Excited
On this blog we often talk about diversity and state our expectations that white Americans try to get to know us beyond stereotypes and preconceived notions. The Daughter’s high school, which is about half Asian and a third white, sent out a notice that they were having a ”Hoedown” as the annual father-daughter event, complete with horse-shoe tossing and line dancing. I knew that this was my chance to go beyond my comfortable Asian-American neighborhood and try to get to know white people and their culture beyond my own stereotypes and preconceived notions. The Daughter was game, so I sent in the RSVP. These Asian-Americans were going to a hoedown!
(credit Scott Beale - Laughing Squid)
First, what to wear. Jeans would be good, but what else? I don’t have cowboy boots. I don’t have Western wear or flannel shirts — I’m more of a T-shirt/button-down kind of guy. A denim shirt did the trick (a button-down denim shirt). The Daughter wore jeans, a T-shirt and a bandana. Oh well, close enough.
When we arrived, I had the opportunity to meet The Daughter’s white friends (none of her Asian friends went). They were playing country music, and one of The Daughter’s friends said that this is the music that she listens to. A real live country music listener — I don’t meet any of those where I live! Some of the other fathers wore cowboy hats and boots, and it looked like they actually wear them on real occasions and not as a costume for an event. These white folk seem like nice people.
The line dancing was fun, and I caught on a lot faster than The Daughter. We did the “Elvira” line dance, which was really close to the “Electric Slide” I had done at countless Filipino parties (what is it about the Electric Slide and Filipinos, anyway?). I sucked at horse shoes. I was better at the Hoop Toss — toss a hoop around a cow’s head to win raffle tickets — because I took advantage of my inner Asian Engineer geek nature. I observed how the hoops bounced off the cow’s head (and resulted in no prize), so I got lower to the ground when I tossed the hoops, reduced the amount of bounce and made my daughter proud by winning those raffle tickets.
Some irony about hoedowns: you’d think it was mostly a “white thing” but Wikipedia claims that the origin of hoedowns was with African Americans. And many of the Hispanic dads looked pretty comfortable in cowboy boots and hats, which are common in parts of Mexico.
Overall, The Daughter and I enjoyed the experience. It seemed only fair that we should attend a more white-oriented event, as her school’s dances are always DJ’ed by Filipinos that play the urban music favored by most of the Asian girls. Silicon Valley and California have no ethnic majority and eventually the same will be true for the U.S. If we are all going to get along, we’ll need to get out of our comfort zone and explore other cultures, even if it means going to a hoedown!
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Living in Atlanta, and going to gay cowboy bars here, I have to say that there's always at least one asian guy or girl in the two-steppin' line. It's actually quite fun, and uh, I find it romantic.
Living in Atlanta, and going to gay cowboy bars here, I have to say that there's always at least one asian guy or girl in the two-steppin' line. It's actually quite fun, and uh, I find it romantic.
Jeff, you and The Daughter looked great. All you needed was the spurs.
I've always related country music (and rock too, while we're at it) as "white people music" because you can't dance to it! It's still so foreign to me -- it's like "WHOSE country? Certainly not mine!"
And Ernie -- there are 16 and 32 Step Cha-Chas? I haven't been to a Pinoy wedding in ages -- where can I learn them?! :)
Jeff, you and The Daughter looked great. All you needed was the spurs.
I've always related country music (and rock too, while we're at it) as "white people music" because you can't dance to it! It's still so foreign to me -- it's like "WHOSE country? Certainly not mine!"
And Ernie -- there are 16 and 32 Step Cha-Chas? I haven't been to a Pinoy wedding in ages -- where can I learn them?! :)
Ha! So a couple of notes:
1) You know, as someone who has hung out with his share of Filipinos in the day, I can say that Filipinos do indeed love to dance in a line. Even I know the 16 and 32 step cha-cha from all the weddings we go to. I guess line-dancing would be the next step.
2) I'm friends with Scott Beale, so of COURSE I know two of those guys in the hoe-down photo. Of course. And they're, like, the two least likely to do a hoe-down EVER.
Ha! So a couple of notes:
1) You know, as someone who has hung out with his share of Filipinos in the day, I can say that Filipinos do indeed love to dance in a line. Even I know the 16 and 32 step cha-cha from all the weddings we go to. I guess line-dancing would be the next step.
2) I'm friends with Scott Beale, so of COURSE I know two of those guys in the hoe-down photo. Of course. And they're, like, the two least likely to do a hoe-down EVER.
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