I stumbled onto this blog and liked alot of the topics and articles. Good stuff. I’m sort of a feminist, and i tend to be very blunt so a lot of the sexist guys on MM hate me that’s why i get comments like that.

As for the article you wrote:

I agree in concept with most of what you have written, but i have an issue with being lumped together by others (non-”asian”) as well as by each other. My parents/mine culture is invariably different than, say, an indian person’s, i think it would be a disrespectful choice to just say we are the same- I mean asia’s a big place.

I also agree with Wangus Khan’s post.. many asians are well-to-do, or in the process of attaining that status. They (from all ethnicities) generally wont want to ‘rock the boat’ just because of a few bad portrayals of AMs.

Anyway,

*hugs*

Uniting under a banner of general asian unity isn’t a strong enough adhesive and will probably cause light to apathetic participation at most. The big complaint is that asians simply don’t care. Why is that? We really have it pretty good. Sure there are some stigmas out there, but asians have the highest median income, highest levels of education, and generally a higher quality of life than the rest of america. There is no serious conflict that we have to fight off. No great war to bring us all together. The African Americans had slavery to overcome and they have the most united front in all minority interest groups. Japanese Internment camps, Chinese exlusion act, and building the railroads (which have almost no after shock on us today) are not ‘drastic’ enough to bring us all together. Sure it pisses me off that such things have happened, but there’s virtually no aftershock to all that.

We’re the most prosperous group. Group unity won’t stick over a few abercrombie shirts, asian male desexualization, and asian female fetishes. We need more conflict before any kind of unity can be expected.

Why have heritage at all then? Why call ourselves Asian Americans? Seriously. If we’re here, then we’re Americans. The point is that there are some that look at the historical views differently outside of the oppressive states that you’re looking at it. Without an open mind to even other views, then it’s no different than any other relationship. If it’s about oppression, then dang…. we might as well call the US, the United Tribal Nation since that’s who the Europeans oppressed. Or if we go back further, we could basically break it down to the mongloid, caucazoid, and negroid bases. Society itself has always been a strong over weak scenario, regardless.

Politics in Taiwan itself? Nuts. Totally messed up. I’m done with this topic cuz it’s pretty stupid and I personally hate politics because it doesn’t solve anything but creates a bunch of retarded issues. Just look a bit closer to home.

Your analogy still doesn’t work exactly because Taiwan’s culture is different from China’s. It IS a lot like an independent country already, not just another state.

Second, it doesn’t matter if you came to Taiwan from Guatemala and consider yourself Guatemalan; when in Rome, do as the Romans, though you may retain your mother culture and that may in turn influence a fusion in the local area…regardless, if you stay in Rome long enough, at some point you must abide by Roman law and if that means changing your citizenship to Taiwanese, then so be it. You’d be Roman Taiwanese. Or something. So in your case, you may be a bit more prudent in considering yourself Chinese Taiwanese.

Third, if people really want to duke this issue out, I’m sure there are plenty of previous posts discussion China and Taiwan or we can start a new “post” that directly relates to cross-straits relations. This place here, however, may not be the most appropos forum for it.

In the spirit of this post, I second Bertie and we can all agree to disagree.

So in fact, my analogy stands. What you’re doing is taking the political view (top down) to debate my perspective from the ground up. So basically from a larger perspective since you’re focusing directly on KMT’s oppression, then you ignore the fact that there are any other people outside of KMT. That’s…. well.. not cool.

I have no issues with the Nationalist oppression. Fine. So what? You still don’t answer the question of what happens to those of us that are Chinese and are not Taiwanese. It’s like saying… hey… you’re not really American, because you weren’t born here. Your argument comes off similar to the whole black oppressive state in the South. If a black person beats up a white person, it’s called assault, but vice versa, it’s a hate crime. That’s a terrible perspective to take since it generalizes everything.

Like I said before, the whole independence thing, no one has bothered to think about some of the other people effected by it outside of the whole “independent” group and the people that don’t want it (mainland). What about us? Yeah… just as I thought, no one bothered to think about it.

1. Why the hell did some idiot bring up Taiwanese independence? Oh shit, I just violated rule #1.

2. Are there chicks at Asian non-profits?

Case in point – most would just see me as a Chinese-Canadian but unless you actually spoke to me, you wouldn’t know that I lean more towards the Filipino culture my parents were born and raised in. So then of course, I would get involved in the Filipino community events only to find that I’m not completely welcomed. (There is a rather torrid history between the Filipino and the Chinese in the Philippines.) There is only so much a person can take before they throw their hands up in the air and give up. And I only have a limited amount of personal bandwidth.

It really truly is a great idea – this Asian Unity – I just don’t see it happening in the near future because everyone wants to assert their own distinct culture apart from the others.