When I see how trendy Asian shit is, I sometimes rue that I’m as ethical as I am. With my psychological background and a rudimentary knowledge of Taiwanese culture, I could be making bank, yo, if I appropriated my own history. That brings up an interesting question–can someone appropriate their own culture? I think so. I am Taiwanese by heritage, yes, but I was born and raised in Minnesota. I like to say I’m as exotic as lutefisk, but now I’ll add that I’m not as bland. However, I do look like an Asian person*, so with a little spin and ingenuity, I could sell myself as an Asian mystic to the gullible masses. I watched as feng shui swept the country. I see turban-swathed people in white practicing yoga. Martial arts are all the rage, and I actually know one of them!
Imagine. I can name myself Guan Yin after the Chinese goddess of mercy and love, or Kali after the Hindu goddess of death and liberation. Yes, she’s Indian, but do you really think Americans will know or care? I have a yin-yang tattoo as a pendant on my upper right arm, and its band is made of flames and waves (of water). I have a lotus blossom engulfed in flames tattoo on my left breast, and a representation of Kali in flames (yes, I have a thing for fire, and all four of my tats have flames) above my belly button. I can plait my waist-length hair or have two Princess Leia buns on top of my head. I can speak in pidgin English and bow periodically to my clients. I would wear white voluminous robes or a cheongsam, and I’d have the jade symbol for fortune dangling from a red thread around my neck.
I would talk in short sentences, filled with pithy observations about nature. “You must be as a bird flies–light on your wings with the wind behind you.” It doesn’t make any sense, of course, but that would just add to the mystery. Americans love Asian mystical shit, which has always bemused and amused me. I was reading at an Asian event many years ago. The theme was sex and sexuality, and there were many interesting pieces. Once the reading was over, it was open mic, and a white guy walked up to the microphone and said that he didn’t understand why we had talked about sex when there were so many wonderful spiritual things in the East. He talked about his Korean girlfriend (ugh) who said American Asians didn’t know if they were Asian or American, and then he read a nauseating piece of the mystical East. You can imagine how that went over, and several of my co-readers lined up to angrily respond. Me, I could only marvel at the gall of a mediocre white dude who had no qualms telling a room full of Asians what they should think is important about their own goddamn culture.