should have. That’s on me. I dragged my feet on teaching it to myself in part because I was rejiggering my practice in general.

I’ll be honest. I was feeling burned out. I was learning more and more forms–which is a good thing, mind, but a bit overwhelming. I know over ten, I think? Taiji Solo Long Form (right side and most of the left side); Sword Form (right and left side); Saber Form (right and left side); Cane Form (right and left side); Double Saber Form; Fan Form; Double Fan Form; Cane Form (right and left side); Cane Form with saber (right and left side); and now, Bagua Knives Form. Oh, wait. Plus the 13 Dancing WuLi Sword Form. That’s eleven forms.

Eleven forms total. Some left and right side both, but some only on the right side. I was trying to do all of them every week, and it was so tiring. I was spending up to two hours a day on my practice, and I was starting to feel depleted by it. I took a week or two just to do what I wanted rather than stick to my strict schedule. Then another week.Then another. I realized that I was burnt out, and I had to do something different.

I was doing the stretches/warmups every day. I was doing the Taiji Long Form every day as well as the Swimming Dragon Form (the hands only form for Bagua) as well. Then, I  did one or two weapon forms if I felt like it. It felt really good to do it that way, and I wanted to retain that spirit when I went back to my schedule. I did not want to go back to the strict regime I had done previously, but I was worried about letting things slide too much. I wanted to make sure that I did every form at least once a month, so my friend, A, suggested that I have a mixture of planned and not planned.

It seems so obvious, but I had not thought of it. My compromise was to do the warmups every day (that took about half an hour) plus the two hands-only forms, too. Then, I would do as many weapon forms as I felt like, which usually ended up as two to three. That’s similar to what I was doing before, but it felt much more freeing to make the decision every day.

It’s so much more refreshing now. I don’t feel like I HAVE to do anything, which, ironically makes me feel like I want to do more. It was a great suggestion, to be honest, because I’m split on needing a schedule. On the one hand, I love schedules, plans, and doing the same thing at roughly the same time every day. On the other hand, I get bored. Then, I want to do something completely different. In this case, the compromise eased my mind and allowed me to have fun.


Continue Reading

At a loss for words, part six

Posted on by • 0 Comments

I honestly don’t understand many societal norms. People (read, my mother mostly) think I’m a contrarian, but I’m not. Or rather, that isn’t my intent. It’s just that I truly don’t understand the mindset of society much of the time.

I was reading an old Ask A Manager post (from about ten years ago, I think) about whether a woman had to shave her legs for a job interview 9or for a job in general). There was a sizeable number of people who insisted that it was ‘gross’ if she didn’t. That body hair, and in particular women’s body hair, was gross/unprofessional/unacceptable in the office.

It reminded me of a much more recent post (meaning after my medical crisis or maybe right before it, but definitely during/post COVID) in which there was an argument about bras in the workplace. Again, some people were more than adamant that a woman HAD to wear a bra in the office because it was gross otherwise. I don’t remmeber if the word ‘gross’ was used in this case, but there was many an ‘unprofessional’ being thrown around.

I made a comment that if I were covered up and nips weren’t showing, why did it matter? I said I would absolutely walk over this (the Letter Writer had mentioned that in her office, they were–OK. I just looked it up. It was in 2023, and the vast majority were women who were virulent in their support of bras. Or rather, virulent in their disdain for women* who decided not to wear them.

There were women who said it was a privileged position to choose to quit over it or make it your hill to die on, but that’s the whole point of having privilege/hills to die on. As to the first, part of checking your privilege should be followed by doing things that people who aren’t in your privileged position can’t do in order to make life better for everyone. Otherwise, what’s the point? As to the latter, you don’t get to decide what is a a hill to die on for someone else.

There were several people who were adamant that it was professional and that you should follow the dress code of your office (though it wasn’t in the dress code of the LW). Someone asked quite reasonably if the dress code was that you could not wear a bra in the office, would they ‘suck it up’ (which someone mentioned) and rip off their bra?

I wasn’t surprised that most people were pro-bra; I was surprised how vicious they got in going for the status quo, though. As more than one person pointed out, things didn’t change without people agitating for that change.

The number of women who said no one wanted to see the jiggling and/or they wouldn’t hire a woman that didn’t wear a bra, sadly, was not surprising. Women often are the ones to hold up the patriarchy, which is one of the greatest tricks of man. If they  can get women to do it for them, then they can spend less time on it.

(Resisting to go on a rant about the patriarchy and dieting, which is not the point of this post.)

I can’t understand getting all worked up over something so meaningless. Tellingly, one person did the slippery slope argument and said that what next, no pants? It’s always wild to me when people do the slippery slope argument and then bust out something ridiculous. My mother did it when I told her I was bi–she said, “What next, animals?”


Continue Reading

An unacceptable amount of weird, part five

Posted on by • 0 Comments

I want to talk more about being weird in socially acceptable way. In yesterday’s post, I blathered about how it’s ok to be, say, a vegan Crossfitter, but not whatever the fuck I am. I’ve said it before, but it’s like trying to describe the color red to a blind person. They have no basis to understand the concept of red, so it’s exceedingly difficult if not impossible to do so. Someone born without sight, I mean.

In the same vein, it’s really hard to explain to people my way of thinking if they aren’t already so inclined. In a society that is so wedded (pun intended) to monogamy, for example, the idea of nonmonogamy is almost unfathomable. Add to that compersion (joy at your partner finding another partner), and, well, yeah. I actually like to expand compersion to joy in a partner finding joy at anything else, but I understand that most ENM people (ethically nonmonogamous) restrict it to dating and partners.

One of my goals this year was to find an Asian queer/genderqueer group (online). Have I done it? No. Have I even looked? I did a cursory search and did not find one that fit what I wanted. I would like it to be local even if I intend to attend online. I would like it to acknowledge that agender people exist, but I’m not holding my breath. Even a lot of people who are agender use ‘they’ as their pronoun. Which, I hastened to add, is perfectly fine! It’s just not me.

Every time I try to find songs about being agender, I get frustrated. I can find songs about genderfluid and nonbinary, but not about abstaining from gender completely. Why am I like this? Why couldn’t I just be genderqueer ?

Here’s the thing. I could call myself agnostic and genderqueer. In fact, I really like the idea of genderqueer, but as with queer now meaning gay, genderqueer has been turned into nonbinary. I ain’t (that) mad; I’m just tired. And resigned. I know most people don’t do nuance, but it’s not nice feeling like I’m being erased over and over again.

It’s like how POC means black, race is always black and white (and maybe Latino* because of immigartion issues). I’m never going to be acknowledged, which I have accepted more or less. But I will say that one reason I voted for Obama in the primaries over Clinton was because he talked openly about Asian people (makes sense. His half-sister is Asian, and he was born in Hawaii). He also mentioned bi people. And after he was elected, he mentioned people with no religion.

These may seem like small things, but for someone who had never been rmentioned by any politician before Obama or since, it matters. It tells me that I’m not even a fleeting thought for the vast majority of politicians. Also, my grudge against the Democratic Party continues to grow. They learned nothing from Obama and continue with the same fucked up tactics that hasn’t worked for them in the last thirty years. Telling me how we’re losing and how bad the Republicans are isn’t going to get me revved up to vote or do anything for the party. Also, selling my name to every Democratic group within the country is not good, either.


Continue Reading

Free to be a weirdo, part four

Posted on by • 0 Comments

Let’s talk more about being a weirdo. In yesterday’s post, I wrote about how sometimes, I wished I could be normal. Believe it or not, I’m not trying to be difficult most of the time–it’s just that I was born that way. I was musing about how much easier life would have been if I could have just been ‘normal, but that’s folly.

What I mean is that I can sit and speculate about how different my life would have been if I was normal, but I can’t verify it. It alsways irk me when people state confidently what would have happened if something or the other (big) had been different. Usually, in a toxic positivity way.

The one that really got to me was people who said that they would not change anything about their pasts because it made them who they were. I would ABSOLUTELY change certain things in my life because it would make me better! The heavy emotional abuse? Gone. The nightmare relationship in Thailand? It would be no more. The feeling like an alien and that I should not be alive that dominated my childhood? Erased in a heartbeat.

I also take issue with the people who said that going through trauma made you more empathetic. There are other ways to be empathetic, thank you, and I would like to think I would have been, anyway, without all the abuse.

I don’t know if I would have been a better, more functional person without the trauma I experienced, but I sure as hell would like to have a shot at it. Would I take no abuse and not knowing how it would turn out over what happened to me? 100%, in a heartbeat, no hesitation. How is that even a question?

I know I can’t change my past, obviously, but that trauma still lingers. Taiji has helped a great deal, and so has Bagua. So has love. So has me just saying fuck it to a certain extent. The realization that I’ll never be normal whatever that is was so freeing. I’m not saying it isn’t still a struggle because it is.

Side note: I find it amusing when people advocate for being your true self. What they usually mean is, “Be your true self–oh, not that true self.” What I mean is that most people mean a two-deviation-from-the-norm true self, not a ‘what the fuck is THAT?” true self. Like weird is being a vegan Crossfitter. Weird is not being agender, areligious, into Taiji and Bagua weaponry, and being ENM. Not to mention bisexual. And just not giving a damn about 90% of things society deems important. Oh, and neurodivergent.

Any one of those things would be considered weird. Some of them are considered deviant, evil, vile, disgusting, etc., by a huge chunk of people. Not just Americans, but that’s the society I know best. It’s interesting. I’ve been listening to a lot of Stray Kids content, and while they are pioneers in music and very ‘weird’ for Kpop, they actually adhere quite closely to Korean norms (as I understand them). Personally, I mean.

I’ve watched quite a bit of their content and realized that they would disapprove of me as a person. Yes, they say eveyrone should be their own person, but they have made it pretty clear that their attitudes toward alternative lifestyles (not talking queer, but ENM and gender norms to a certain extent) is negative. They have several songs about what they call ‘very bad guys’, and they’ve had arguments about who’s the worst. The guy who is mean to his ex-girlfriend including telling her how she really felt about him (which they don’t see as mean) or the guy who thought another woman was attractive, didn’t necessarily act on it, but broke up with his girlfriend anyway because he felt guilty.


Continue Reading

Last post about safer spaces, part eight

Posted on by • 0 Comments

Let’s talk more about safer spaces and society’s expectation for ‘normal’ behavior in general. In yesterday’s post, I wrote about masking, social norms, and how I felt forced to do so for so many reasons. One, growing up in tthe seventies, there wasn’t even lip service to diversity. It was fit in or die, and I constantly felt like I was dying. Or that I wanted to die. As many autistic people describe it, it’s like always having to dedicate one hefty portion of your brain to fitting in. That makes it much harder to focus on what you actually need to do.

When I was in school in the eighties, there was the murmurs of diversity. In this case, though, it was the melting pot theory–which, to put it bluntly-fucking sucked. The idea was that immigrants came to America and ‘melted’ into American society. In other words, they were supposed to shed what made them foreign as soon as possible. Asian people tend to be more conforming in general, anyway, so my parents were eager to fit in. Or rather, not stick out.

My brother and I were taught to be white, basically. My parents tried to speak Taiwanese to my brother (who is older than I am), but they decided it would be easier to teach him only English. When I came along, they didn’t even bothre trynig to teach me Taiwanese. We did not eat Taiwanese food outside the house, and we preferred American. (A
t least until we were adults.)

I was so anxious as a little kid. I had to make sure that I was acting like everyone else when I didn’t even know what that really meant. I kept my eyes on everyone around me, but I was convinced I was an alien. I always felt like I was failing, and I was miserable.

I want to emphasize this because even if I looked like I belonged (which I most certainly did not), I hated everything about my life. I didn’t feel like I could ever be me, which was not a fun place to be. I smoothed and sanded my rough edges until they were completely gone. I hid everything that made me me because I heard the overt and covert message loud and clear: I as me and myself was unacceptable.

That was the main message my parents and society gave to me while I was a child and a teenager. I was unacceptable as I was. I was not fit to be present in polite society, and I better hide everything and anything about myself that wasn’t ‘normal’.

Again, this was before neurodivergence was acknowledge as a thing. Or rather, right around the time that it was first being recognized at all. Except it was thought of as a completely abhorrent thing that had to be surpressed/reprogrammed at all costs. Society was cruel, and doctors aided and abetted that cruelty. Hell, they pushed it forward themselves.


Continue Reading

Two seeming opposites can both be true (at the same time), part two

Posted on by • 0 Comments

In yesterday’s post, I wrote about how two things that were almost the complete opposite of each other can both be true at the same time. My example was how it’s the social norm to greet each other with small talk. “Hello, how are you?” I’m good, and you?” Or, “Hey,” with a nod and a smile. The social custom varies depending on the region, but it’s all for the same reason. It’s a version of “I acknowledge you as a fellow human.” “I acknowledge you in return.”

I’ve made my peace with it. I know this is not going to change and that it’s fairly harmless. Now that I understand it’s not really about caring how the other person is, but is a way to just smoothly start an interaction, I’m fine with it. Would I rather not have to do it? Yeah. Anything that would take away an instant of me having to pretend to perform humanity is a good thing to me.

The thing is, no matter how many scripts I have memorized, one surprise question will always throw me into a loop. I’m like a computer in that way. I don’t do well without my scripts. I didn’t even realize this was a thing until very recently–that I had scripts, I mean.

It was when an friend of mine who has autism and I were talking about growing up as a weirdo. She is alos bi and other minorities, so she could relate to the way I felt as I child. I gave her an example to illustrate what I meant.

When someone would tell me a piece of news, I would have no internal reaction. Didn’t matter what the news was. Pregnancy, new job, death in the family, it was all the same to me. I would have to take several seconds to digest what the other person had told me. Them: (telling me their news). Me: (my brain) …. Me: (my brain) Oh, I need to say something. Scrambles for somethin to say. Fumbling with my words, I come up with something appropriate and then breathe a sigh of relief. Most of the time, the awkwardness is merely internal and not noticed by the other person.

Here’s the thing. I truly do feel whatever emotion I am trying to convey. deep down inside. However, my feels on the surface are very flat. Any time I try to feel them, it’s as if the feeling is wrapped under a thousand layers of bubble wrap. So it’s deadened and squishy.

When I explained this to my friend, she gently let me know that’s what autism is like.

Side note: K and I had a heated argument about mental health issues being less taboo these days. We both agree it’s a good thing that we’ve made progress on identifying issues and getting/having help for them. However, she was concerned that it might have gone too far in the opposite direction and younger people were identifying too much with their mental health issues. Or rather, not coming up with strategies to deal with them. She also questioned if everything had to be a disorder.


Continue Reading

Gender on my mind redux

Posted on by • 0 Comments

Still thinking about gender. I wish I could quit it, but I just can’t. In the last post, I ended by saying that I didn’t know what feeling like a woman meant. I wasn’t being snarky because I really don’t know. I probed my insides quite thoroughly and came up with nothing. Again, I am not railing against being a woman because I don’t feel my body is wrong–at least not for the so-called lady bits. Yes, I hated it for other reasnos, but nothing to do with the perceived gender of it.

Or rather, not for the reason of gender itself. What I mean is that I got flack for being a woman. A lot of it. Very different from men than from women, but it was definitely based on me being perceived as a woman.

In tandem with this, I struggle with the ‘cool girl’ syndrome and if it’s always as toxic as people say it is. If the woman who is  saying, “I’m not like other women.” and “I just don’t get along with any women.” is also saying, “Women are so full of drama!” and “Women are the worst”, then, yes, it’s ‘cool girl’ syndrome.

However. There are women or AFAB (like me) who aren’t very feminine at all. Bull dykes are a thing (even if they no longer go by that. That’s what they called themselves in my heyday), which is not what I am. I just read up on stone butches and stone femmes, and I don’t fit into those categories, either.

Here’s the thing. I n general, I don’t care about categories. I do have a type when it comes to physical looks that I find attractive (kd lang, Alan Rickman (first as Snape and then as himself), and my new favorite, Erika Ishii). Dark hair, androgynous, and wicked smart/into social justice. I have not dated many people with that look, though.

I know how this is going to sound, but I’m going to say it, anyway. I really don’t understand…hm. I don’t know exactly how to say this. Let me muse it out. As I mentioned, I do have a type, but it’s not hard and fast. I am attracted to someone for many different reasons, some of them more healthy than the others. Looks are but one, though, and probably low on the list of traits that I really care about.

That’s not the controversial thing. That comes when we’re talking about sex. I know we weren’t, but I’m going to, anyway. When I was looking up stone butch, I was shocked to read that the definition definitely meant that they did not receive sexual pleasure on their genitalia from their partners. Ever. And a stone femme (which I didn’t know even was a term) does not give sexual pleasure.


Continue Reading