Underneath my yellow skin

Category Archives: Society

More thoughts in my brain, part two

Posted on by • 0 Comments

I have more thoughts about society and how my brain works. Strap in because this is going to go places. I don’t know which places, exactly, but we’re going to go to them. Maybe. You know how I do. I may end up somewhere completely different; we shall see. In yesterday’s post, I was all over the place. I eventually talked about not getting gender on a cellular level. No, that’s not how I put it, but it’s what I meant.

I’ve been tinking about it a lot lately for several reasons. One, because of *waves at world around me*. Two, because of my dip into Kpop as I mentioned in yesterday’s post. Gender roles are very prescriptive and proscriptive (as they are in many countries), but in a somewhat different way than it is in America. Granted, this is a very niche area in the first place (Kpop). I don’t know for sure, but I would wager than men in Korea who aren’t in the arts probably don’t–well, I just looked it up, and I was wrong. Men in Korea do shave their body hair. It’s the standard over there.  It’s considered dirty unkempt to have body hair, apparently. Which is funny because many Asian people have very little body hair. I don’t, and I haven’t shaved anything since I was in my early twenties.

As for makeup, that’s much less common, though a chunky minority(roughly 16%) wear it for special occasions. About 4% wear it daily. Interesting. I say it’s interesting because in general, at least from the Kpop I’ve seen (mostly Stray Kids, but I have watched other groups), there is less of the overt muscular masculinity, even though there is some of that, and more of a cute vibe. In fact, theat’s part of the culture–adults acting cute as social lubrication.

It’s been a really interesting look into how another culture does gender–and it’s another culture in which I would not feel welcome. I’m saying this as a person of Taiwanese descent. It’s not the same as Korea, obviously, but there are some similarities. The honorifics based on gender. The veneration of age. The rigid gender stereotypes. I will note that I have not been to Taiwan in a decade and a half, so I can’t speak to how it is now. But when I was there, I got a lot of shit for not fitting their idea of what a girl/woman should be.

The first time I went was when I was ten or so. Taiwan did not have a taboo about talking about weight. I had more than one cousin I had just met for the first time tell me how fat I was. You can porbably guess that this made me feel really good about myself. My mother put me on my first diet when I was seven. And she nagged me about my weight until I put my foot down when I was in my late thirties. I told her explicitly that she could not mention my weight. Or health, for that matter, because she would use health as a cover for weight.

I know I’m going to dip out of Kpop at some point because the environment is not healthy for me. Also, I know that it’s a world that I most definitely do not fit in. I mean, that’s all worlds so far, but this is the one I’m currently interested in.

This is my life, by the way. I stay in a space for as long as it’s tolerable for me, and then I move on. I know there is no place that would feel 100% comfortable (because that’s life), but I would settle for 50%. Maybe even 40%. I also would like to know if others feel the same way.

Here’s the thing. Any time I’m in a crowd, I’m keenly aware of just how different I am, and it’s been that way my whole life. It’s because I’m several deviations away from the norm, and it’shard to find a middle ground. Let’s list them out. I’m queer  (bi), Taiwanese American, areligious, agender, able to think about things on several different levels, and that’s just the start of it. I don’t wantto be in a long-term relationship, and I’m ethically nonmonogamous. I am looking to date again, but just for sex. I would love a fuck buddy who I could call two or three times a week–have a laugh and a few tumbles in the hay, and then send them home again.

I don’t believe in marriage. I mean, I know it exists–I’m not saying it doesn’t. But it’s just not for me. As for kids…the less said about that topic, the better. I’ve talked about it enough–you know what? No. I am going to get into it.

When I was in my early twenties, I realized I did not have to have children. I grew up assuming I was going to have them because that’s what you did as a woman. You were for breeding and spawning and anything else was extraneous. That’s what my mother and her very sexist evangelical Taiwanese Christian church had me believing, and American society did not do anything to dissuade me of that belief.

So when I realized that I could actually choose not to have children, it was the best decision of my life. I was so excited about it, I shared it with anyone who wanted to know. And, boy, did a lot of women want to know. So many woman. So much questioning. Ugh. If I could go back, the one change I would make is that I would have kept my decision to myself. I naively thought that it was a small thing that should not matter to anyone. In reality, I got a lot of shit for deciding not to have children.

See, this is yet another way in which my brain is broken. I thought, “This is a decision that doesn’t affect anyone but me. No one is going to care.” I was so, so, so wrong. for some reason I still don’t completely understand, many women* were heavily invested (and, sadly, still are) in propping up the ‘a woman’s purpose is to have children’ bullshit and took it REALLY personal when someone like me came along. More tomorrow.

 

 

*Yes, only women in this case. Men at the time wnated to avoid getting me preggo because they wanted to get in my pants. A gross generalization, but not far from off.

 

More re-birthday musings

Posted on by • 0 Comments

Let’s talk more about my weird brain and how I think of things. In the last post, I was talking about how bigots are going to bigot because they are bigots. I know that’s reductive and goes around in a circles, but it’s also true. When you get down to it, they are bigots because they are/want to be bigots. They have hate in their hearts, and they want to spread it around.  Also, many of them believe that everyone also has the same hate in their hearts, but just keep it to themselves. That’s why it’s important to speak up when you hear bigoted statements.

It’s interesting. As a visual minority, I don’t get to hear most of the rank foul things people would say about Asian people. Sure, I get to hear the casual racism, and I’ve been asked really foul personal questions as an Asian AFAB person. And, my god, when I used to use the dating apps, the vast majority of the men responding (when I was looking for men) would tell me how much they LOVED Oriental girls (their words, not mine) and send me dick pics. This was with me putting in my ad that I did not want dick pics or men who were Asian fetishists.

Side note: my dudes. Bruh. I don’t know why I need to say this, but the way to instantly stand out on the apps as a straight dude is to FUCKING READ WHAT THE AD ACTUALLY  SAYS. I was very upfront about not wanting either of those two things, and I would say at least 90% of the replies I got had the Asian thing and maybe 50% had dick pics.

Guys whine about not getting any answers to their queries on dating apps, but if you can’t put in the minimal effort of READING THE FUCKING AD, then there’s no reason for someone to reply to you.

I know what it is, of course. Sexism and racism all rolled up into one. Yippee. It’s cishetwhite dudes not realizing that they need to put in a modicum of effort. So many guys whining about not getting any answers, blah blah blah. Like they are entitled to a date from any given woman. I mean, I would have a modicum of sympathy if they put in the effort and were being rejected (which does happen to some guys, obviously), but for the ones who don’t even READ THE FUCKING AD before responding, well, they can go fuck themselves (because I certainly am not going to do it).

I’ve gotten into Kpop (well, one specific group, Stray Kids), and I’m struggling. One reason is beacuse I see a lot of what I consider queer-baiting behavior in the indulstry in general. And it’s based on very rigid gender roles that are as entrenched as they are in America (in different ways, yes, but still makes me grimace).

Not only do I find it distasteful, but I don’t get it. I don’t understand why the need to constantly joke about them being married to each other and why fans are so invested in it, too. All the shipping makes me very uneasy for several reasons. One, who the fuck cares? That’s the first and biggest reason.


Continue Reading

A somber look at my fifth re-birthday

Posted on by • 0 Comments

I’m still fucked up in my head about finding out my fake-hubby, Yutsy died last December. In addition, it’s my fifth re-birthday, so I’m meditative about that as well. It feels both much longer and much shorter than that. Simultaneously one year and ten years. I have some thoughts on that as well. Yesterday, I talked about Yutsy and how we became a thing. I want to talk more about that and what it means to me now.

I hadn’t talked to Yutsy in some time, but I knew he was having health issues of his own from the last time I talked to him. He was always in my heart because he is my fake-hubby! Where else was he going to be? We met on a political blog and clicked because we shared a wacky sense of humor, were queer, and a few other reasons. Mostly the queer thing, though. He was gay, and I’m bi. We both were passionate about advocating for our civil rights and pushing for equality.

I think we became fake-married during the debates asinine arguments fucking bullshit about marriage equality. During that time, I was mad a lot. Not only because we queers acutally had to debate our humanity, but that the bigots acted like the injured party when we weren’t as “civil” as they demeed proper. I can still remember a Vikings player mewling about how people should be respectful as we debated the issue. We could agree to disagree, blah, blah, blah. (And, yes, I remember who it was. I just don’t want to dignify his bullshit by naming him.)

It makes me see red when someone in the majority wants to tone police someone being actively hurt by their bigotry. They want to act as if they’re the aggrieved party when they’re the ones deny our humanity. I said at the time, “You want us to speak civilly to you while you do uncivil things to us” to highlight the hypocrisy. Oh, your feelings are hurt? Well, tough shit.

This bullshit has been thrown at minorities my entire life. “Yes, we’re doing atrocious things to you, but you raised your voice at us!” Tone policing has been used to put minorities in their place probably ever since time began, and I’m not having any of it.

Here’s the thing. There’s no argument that is good enough in their eyes to change their minds. Let’s take marriage equality since it’s coming under threat once again. (BIG sigh.)

Oh wait. Before I get into that, I wanted to say the other thing that really rankled me about the marriage equality debate–it wasn’t something I personally cared about. I realized in my early thirties that I did not want to get married and that I had many issues with it. Actually, it wsa earlier than that, but it was my early thirties that really solidified that marriage was maybe 972 on my list of things I gave a shit about.

What I do give a shit about, though, is equality. That’s probably in the top five if you were to press me about it on that same list (of things I give a shit about). If straight people can be miserable yoked to one other person, then queer people should be allowed to be just as miserable!

So it made me angry that not only were the bigots bigottng as hard as their bigoted hearts could bigot, but that I had to care about an issue (marriage) that I didn’t care about at all because it affected an isssue (equality), I did care about.

You can probably tell that I have many negative thoughts/feelings about marriage, at least as how it’s usually defined as in America. Monogamous one-to-one union of a man and a woman for their whole lives to the exclusion of all others.


Continue Reading

Angry at the world, part two

Posted on by • 0 Comments

Let’s talk more about unbridled rage and what I plan on doing about it. Nothing. The end.

Not really, of course. In yesterday’s post, I talked about how angry I am almost all the time right now. I like to use the Hulk’s infamous line, “That’s my secret, Cap. I’m always angry” with a wry smile like the Hulk because it’s true. I’m always lowkey angry about something or the other, but previously, on a scale of 1 to 10, it was a 1 or a 2. Now, it’s a 4 or 5 at all times, and that’s only because I’m suppressing it.

When I was younger, I kept a really tight rein on my anger. I was taught that my anger was simultaneously too much and unacceptable. Only my father was allowed to be angry and only my mother was allowed to be depressed. And, boy, was she deeply depressed. She used to cry and sob at me for hours about how much my father wsa hurting her by cheating on her. I don’t remember when she explicitly started saying the last part, but I knew it from a pretty young age.

Recently, I talked to my brother about it. We both had a defining moment when we realized that my father was brazenly having affairs with women from the Taiwanese church. Both of us were in our teens when it happened (he’s three years older).

For me, it was when he and my mother were with another Taiwanese couple playing tennis. A woman from the Taiwanese church called and asked to speak to him. I said he was playing tennis, and I would give him the message.

When my parents camehome, I gave my father the message. Unfortunately, I told him that I told the woman he was playing tennis. My father got made and scolded me for telling her that he and my mother had been playing with the other woman. I was so confused because why would that be a big deal, and my father gave me the inane reason that the other woman would feel bad about not being invited.

I mean, she’s a grown-ass adult. If she wanted to act like a thirteen-year old, then that’s on her. It was just an excuse, though. I realize a few decades later what the issue actually was–that the other woman was either an ex-mistress or a mistress-to-come of my father’s, and he did not want to upset her. I didn’t think of it because she’s not his usual type, but maybe he’d run out of candidates.

My brother’s example was when a woman called and asked to talk to my father. My brother didn’t say Taiwanese woman, but since that’s all my father liked, I just assumed. My brother told her our father wasn’t home. The woman asked who he was, and my brother said, “His son.” The woman gasped, “His son?!” and then hung up the phone.


Continue Reading

Owning the bitterness in my heart

Posted on by • 0 Comments

I want to talk about how burned out I feel right now. Emotionally, I mean. I talked in yesterday’s post about how I hated my fellow countrypeople, and I’m not even trying to tamp it down. In the past, I would try to talk myself out of it or give reasons why–no, not the latter. I could not excuse the hate even if I tried not to hate back. The thing, though, is that I hated back, regardless of trying not to.

Wait. I’m not sure hated is the right word. It’s more like raged. And wanted revenge. Which I am even more invested in now. I don’t like that about myself, but I’m also not doing much to block it. Look. If you’re trying to take away my civil rights, then I’m going to be happy when you get smacked down by your own hubris. I’m not proud of it, but I’m also not feeling too bad about it.

For a long time, one of my favorite GIFs was the one in which  Angela Bassett sets her cheating boyfriend’s car on fire after piling all his stuff in it, turns arround, and flicking the ashes of her cigarette, walks away. It’s based on this clip. Rewatching the clip, you can see how worn down she is and how much pain she’s in. But, more importantly, you can see the rage in her eyes. Even though she keeps her movements very controlled and deliberate, I can feel the anger behind each gesture. And hurt.

That’s how I feel right now. I’m trying to keep it under control, but I’m furious. I’ll candidly admit it. I have two instances that I like to trot out when I want to make this point clear. After the Supreme Court repealed Roe v. Wade, I read a story about a Texan woman who had a wanted pregnacy. The fetus died in her womb and because of the repeal of Roe v. Wade and the fact that she lived in such a regressive state, she could not get the fetus removed.

She had to drive to another state in order to get the procedure done, which meant burying the fetus in another state. In the interview, she said that she had been pro-repeal, and she never thought shewould be affected by it. She went on to talk about how traumatic it was, etc. My first immediate thought was a vicious, “Good!” I was shaken by how deep the depths of my anger was, but I was so tired by that point. I mean, if she didn’t know what the repeal would mean, maybe she shouldn’t have fucking supported it?


Continue Reading

Me and double empathy, part three

Posted on by • 0 Comments

I have more to say about bias, the double empathy problem, and whatever else happens to be on my mind. In yesterday’s post, I talked about how I have no heart because there is so much hatred in this country right now.

In the Discord I’m in, we were arguing about politics. Well, not politics themselves, exactly, but whether or not America is hopeless. There were those who said though things were bleak right now, there was a brighter day coming. I, on the other hand, was just done. I did not come back from the dead (twice) for this bullshit!

Someone in the Discord was saying that to believe it was hopeless meant ‘they’ won. I knew what they were saying, but at this point, I just couldn’t care. I have been a Democrat since I was old enough to realize what the parties stood for. I was a Democrat by default because I loathed them a little less than I did the Republicans.

Yes, you understand that correctly. I have never been an enthusiastic Democrat because there is just so much wrong with the party. I’m not going to enumerate their faults and flaws here, but suffice to say if I could have found any other party to vote for, I would have. Any other party would have done (except the Republicans, obviously), but that would have been a folly in a two-party system.

I’m also not going to rant about that because I’m not in the mood, but I will say that I have never voted  Republican, and I most certainly will not now. When I was on the dating apps (back in the Stone Ages), I had a bio that said I didn’t care about gender, color, religion, or anything except that I would not date a Republican. This was thirty-some years ago, and I feel it even more now. You cannot be a part of the Republican party right now and not have hate in your heart.

Do I have hope? Honestly, I don’t think that’s a revelant question for me. Hope doesn’t pay the bills, and it doesn’t help people in any tangible way. In fact, I would say unreasonable hope is wores than no hope at all. I get it. You don’t want to take all hope away from people, but I don’t want to hope for something that isn’t going to happen.

There is a very thin line between being hopeful and toxic positivity. America is heavily into the latter, and it’s working my last nerve right now. I do know that people have to have some sliver of hope, but things really are dire right now. And I know we have to keep fighting, but it’s so hard. Where is the good news? Where is that spark of things can get better? There is none. I have a hard time even checking the news on the daily because it’s unrelenting grim news.


Continue Reading

Let’s talk more about the double empathy problem, part two

Posted on by • 0 Comments

DEI training is worse than useless if it’s not done well. In yesterday’s post, I talked about how I was unwillingly dragged into being a DEI trainer when I was a ‘mere’ admin assistant for a DEI department (or the equivalent thereof before DEI was officially a thing).

I was supposed to just deal with paperwork, more or less, but my boss discovered that I’m really fucking good at other things–like writing and computer-related things that she did not want to do. As I said in yesterday’s post, she was in over her head and really should not have been in the position.

The one thing I learned while doing DEI training was that most of it was shitty. This was thirty years ago, and while it may have gotten better since then, I think it still probably sucks. I mentioned it at the end of the last post that I came up with an idea for a diversity town in which people who are now in the majority (cis het white Christian dudes) expreienced life as the minority for a month.

I want the actual minorities to treat the people in the majority the way they themselves have been treated, no holds barred. It’s nearly impossible to explain to someone what life is like as a minority, especially as a multiple one. There are some people who have empathy, but there are more who do not. And there are a big number of people who haven’t had to be empathetic. The same people who would benefit from diverrsity town.

The reason I dismissed it was because, well, there were several reasons. One, it’s not very ethical to fuck with people like that. Two, it would take an astronomical amount of money. Three, it would be really difficult to govern. Four, crimes would happen. I’m just speculating on the last, but I’m pretty certain that it would happen. Or rather, there would be no way to guarantee that it wouldn’t happen.

Those ore the four off the top of my head. I am sure there are many more that I haven’t thought of–such as not being allowed to do any such thing. Also, people who are in the majority are already afraid of how they’d be treated if they truly were in the minority. This certainly would not help in that area.

I think it would be a good way to really open people’s eyes to prejudice, though. And I would make sure that they got to experience ALL the harrassment, microaggressions, gaslighting, and other delightful bullshit that minorities have to go through. Which, again, is neither ethical nor moral. And probably not legal, either.


Continue Reading

How to solve the double empathy problem

Posted on by • 0 Comments

When I was in my twenties, I was an admin assist for the director of a diversity department. I’m being deliberately vague, but the point is that my job was, on paper, to do typing, editing, and shit like that. It was four hours a day, five days a week. I was there for four years, and over time, job creep happened. My boss was in over her head, and to be fair, she probably wasn’t getting much help from the top, either. It wsa my belief that the powers that be (PTB) really didn’t want to do diversity, but at that time, it was a hot topic–and in the place I was working, they could not afford to look like they didn’t care.

But they really didn’t.

My boss checked out mentally fairly soon after I started working. To be honest, she was not equipped to do the job, but, again, that wasn’t really her fault. She was tasked to do something that none of the PTB really wanted to do.

She was in charge of the diversity training for the department. We’re talking five-hundred or so employees. When I started, the catalog was a single sheet of paper. My boss never said what she  wanted me to do with it, exactly, but I was an overachiever. I had never used Windows…Publisher? Was that the booklet-making tool? I don’t remember, but let’s just assume that’s what it was. I had never used it before, so I had to teach it to myself.

I took that one page and turned it into a thirty-plus page catalogue. All by my damn self, thank you very much. The head of a smaller diversity department within our umbrella department began insisting that I give my template to her admin assist to do her (the department head) catalogue as well. There was no asking; there was no requesting; there was just the demand. Even worse, she wanted me to teach her admin assist how to make the catalogue. How about no and no?

I asked my boss, and she most emphatically said it was not my job and she did not want me to do that. She had beef with the other woman for several reasons, and I did not want to do anything to get in the middle of all that. Also, to be honest, I didn’t have the time nor the desire to want to teach her admin assist to do that. I mean, I taught myself; the admin assist could do the same if she so chose. And I did it in four hours a day!


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

Safer spaces and thee, part seven

Posted on by • 0 Comments

Let’s talk more about safer spaces. In yesterday’s post, I talked about reasons why it’s necessary to clearly spell out acceptable behavior in a group situation. I also mused about how people protested about it and about enthusiastic consent because….? Well, with the latter, they said it would take the spontaneity out of sex (ummmmmmm), and in the case of the former, I think it falls under the “people should just know this” umbrella.

Side note: It’s tiring. Being told that this or that is just something people should intuit. And as much as normies like to talk about how anyone can learn soft/social skills, it really isn’t as easy as that. And that’s part of ableism. It doesn’t help that it’s been so indoctrinated in people, many neurodivergent people feel the need to make themselves smaller, mask harder, and apologize for being different.

It’s not uncommon, by the way, for minorities to do this. Or to be one of the good ones. I have seen it time and time again, and I have been one to do this as well. When I was in college, I mostly hung out with guys. It really wasn’t a ‘I want to be the cool chick’ thing, but it ended up being that. In order to hang with the guys, I had to (or at least felt like I had to) rag on the women they did. I was well aware that my status as ‘cool girl’ was hanging by a thread that could be snipped at any time.

It’s hard. The world is made for the normies. It shouldn’t be that way, but it is. So while we’re worknig to change that, we also have to teach minorities how to cope and funciton in the real world.

I’ve talked about the double empathy problem, but I want to talk about it again. Before autism was really a thing, anyone who was autistic was pretty much expected to conform to normal society. Parents would basically force their autistic children to behave in a way that was deemed normal. If that wasn’t possible, then it was getting as close as possible.

Oftentimes, this was done through abusve/coercion. Be it emotional or physical or both. In my case, it was a heavy and constant dose of emotional manipulation–or maybe it’s more accuarate to say I was emotionally beaten down daily until I just crumbled.

I was told I was too sensitive, that I laughed too loudly, that I could not read while waiting for an event to start (Taiwanese event. Always started at least forty-five minutes late),and that I could not show any emotions other than happiness and gratitude. I know the latter is not an emotion, but it’s close enough.


Continue Reading