How to Be A Bad Asian: I Moved Away From Other Asians

By Ernie | Wednesday, February 15, 2012 | 21 Comments

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Life is hard enough as an Asian. Not all of us can get perfect SAT scores, graduate from medical school or trick out a Honda Civic. The pressure to embrace our culture remains but sometimes, we just don’t want to. How To Be A Bad Asian is an ongoing series of personal essays by the 8Asians writers about what sets us apart from the API community, how we deal with the stereotypes that we put upon ourselves and why we all can’t be that perfect Asian. It’s time to be bad.

I was born in California. I enjoy subtle American things, like using credit cards and asking for extra sour cream in my burritos and watching reality shows and tweeting about it. On the flip side, my parents are immigrants, so the standard cultural immersion stuff comes to play: No English to be spoken at home! Chinese school growing up! Living in the San Francisco Bay Area, where if Asians weren’t the majority, they were at least a familiar part of the community fabric. And The past five years, I lived in San Francisco, a city where one out of every three people is an immigrant from Asia, or at the very least, a direct descendant of one. I was picked on at school because I was “the fat weird one” rather than being “the Chinese one.”

So why on earth would I move to a place where I was “the Chinese one?” On my own accord?

In San Francisco – like other populated cities in California – people associate the Chinese less with “those people that ruin our economy” as much as they are “those people that somehow get onto the busses without paying for them.” Hungry? How about dim sum? Or ramen? Or Korean BBQ? You go to a Chinese New Years parade in San Francisco, and the largest contingents you see are the white kids enrolled in the Chinese Immersion schools, dressed like whatever zodiac animal it is. Starting a fucking blog about Asian American issues surely hasn’t hurt any.

And then, on a vacation to Miami with my best friend, I met someone. He’s handsome, motivated, funny, clever. He runs a theater – an actual brick and mortar one, none of that virtual shit – so he can’t move to San Francisco. We have a long distance relationship for two and a half years. And then, last week, I bought a one-way ticket to Miami Beach to move in with him. Miami, nicknamed the “Capital of Latin America,” is the second largest city with a Spanish Speaking majority. Miami Beach, where I live, is the island right off Miami, the Miami that everyone sees when they’re watching the credits to The Birdcage, Dexter, CSI: Miami, or that one Will Smith video in the 90s.

Neither city is known for their Asians.

I mean sure, there are SOME Asians: there are the tourists and the foreign exchange students that go to FIU and the people that serve pork buns at the one dim sum restaurant I’ve found. But most of this city is Latin; 65% of this city has learned English as a second language. A couple of cashiers at the local CVS have assumed that I’m Chinese-Cuban, rather than Chinese-American, asking if I wanted paper or plastic bags in rapid-fire Spanish, completely indistinguishable from the Spanish I learned my one-year of High School which pretty much consisted of the phrases “Juan es alto” and “Hable has despacio, pro favor.” Usually my “these Latins are older than me, so maybe I can treat them as Asian elders” instincts kick in and I start doing a series of micro-bows, repeatedly saying “Lo siento” and “No espanol.” They stare back at me and frown.

So this is why I am a bad Asian: rather than stick to my creature comforts of California, I have decided to take a chance and move across the country for someone in Miami Beach, a town full of things that are unfamiliar to me as someone who grew up in San Francisco, much less someone brought up Asian American. As I just moved here a week okay, the weather is weird and the people are really pretty but kinda rude and I’ve been eating less pork buns and more empanadas and I’m fairly certain that in about two or three weeks, I’ll just sit on the floor of my empty, not-quite-painted apartment and bury my face in my hands and just generally freak the fuck out. But because I run a blog talking about Asian American issues, you’ll be the first people to read about it.

It’ll be an experience. Or as they say it here: Una experiencia. Because I’m trying, you know.

(Flickr photo credit: Justin Ornellas)

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Kimiye

Welcome to Florida, Ernie! And my world for my whole life. I guess my mom was the bad Asian back in the 50′s, who fled to America and ended up in Arkansas. I’ve almost always been the only Asian in the room. Even now, most of my interaction with other Asians is online.

I am quite interested to hear of your adventures in assimilation, or lack thereof. Holler if you venture up into Mickey Mouse territory, my current neck of the woods.
violettavane2011

Hey, I moved to Miami when i was a teenager, learned Spanish, and ended up loving it.

But I was raised away from other Asians so I had a high tolerance for that kind of isolation. It takes some getting used to.

One thing I learned quickly in Miami and when I lived in other cities like Mexico City… Latin culture is a lot more free with nicknames based on personal appearance. Groups of friends often have names like “el gordo” or “el chino” or “el negro”. I had to get used to getting called “la china” or “la chinita” (and I’m not Chinese). What in English would be fighting words aren’t necessarily as maliciously ignorant in Spanish, so I had to lower some bars slightly… but not all the way to the floor.

Best of luck! Miami can be pretty awesome.
http://eggrollstan.tumblr.com/ eggrollstan

I’m so happy for you finally being on the East Coast! But somehow you ended up in Northern Cuba, and for that, I sympathize. So many other Asians I know here in Atlanta, or Miami, who ever have dreams of living with “their people” usually seem to always have the Pet Shop Boys song “Go West” playing in their heads. Eventually, everyone wants to end up in San Francisco or LA, the Land of Many Asians.

Being a super-minority Asian in a city will be like being the only gay in the village. You really aren’t the only gay, but the others will have to be found out. Miami is the destination location for the disparate Asian population in Latin America and the Caribbean. When i lived in Miami, I felt at home with my Cuban Chinese peeps, and Jamaican Chinese with the accent. You’ll do great!
http://www.foodgoat.com ladygoat

It could be worse. You could be in Cleveland. Like me.
timat8asians

And of course some of us have had the complete opposite experience, growing up somewhere with no Asians, and then moving to California, where it was at least *quasi*-normal to be Asian. That too is a little mind-blowing when you’re not used to it.
http://me.mikelee.org/ mikeleeorg

Ernesto es divertido. Ernesto es muy divertido. ¡Me da risa muy duro!
PeterLo

This is an act of being a good asian. Represent us down there!
xfilez76

you should totally wear a cowboy hat, then NOBODY will think that you are asian.
CKShaw

Call me when the freak out begins. I’ll drive down and hold you.
Danny_Ahmed

Miami sounds like an awesome place.
Danny_Ahmed

@timat8asians I gotta tell you one weird feeling regarding that.

A lot of times, in those places, the only fellow Asians are either relatives or acquaintances (even though not related, they still are refer to as an “uncle” or “auntie”). Sometimes, the same honorifics are used to fellow Asians who are strangers. So, like seeing fellow Asians has that close, almost “tribal” sentiment.

Moving to a place with more Asians, like Cali, I say it’s weird sometimes because not every fellow Asians person you see wants or deserves such intimate greeting or any warm feelings. Nor will you get the any good treatment from them…not always.
Danny_Ahmed

@timat8asians At least, that’s how I felt.
mwei

@ladygoat rock-n-roll hall of fame?
AsiaticGlory

I am an Asian guy who was raised in Texas where Asians are also few. I have a desire to move to San Francisco. Only problem is that it has a high cost of living. Instead I am thinking about the Pacific Northwest which can be the potential location of an overseas Asian society in a manner similar to that of Singapore. Rather than be sparsely distributed throughout North America, I think overseas Asians should mass immigrate to the Pacific Northwest so that us Asians would have a region. Right now, blacks have the southeast, Mexicans have the southwest, and whites have the north.

As for Miami, it is a place that I am avoiding because of its low Asian population. Don’t mistake me as some “hater” because I actually am interested in experiencing other cultures. I just simply want to live in a place where there are more Asians.
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http://www.erniehsiung.com/ Ernie H.

@violettavane2011 Awesome! Are you still in Miami? We should grab a drink sometime!
yu888

Go Ernie Go! It will likely be a challenge but there is absolutely nothing wrong with going into this new experience with eyes open. (not a comment in the “chinky-eyes fashion of course) Your own identity awareness and pride in your heritage will do you fine. Hopefully you will get to learn as much as you will likely educate about the different cultures and backgrounds. Do us proud… the bay area will always be here.
violettavane2011

@Ernie H.@violettavane2011 No, I’m in the more-Asian-but-not-very city of Atlanta nowadays. If you’re on your way through here, though, drop me a line and I’ll tell you where the best restaurants are
http://www.erniehsiung.com/ Ernie H.

I’m intrigued as to why 56% of the people who read this clicked on “Angry.”
Blamster

Congrats for daring to be someone who moves somewhere to take a chance at love where there aren’t many of “one’s peeps”. Have fun, explore, and represent!
lani

Oh Ernie. You so funny. Inspiring really…makes me want to write about my Asian American journey from token Asian to Where’s Waldo Wang?

When I was in Ecuador, had someone open up the Bible in Chinese and try to convert me…yeahhhh. Actually Asians in South America became kind of a fascinating study for me. Where was I going? Ah, yes, you funny yo.