Underneath my yellow skin

Am I talking about gender again? Kind of

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Because I live in my own little world, I often forget that most people are more fixated on gender than I am. Here is my post from two days ago (I skipped yesterday) in which I maundered about the travesty of gender roles rigidity. I’m still thinking about it because I’m still watching stuff that is tangential to Korean culture content.

One thing I find interesting about different cultures is how something that is verboten in one country is not in another. For example, in American culture, you rarely hear cis het dudes talking about how pretty/hot/cute another guy is. Even when talking about famous men who are known for their good looks (say Hugh Jackman–someone who many women find wildly attractive), most cis het men won’t talk about how hot they are. They may say the guy is handsome or good-looking, but that’s it. Or if they do say he’s hot, they have to add some version of ‘no homo’. Most of them are aware enough to know that they can’t say that exact phrase (though, distressingly, a few still do), but they say something close to it. Usually, “I’m a happily married man, but…” which is better. Still. There’s no need to qualify when you’re saying someane is hot.

That’s how I feel. I am surprised how Korean men (on YouTube, anyway) have no qualms with saying a male celebrity is cute or sexy or pretty. There’s usually no qualifier and no need to be at all apologetic. I’m assuming it’s a cultural thing because it seems to me that popular Korean celebs (at least in K-pop) have to do all kinds of wild things while in the public eye. It’s almost like they’re living in The Truman Show where they have no privacy at all. The things that their fans think they have the right to know is astonishing and a bit disturbing, actually. So it’s probably not surprising that everyone feels comfortable commenting so frequently on how hot/pretty/sexy the celeb is.

At the same time, at least in K-pop, the idols themselves are supposed to be young and pure. It’s a really interesting dichotomy that I find fascinating from afar.

I want to emphasize that I’m not saying it’s better or worse that celebrity culture in America–just different. There are positives and negatives to both. I’m just bringing it up because in relation to gender, it’s way more upfront about the sexism than is America. As someone who lives in a progressive area, sometimes, that makes it harder to deal with the isms. Why? Because they’re more hidden, but they’re still there. I just have to look for the giveaways and listen for the dog whistles.


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Gender redux; gender reflex

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One more post about gender? Yes, sadly. Here is the post from yesterday in which I talked about how I just did not feel gender at all or get it.

I was reading a question and (answers)  about gender (eh, kind of. It’s good enough for the purpose of what I want to write in this post)–well, in a way. It was a work blog, and the question was from a woman who had been at her work for sixteen months, but only recently started getting complaints about the skirts she was wearing. She stated that she was having bloating issues and did not wear tight clothing/belts that would bother her stomach (paraphrasing). She stressed that the skirts fell to just above her knee, which was acceptable at her job.

Other women wore the same kind of skirts, including her boss–the person who reprimanded her about her (the letter writer’s (LW) attire), and there were men who wore hoodies and were fine while the LW’s bare shoulders were not. She was in a customer-facing position, and she wondered if that was part of the difference. But she was frustrated, embarrassed, and did not want to have to buy a whole new wardrobe.

I want to say that this has been a left-leaning blog for as long as I’ve been reading it (which is seven or eight years, I think?) with a lot of self-proclaimed feminists. The amount of commenters who came up with an embarrassing amount of reasons why this was reasonable on the part of the boss was discouraging. Very sexist reasons, I may add. I was glad to see a few people call it out, but for the most part, the commentariat went all-in on the sexism.

Including one woman who was really ugly with it–saying older women needed to be told when they looked ugly. No, not in those exact words, but close enough. She may not have meant it, but that’s how it came across, and she doubled down on it when questioned.

What really got to me was what always happens with questions like this–the desperate search for anything other than sexism as the reason the sexist thing is happening. “She’s wearing a too-tight skirt” (despite her saying she had uncomfortable bloating and wore nothing too tight); “Maybe it’s rolling up/she doesn’t realize how it looks on her”, which got a distressing amount of similar comments, etc. “Maybe the sleeveless arms are considered unprofessional” (but not the hoodies?).

Very few of them remembered or addressed the fact that the LW had been at her current job for sixteen months, but the comments had only started recently. None of the comments took that into account, which was frustrating AF. In the year 2026, we have gone backwards with feminism, I feel. A commentor actually wrote with all their fingers that a woman not shaving her legs in America was considered “gross”. Again, in the year 2026. I haven’t shaved anything in thirty years and have never gotten any shit for it. Then again, I’m Asian. And I live in a very progressive area.


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Still thinking about gender, though I wish I weren’t

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I want to talk about gender, age, honorifics, and Asian culture for one more post. In the last post, I ended up talking about labels, toxic love, and whatever else was on my mind. Today, I’m going to continue the trend of intending to talk about one topic and ending up talking about anything but.

No, let’s get into it. Life in America is pretty hellish right now. Civil rights being slashed left and right. For all my desire not to think about/talk about gender issues, it’s really hard to escape it in this country of mine. This shitty, shitty country of mine.

While I like the Korean content I watch, I do get uncomfortable around the gender/age honorifics. Divorcing it from a specific culture, I just don’t wantthat emphasis on two things that are not meaningful to me. Also, one of them is painful to me (gender) because it’s something I’ve been fighting against for most of my life. I have talked about how I don’t want to be called something that makes me have to lie about/hide my gender every conversation.

Look. I am tired of talking about/thinking about gender in general. I really wish I didn’t have to, but in this country, it seems that–how do I put this? People are so damn fucked-up about gender. I mean, it’s always been that way, but we were slowly making progress. Then, almost in one fell swoop, we leapt back dozens of years. It’s still upsetting to me that I had more civil liberties when I was my niblings’ age(s) than they have now.

There is a part of me that says, “Just say you’re a woman. What does it matter?” It was the gender assumed for me when I was born, and it would make life infinitely easier just to go along with it. Except. I’m so stubborn. While I don’t mind lying in general, I do mind it in certain situations. And I don’t like being forced to lie. I want it to be my choice, otherwise it’s just…icky.

It’s interesting, though. I used to think I had no morality because i have no issue with lying under certain siuations. I talked about it with Ian (about how I did not have any morelas), and he said I did. It may not be the morals of the world, he said, but I definitely had morals. I thought it over for a bit, and I had to admit that he was right. I am pretty firm in my convictions; they just didn’t always (or ever) line up with the rest of the world’s.

Most of the time, I’m fine with that. I know myself, and I’m fine with being seen as a weirdo and a freak. I simply don’t care because if I tried to ‘fix’ all the things that people think are wrong with me, well I would not have time for anything else. Also, I don’t think most of them are issues at all.


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Gender-blending and blowing it all up

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In my post from yesterday, I was going to talk about gender and ended up talking about how I was a weirdo in general. Which is fine because it’sr related–somewhat. I also talked about what a disappointment the movie, Knives Out, was for me. I won’t get into all of it, but I will say that I was holding out for the ending to not be what I sussed it out to be the first time the perp walked onto the screen.

I was more offended by the fact that the director made such a big deal about pleading with the reviewers not to reveal the twist, honestly. There wass nothing in the movie that needed to be treated like it was top secret or a work of art. I wasn’t just disappointed in the movie; I actively disliked it. Except for the cast members chewing up the scenery. That was the best part of the whonle movie, even though the script was, ah, weak. (I’m trying to be polite about it.)

My point was that I have weird tastes in almost everything. It doesn’t matter if it’s pop cutlure, beliefs, ideas, or anything else. There is very little that I like that could be considered mainstream. Even if it’s popular, it’s still niche. I’m trying to think of the last thing I liked that was liked by the masses. I would have to say it’s probably Everything Everywhere All at Once, which I loved up until the very last monologue by Michelle Yeoh. Sadly, that last speech made me like the rest of the movie a lot less the more I thought about it (the speech and the movie), but it was highly enjoyable until that moment.

If I were to watch it again, I would probably just end it before the last speech. Let’s just say I felt too much of the pain at the mother’s words to distance myself from them. All that “Asian parents tell you you’re terrible out of love” bullshit is just that. I mean, maybe they feel it’s out of love or it’s being portrayed in that way, but it doesn’t feel like love to be told I’m fat, lazy, and that I nede to find a man (get over being bisexual).

There was way too much pain in hearing that speech, and it really made me not want to watch the rest of the movie again. I know I can watch it up to that point and no further, but that’s not my style. I have a hard time not watching the all of everything (one of my compulsions), and, also, to be honest, that last speech really soured me on the rest of the movie. Why? Because I feel as if the whoole message was negated by it. I mean, I  get that people don’t change that easily and that being unable to talk about your feelings are both real. And that it’s even more difficult for Asian people because of the culture.


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Living in my own bubble (re: gender)

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I have one  more post in me about gender/age, Asian culture, and why I really don’t fit anywhere. Here’s the post I wrote about it yesterday in which I talked about how society likes to say that you should be yourself, but then punishes the people who are way outside those norms. I’m not talking about in criminal/non-legal ways, either. I’m talking about people who are just weird.

Side note: Weird is a word I have used about myself regularly. To me, it’s not a negative–it’s just a statement of fact. It’s the same as ‘fat’ not being negative to me, either. It’s neutral to me, but it’s used in a negative way in American society. In a similar vein, I have reclaimed queer for myself. I know many LGBTQ+ folk don’t like it, but I like it because it means weird in the general sense. I am respectful when I talk about the group in general to use the politer ‘LGBQT+’, but if I’m talking about myself, I’m going to call me queer. That’s just the way it goes.

I will say I find it darkly amusing when I can turn a supposed negative into a positive. Back when I used to be on Twitter, I sometimes had discussions with people about pop culture. I usually wasn’t the one to start it because it’s not my interest, but I was happy to engage when asked for my opinion. I have, shall we say, nontraditional tastes in pop culture. In other words, I did not like what other people liked for the most part. I would espouse that opinion in a respectful way. I rarely said I thought something was shit–I usually phrased it as I did not like something or it wasn’t for me.

Some of the unpopular opinions I espoused: I don’t like The Beatles; I didn’t like The Big Lebowski; I don’t like The Rolling Stones; and to be frank, most of their compatriots. I think one of the last radical opinions I posted was when I was live-tweeting Knives Out (the first one). I cannot stress enough that I was really looking forward to it, and I’m being sincere. I had not been that hyped for a movie in quite some time. I adore Poirot novels, and I love a big cast of villains. In books, anyway.

I will admit I was a bit worried when I saw the trailer beacuse it was hypercuts and flashimages/video slices. That’s not my style at all, and my eyes weren’t fast enough to register what I was seeing. It’s a bias of mine that I think the flashier editing is used to cover up holes–either literal ones in the plot or visually. I was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt, though. Why? I don’t know. Because of all the big stars in it and because i really wanted an ensemble cast mystery movie.


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Wish I may, wish I might (never think about gender again)

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I am so done with gender, but it’s not done with me.

Or rather, this society isn’t done with it. Here is my post about it from yesterday and how I could deal with age-based honorifics (barely), but I just can’t with gender-based ones. I know that this happens in some European countries, too. In fact, I would not be surprised if there were as many if not more countries that do that on the regular than those that don’t.

I don’t like the way this country is going, though. It’s rolling back so many laws that protect queer people, especially trans people. I’m not trans, but I’n under the umbrella of genderfluid/queer. It’s not just the president, though he is doing his level best to destroy this country. It’s more the people who voted for him and what it says about my fellow countrypeople.

Look. I don’t have much faith in them to begin with. I never have ever since I was old enough to know about voting, democracy, and how easily it gets crushed. I have known that the country leans (topples) right and most of the media is owned by Republicans. I know I’m a freak and an outsider, and that my opinion doesn’t matter. I have voted as a Democrat since I was old enough to vote (voted third party once, but that was it), and it doesn’t matter in the least because the other side is determined to rig the race so they will–

Never mind. That’s not what this post is about, really. I mean, it’s related, but it’s not the main point. That would be that I wish gender wasn’t such a big deal in general. I really wish I never had to think of it again, but as long as this country is doing its level best to destroy me and my kin, well, I have no choice but to think of it.

As I’ve said before, I can pass. I can pretend to be a woman or at the very least not protest when others mistake me for one. And it’s not too bad a fit as long as its brief. Anything more than a few minutes, though, and it’ll start making me uncomfortable. I don’t mind lying to people I don’t have any real connection with, but I would rather not with people who matter.

Honestly, I wish I could just say gender does not matter to me and be done with it. I mean it as a truly neutral statement, but I know it would not be read that way. That’s because there are things that cannot be said in a non-snotty way. It’s simiilar to how you can’t say you don’t own/watch (a) televesion without sounding like a snob. Believe me. I know most of the thing sthat make me sound out of touch, but I still get caught now and again.


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When being a weirdo is too much

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In yesterday’s post, I was talking about how I found East Asian culture to be fascinating (if incomprehensible). I was mentioning that  I’ve been watching Korean content, and I’ve been mildly obsessed with the tradition of calling people honorifics based on age and gender. I was talking about it with my mother because it’s similar in Taiwanese culture. She is in her eighties and is called ‘big sister’ by everyone younger than she is. She did mention that her nail person (I think? Maybe it was her hair person. I’m pretty sure it was nails) liked to call her professor even though my mother told her she didn’t have to do it. I suggested it was a way for the nail technician to feel important in front of her client, and my mother indicated she agreed.

I would have a hard time in such a culture more so because of the gender-based honorifics than the age-based ones, though I do not like either. If there was a way to be  called elder without  it being gender-specific, well, I still wouldn’t like it. But I would be less bothered by it than I would be if it had a gender attached to it. In a quick Google search, I can’t find any gender-neutral elder honorifics, sadly. Not that I would ever live in one of those societies, mind.

Look. I am not saying that American society is not rife with sexism and ageism because it certainly fucking is. And it’s getting drastically worse by the day. But. And I’m not saying it’s necessarily a good thing. I can just not talk about it here because it’s not addressed every time you talk to someone. Where I live, we mostly call each other by first names. That’s it.  no honorifics and certainly no gender-based honorifics. Yes, I get called “sir” on the phone which tickles me endlessly and “ma’am” when I go into a store, which, fine whatever. But that’s it.

Though, I will say, that the last time I went to get my license renewed (2024), I could have chosen nonbinary as my gender for the first time. If I was twenty years younger, I would have done it. Maybe. But I just don’t vibe with it, unfortunately. It’s how I am with so many labels–they just don’t feel comfortable. I have reluctantly changed ‘agender’ because it’s the least bad of all the labels. That’s how I always choose labels. Here’s how I describe the label of ‘she/her’ as it pertains to me. It’s like an ill-fitting raincoat. Yeah, it’ll keep the rain out–but poorly, and I’ll be relieved to take it off when I get home.

Honestly, I don’t feel that agender fits that much better, but it’s less bad, I guess. I mean, it is because it’s gender neutral, which is what I prefer. And it’s not denying that gender exists–it’s just not important to me. It’s like I chose ‘areligious’ to describe how I feel about religion–I don’t. I don’t particularly care if god exists or not, and I’ve made my peace with it either way.


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“You’re unique” is a polite way to say I’m weird

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The last time I talked to my mother, I brought up that I was watching Korean content, which meant that I was thinking about how people address each other in Korea. I had to while watching the content because it’s so strong and present. It’s similar in Taiwan, which was why I brought up with my mother. She affirmed that it was still the case. People called her ‘older sister’ and my father ‘older brother’. Unrelated people, I mean.

I’ve known this since I was a kid, by the way. I called all the peers of my parents (in the Taiwanese church) auntie and uncle. We didn’t go as far with the kids to calling each other older brother, younger sister, and such, though. That’s how East Asian cultures do it. Anyone older than you are is an older brother/sister. Anyone younger is a younger brother/sister. Age is very important, and it matters if you’re older even by a day.

I was telling my mother that I had a hard time with it beacuse I just didn’t see why it mattered.

Side note: I have to say that I believe in respecting everyone just because they are a human being. I want to put that out there that I’m not hating on respecting people.

I do have an issue with affording more respect to certain people because of random factors like gender and age. I’m twice as old as the people I’m watching (the Koreans), and they have done more in their years than I have in mine. WAY more. That’s not to say that they deserve more respect, but I don’t see why they should have to call me an honorific (if we ever met, which will never happen) just because I’m older.

My mother laughed and said I was American as the reason I didn’t understand it. I said that wasn’t it beacuse Americans are VERY rigid about gender (especially now. All those terrible laws getting passed in the South around gender. Sigh), though we are less so about age. And we call everyone by their first names (again, maybe not in the South)–at least in social situations.

My mother than said that I was post–she couldn’t remember the word for what she was trying to say.  I finally realized she meant to say postmodern, which was closer, but not quite right, either. I eman, I am postmodern in many ways, but that wasn’t quite right for this situation.

She finally said, “You’re very unique.” Which, yes. I would accept that. I was thinking ‘weird’ myself, which is more apt, but unique is a kinder description of me, I guess. I am pretty unique (I have given up on the strict definition of unique being singular and binary–meaning you’re either unique or you’re not. It’s been qualified for the last few decades, and who am I to fight progress?), which I usually try to tamp down.


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One last post about sleep–and a plan! (Maybe)

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I’m back to talk about sleep one more time. Here is the post from yesterday in which I talked about sleep, the lack thereof, and how hard it is for me to get said sleep. I’m still getting over my unwise decision to try to stay up 72 hours without researching what could happen if I had actually managed it. I mean, sleep deprivation is considered a method of torture for a reason. I will say I think it’s really funny that I was mainlining coffee when Ian messaged me asking if it was dangerous for me to stay awake for that long. I quickly looked it up and realized it was, then went directly to bed. I fell asleep in less than a minute.

I have said it before, and I’ll say it again: caffeine does not affect me. I can drink it up to the point of going to bed, and I’ll still be able to fall asleep. As I just noted. In fact, I don’t know why I drink it in the ‘morning’ except that’s what you’re supposed to do.

I have realized that there is just no quick solution. Nor is there any easy solution. I can’t just snap fingers and suddenly be able to sleep well and at the proper time. It’s wishful thinking. I also can’t simply force myself to go to bed at a better time. I’ve proven that that isn’t going to happen, either.

It’s the worst feeling in the world to sit there watching the clock inch forward, knowing I should be in bed, but not doing anything to actually move towards that goal. It doesn’t help that I’m chanting in my brain that I should be going to bed. The other weird thing is how time seems to draaaaag and then suddenly leaps ahead. Time is weird. It just is.

I think another reason I’m having a hard time is that I’m just tired (no pun intended) of dealing with my sleep. I’ve been doing it all my life, and while it’s gotten slightly better and then got a whole lot better after my medical crisis (before slowly sliding back into bad territory). I am resentful that I’ve put so much effort into it for so little return.

On the third hand, it’s been at pretty disparate times, and I may not have put enough concentrated effort into it. I’m a pretty impatient person in some ways, and me trying to find ways to sleep was one of those ways. I did try so many things, but I don’t know if I gave any of them enough time to stick. The problem was that there were some negative results to many of the options, which made me reluctant to keep trying. For instance:


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I’m all about the (lack of) sleep

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Before I start, let me just link to my post about sleep from yesterday here. I don’t want to stress about it, so here it is. When I was in college, I used to sleep four hours a night and then crash for fifteen hours my first night home. It was as if my body was saying, “Oh, I can sleep now? I’ll show you sleep then!” I’m sure it’s quite common–the body breaknig down when it’s safe to do so. I mean, you HAVE to sleep at some point or the body will rebel.

I bring this up because I woke up at 5:30 p.m. today. I was very disoriented and shocked. That was ten hours of sleep–which does not happen to me unless I’m sick. But I’ve really been skimping on my sleep the past month or so, and this was my body’s way of saying that it needed more.

I did not know why my alarm did not ring because I had set it before I went to bed. Or rather, I turned it on and just assumed it was set correctly because it was the day before. I’m talking about an ancient manual clock that I’ve had for probably three decades. I have no idea how it went from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Side Note: I have this weird thing that I do–I set all my manual clocks in the house (and my car) to different times. I have no idea why or how that started, but I’ve been doing it for decades. So the fact that my alarm clock was set at 8 p.m. meant that it was acttually set for 7:17 p.m. Why? No clue. I’ve been doing it forever, and it’s something I consider a harmless idiosyncrasy.

Side Note to the side note: One could spend their whole life trying to fix their flaws. The list is endless, and there’s always something that can be improved. However, something I learned a while back was that there’s a difference between an indiosyncrasy and a flaw. The latter should be worked on whereas the former is fine. Really, it is. We all have things that make us unique, and many of those things are harmless. My having my manual clocks at different times is one of those things.

Another thing I used to do was if I saw one of my clocks being on the quarter hour, I had to count to twenty-five as quickly as possible. Even as I was doing it, I realized that it was silly and not something I should be doing. My therapist at the time asked me what I thought would happen if I didn’t count. I didn’t know, but I was sure it would be terrible.


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