Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: age

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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More thoughts on my birthday, evolution of

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We are well past my birthday, but I have more to say about it. It’s partly because I am surprised at how much my hatred/disdain/disgust of it has vanished. It’s funny how I went from hating my birthday when I was a kid to becoming ‘neutral’ about it in my thirties to becoming truly neutral about it in my fifties. Yes, it’s been a long journey, but I’m glad I’m finally here. This is the post I wrote yesterday about being happy for all the love sent my way on my birthday.

What  I did not expect was that beacuse of all the love and warm wishes, I actually feel slightly positive towards my birthday itself. Not a huge amount, but it’s noticeable.

I cannot tell you what made the difference this year because I have no idea. I’ve had a lot of love on my birthdays before. Several people always acknowledge it so it’s not that it just goes by without notice. I usually talk to my parents and K on my birthday, too, so it wasn’t that.

Also, it wasn’t like things were going peachy in the world, either. Life in America is grim right now. Like, really grim. Because of the US being so powerful, all the terriblie and terrifying things that this president does has tremors that shake the entire world. Everything sucks right now, quite frankly.

Side note: The president saying those awful things about Iran yesterday and then pulling out a two-week ceasefire did something to my brain. I was saying yesterday that I truly had no idea what he was going to do, and it’s true. I still don’t know what he’s going to do. But.

Once the unthinkable didn’t happen and instead it ended up in a two week ceasefire. This is when, ironically, I became more cynical and uneasy about the situation. And angrier. Why? Because that’s when it became clear that even though this president says whatever the fuck he wants–he had no intention of bombing Iran. In this particular instance, it was a calculated move to–what? Terrify Iran and the world? Flex his muscles? Show what he could do if he wanted?

I’m not sure, but it felt so calculated in a way that most things he does doesn’t feel. I mean, I’m sure what he threatened to do was all him–but for whatever reason, I feel like he was encouraged to make a hard stance by his team (though probably not in those specific words) so he could look even better when he called the ceasefire.

Do not get me wrong. I did not want him ta bomb Iran. AT ALL. I want to make that excessively clear. I just find the way he casually uses the possibility as a flex to be morally repugnant.


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My turbulent twenties (and maybe thirties)

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In my last post, I wrote about my life in the naughts and my teens. I’m up to college. College was an interesting time for me. There were positives and there were negatives. The biggest plus is that I lost both my virginity and my religion in the same night! I was twenty and ready to jettison both. I’ll get to that in a minute. I fucked myself up before going to college by becoming anorexic, but it was inevitable given my mother’s obsession with being skinny. I mean, it was inevitable since she nagged me about my weight all. the. damn. time. Pro tip: there is no better way to fuck up your girl child than to constantly harp on her weight. You’re welcome.

Oh, and disguising it as concern for her health isn’t fooling anyonee, either. My mother tried that tactic, and I saw right through her. She never said a word when I was anorexic and fainting because I was not eating enough to walk. When I was at my skinniest and looked like death warmed over, the only comment she made was that my waist was tinier than hers–and it wasn’t complimentary. She’s four inches shorter than I am and has a smaller frame than I do, so it ws a double-whammy that I was skirrier than she was.

When I was in my mid-to-late thirties and medically obese, I had to tell my mother that she could not mention my weight at all–no, not even under the guise of “I’m concerned about your health”. She made the face she always make when she’s not happy with what was said to her (as if she’d eaten an extremely sour lemon)  and tried to push the health angle.

I was having none of that. I knew it wasn’t abo;ut my health, and I was not going to let her gaslight me into pretending she gave a shit about my health. She still tries to find ways to sliiiiiiide it in, but I shut that down. I am not having any of that, especially since I’m in love with my body now. IN LOVE. I’ll get to that later, though, when I get to my fifties.

I made the best decision of my life in my early twenties. It was a negative decision, but that’s how I make most of my decisons. Well, not exactly. Normally, I made decision s by thinking of all the things I hate about every choice and then going with the one I least hated. In this case, though, it was a decision I joyfully embraced. When I say it was a negative decision, I just mean it was the decision not to do something rather than to do something. I’ve mentioned it many times before because it changed my life. Even more than dying twice did. And it wasn’t a conscious decision, really. It was more…look. It’s like this.


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The consequence of not reacting

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where did my head go?
I’ve lost my head over this.

I’m going to start out this post talking about Dark Souls because one, I love the series and will talk about it whenever I can. Two, I had a realization today about why I’m shit at parrying (in Dark Souls), and I wanted to muse on it a bit. Yes, it falls into the Wellness category because it’s  about mental health manifesting in a physical way.

Brief primer: Due to a traumatic childhood, I have an extremely high pain tolerance. I’ve mentioned this in the past that when we do chin na (joint lock) techniques on each other in taiji class, I have to be very conscious about when it’s reasonable to tap out rather than do it when I actually feel pain. In the beginning, I could only practice with my teacher because she didn’t trust that I wouldn’t get hurt else-wise. Part of that is natural flexibility in certain ways, like I can yank my thumb towards my wrist without even flinching when others jump after a little tweak. Most of it, however, was me training myself not to react to anything because I would get yelled at as a kid if I let one iota of a negative emotion show.

Come to think of it, that’s probably why I don’t talk about my depression much with anyone or I downplay it. I was either told I wasn’t feeling it when I was a kid, ignored, or scolded about it. When my mother actually did something about it, dragging me to a therapist when I was fourteen, it was at a local very religious school, and he had nothing for me. Yeah, it was a man, which only added to the problem.

I was also heavily bullied in school, and my mother gave me the age-old useless advice of ignoring it because that always works so well. The only two times I got a bully to back off (and both girls for what it’s worth) was the time I cried when a much older girl was bullying me. Her face immediately changed, and she complimented my hair and never bothered me again.  This was when I was six, and the only thing I took away from that experience was that it was so embarrassing to cry in front of someone else. Much later, I realized she was probably in a not-great home situation herself, but six-year-old me couldn’t understand why a teenager would want to be so mean to her.

The second incident was in high school. There was a girl (and I still remember her name) who used to pick on me every day in science class. I want to say physics, but that detail is fuzzy. My stomach would twist in knots every time I walked into the classroom because I knew the second I stepped into the room, she would be on me. Why? Who knows? Probably because I was easy to target as an outsider (fat, Asian, smart, and not knowledgeable about American culture at all). Remember, I was also deeply depressed at this time and probably had anxiety, although I didn’t realize that I had anxiety until much later, and the last thing I needed was some bitch picking on me in class.

I snapped. One day, she started in on her usual bullshit. I grabbed her hair, yanked it back, and told her if she ever bothered me again, I would fucking kill her. She blustered something about me thinking I was so big, but I didn’t. I was just fucking tired of her picking on me every goddamn day and no one doing anything about it. She never bothered me after that, and you would think the lesson I learned from that incident was that a bully doesn’t like to be bullied, but no. I was mortified at how I acted, even though I was pushed into it.

That’s part of the problem of constantly put down–you believe it’s what you deserve, and if you stand up for yourself (the general you), it feels wrong, even if the result is positive. It’s a vicious cycle, and it keeps someone who is downtrodden firmly under other people’s feet.

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