Excited
From NPR’s All Things Considered comes this story on the balancing acts that the American children of Chinese immigrants go through and the cultural tensions that naturally arise, which is pretty much what 90% of everyone who writes on and reads this weblog goes through has experienced, and one of the reasons why 8Asians.com was created. Seriously, is this such a shock to non-Asian people that someone has to do a story about it? Next week on NPR’s News of the Obvious: You will die too, someday.
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While Asians comprise almost half of the earth's population, they comprise less than 10% of the US population, and in certain communities they are less than 1% of the local population. I grew up in the south and while I knew the one chinese family in my school, I knew nothing about them other than the fact that they owned the chinese restaurant in town. Seriously.
In the Navy and in college I knew many asians and asian american's but those friendships were casual and we never discussed anything truly personal other than the occasional alcohol induced exercise in language learning. So while people may "know" asian american's, I doubt many of those people know anything personal about them. And by personal I mean things like - fears, hopes, irritations, inside jokes, etc.
It was only after deciding to adopt our daughter from China that we've sought to learn about and understand the asian-american experience and chinese language and culture. Besides reading lots of books, I read this blog (it's great btw), among others, to learn and understand more about the asian american experience in the US. So while I found the NPR piece interesting, I didn't learn anything new. Of course 10 years ago I would have been fascinated by it because it would have been a window into a world I had never seen. It's all a matter of perspective and exposure.
While Asians comprise almost half of the earth's population, they comprise less than 10% of the US population, and in certain communities they are less than 1% of the local population. I grew up in the south and while I knew the one chinese family in my school, I knew nothing about them other than the fact that they owned the chinese restaurant in town. Seriously.
In the Navy and in college I knew many asians and asian american's but those friendships were casual and we never discussed anything truly personal other than the occasional alcohol induced exercise in language learning. So while people may "know" asian american's, I doubt many of those people know anything personal about them. And by personal I mean things like - fears, hopes, irritations, inside jokes, etc.
It was only after deciding to adopt our daughter from China that we've sought to learn about and understand the asian-american experience and chinese language and culture. Besides reading lots of books, I read this blog (it's great btw), among others, to learn and understand more about the asian american experience in the US. So while I found the NPR piece interesting, I didn't learn anything new. Of course 10 years ago I would have been fascinated by it because it would have been a window into a world I had never seen. It's all a matter of perspective and exposure.
I think any topic is worth exploring. And if you look at it from another angle, to say that this documentary is unnecessary is unfair to those who feel like they want their stories heard.
"The majority of people in this world are not writers or readers of this blog, in fact most have never had an actual relationship with an Asian person in their lives either."
I agree with the first point (although we'd love to have the majority of people to be readers of this blog :-)), but I'd have to disagree with the second. If you go by continental population, Asian are the majority of people in this world and thus are highly likely to have had an actual relationship with an Asian person in their lives. If a person takes the highly parochial view equating the "world" with the US, then point taken. There are definitely many Americans who don't live in diverse areas of the country and haven't dealt with Asian Americans, so the NPR material would be news to them.
The majority of people in this world are not writers or readers of this blog, in fact most have never had an actual relationship with an Asian person in their lives either.
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