To the white guy who tried to give me pointers on how to snag a white guy:

My professional obligation in the context at hand was to convince you to sign a contract that would fork over half a million dollars to my company and so I couldn’t say then any of what I am about to say now.

First, sit back, sailor, no even farther. Do you see what I am doing here with the gesturing? I am drawing a circle with a 10 foot radius around me. This is my personal space. Do not enter. We each have our own copies of the file. You do not need to crawl so close and peer over my shoulders. In fact, you probably shouldn’t. My hubby is a very big, brawny (Asian) man and you know those Asian men… they’ve got tempers… you wouldn’t want to incite his. Plus, he’s got youth on his side. You evidently do not. So don’t get zippy with me, old man.

No part of the conversation reasonably opened the course for your digression into how wonderful Asian women are, how wonderful white men are also, and how the two are perfect for each other. Adam and Ai-Ling, was your joke. I bet you were set out to bring it up. I could have said, “Pluto.” And you would have replied, “Yes, Pluto, you know that reminds me of Asian women and white men…”

You started in about Asian men first, yes, if I recall, that’s how it started. “Why are Asian women marrying out in staggering numbers? It’s because Asian men are so horrible to their women. They mistreat them. They neglect them. They don’t know how to make a woman happy.”

In the instant with no chance for aforethought, I didn’t know what else to say but a dull, contrived “now we’re just stereotyping.”

“That’s why every Asian woman I know is so desperate to snag a white guy, but for some reason they just can’t. They don’t know how. They’re shy, they’re more traditional, they don’t know how to talk to a white guy. Let me give you some pointers.”

Up to then, my strategy for dealing with you had been to be completely non-responsive to the shit you’d been saying.

Then you asked me, “Is your husband white or…”

I stopped you right there and said “he’s Asian” in the same tone one might say “fuck you.” But you didn’t have a clue. You said “oh.”

You paused before you went at it again, croaking on. Shall we summarize? Let’s see, you mentioned how high the divorce rate is in China, how easy divorces are to get over there, and you know why there are so many divorces in China? Because the Chinese men there don’t know how to take care of their women. And now these Chinese women divorcées. What are they to do? A Chinese man would never agree to marry a divorced woman! These Chinese women now have no choice but to marry a white guy. We white guys, we don’t care about things like that! We’re open-minded.

Oh, you mentioned something about Japanese men being short, so someone as tall as me (I’m not actually that tall, but you’re right, I’m taller than you) wouldn’t ever want a Japanese man. You asked whether my husband was tall. I said yes, a whole head taller than me. You said, “huh, that’s odd.” By the way, you urge, I really oughta visit Tokyo. Fascinating place. Lots of single Japanese women there, you said. You know why? You weren’t even really asking, you know. I didn’t say a thing and you jumped right on. Because they’re so intelligent and so beautiful that they can’t find any Japanese guys to match. My attention was on the wall clock. You realize this part of the conversation took 32 minutes, by itself, right?

Believe you me, I was on alert for any chance at all to reel the conversation back to business, but you kept yapping and yapping and yapping away. Every statement out of your mouth was even more incendiary than the one before. I bet you thought you were complimenting me, or at least the women from my race? We’re so intelligent. We’re so driven. We’re so beautiful. We’re so feminine. This segment of your drivel went on for about 15 minutes before you tied it back to white guys.

You: “So this Asian woman, she has a Ph.D., she’s stunning like a supermodel. She marries this white guy. A janitor! Can you believe it?”

Me: “How unfortunate for her.” Since unresponsiveness was failing miserably for me, I opted for a little subtle snark to your inane remarks. Oops. Too subtle. You missed it completely.

You: “No! You’re missing my point! He may be just a janitor, but he worships her! He treats her like a queen! He treats her better than any Asian guy ever could. It’s not about money. Asian women just want to be loved!”

Me: “No, we like the money.”

You forced a laugh, a big howl of a laugh. “You’re funny,” you said. Perhaps you don’t know Asian women as well as you think. Because, no, we really do like the money. I cast my eyes purposely down at the dotted line and slid the contract a little closer to you.

20 more minutes of rambling and then you told what you thought was a joke, I’ve already forgotten it now, but then you did one of those smiling sighs that people do after a laugh and before the last bit of air from that breath left you, I interjected. “Well then, shall we wrap up?”

I stormed out of there pissed off, but no, not at you, not directly. I was pissed at myself for not saying everything I wanted to say. I was pissed at my job, and at life for being put in that situation. I was pissed at the world and its injustices, because people like you will end up winning anyway. You will be the Adam to your Ai-Ling, not a clue in the world about the reality of interracial dynamics. You will be convinced until the day you die that you saved your Ai-Ling from a horrifying fate of being married to an Asian man. No one will ever be there to successfully refute you.

And to the 8A community, yeah, I know what I did here. I brought it up, IR. It was about time or something. The Asian Godwin strikes again. On a humorous note, one of the things that white guy said: “You know, people don’t talk about interracial dating between white men and Asian women enough.” To which I wanted to reply, “You obviously do not read 8A.”

Listening to “Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory” on NPR’s This American Life left my thoughts in a maelstrom. I was excited because I knew what he was talking about and I agreed. I was flustered because I wanted to say he had no idea what he was talking about and I disagreed. Daisey’s monologue initially inspired me to launch into one of my signature 8A tirades, but then I decided not to. Instead of ranting, which would actually make for a far more concise posting believe it or not, I’ll recount a case study.

While in China for business, I dealt with a fellow I’ll call Bob. Bob is the owner of a large factory in Dongguan. He owns the commercial building, actually an entire campus of buildings, all the machinery inside said buildings, the company, and in a way, you could say he even owns the laborers. They eat and sleep in a dormitory he owns. On their days off, for entertainment, they attend events he sponsors. Bob wears Armani, a 24K gold watch and drives his Porsche through the narrow, winding, otherwise poverty-stricken dark alleyways of Dongguan.

Bob says he is good to the laborers. Bob sincerely believes that he is. In fact, Bob sees himself as a savior. In an honest moment once, he talked about how tough it was to do business in China. Paying off government officials was such a chore, a common occurrence that one simply accounted for it in the books as overhead. There were thugs who tried to come by and shake up the factory owners, playing Robin Hood, so the owners had to hire their own thugs. When I asked him what it was like to do what he does, in his line of business, he volunteered this: Everybody is fake, everybody lies, everybody cheats, and you cannot trust anyone.

I asked him, “So what keeps you going?” I expected his answer to be money or some fluffy euphemism for money. Instead, he said, “I am doing good for my country. I create jobs and many families depend on these jobs I create. I give these migrant villagers a chance for a better life. I train them and give them a new set of skills. I am giving them opportunities. I am saving them from poverty.”

Bob is probably still doing it just for the money, though it was of interest to me that he’d cite that reason of all reasons for what keeps him going.

So what’s it like to be saved from poverty? Like Mike Daisey said, the laborers work long hours, six days a week, are supervised by supervisors who are in turn supervised by more supervisors who are monitored by an intricate network of surveillance cameras, all of which are personally monitored by Bob, the live video feeds splayed on a wall of TV screens in his office. When I was there with several partners, we met at Bob’s office to discuss business. At every down time or lull in the meeting, Bob would float toward that wall of monitors and he’d stand there god-like, and by that I mean he seemed convinced he himself was a god, staring with sharp, alert eyes into the many screens, his hands folded behind his back.

Overtime pay is unheard of. The laborers are not paid hourly. They are paid monthly salaries on the assumption that they work, say, 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. And before your first world head explodes over your perception of labor code violations right there, they work even more than that, all of it unpaid. It’s simply expected that you put in the extra time. Now try to show up late because you’re pregnant and have morning sickness (a true story I heard) or take too long a lunch break and suddenly you’ll see the money deducted from your paycheck. They must punch out any time they leave the factory floor, be it for lunch, bathroom breaks, a cigarette break, or morning sickness. They punch in any time they enter the factory floor. Managers will study the punch card records and interrogate anyone who punches in and out a bit too frequently.

Complimentary meals are provided for the laborers. That sounded great to me at first, and I thought I wanted to eat in the cafeteria with them and try out the lunch there. I quickly realized you couldn’t pay me to eat those meals. The parts of rotting vegetables you throw away and the parts of animals you don’t otherwise eat are tossed together, drenched in cheap soy sauce, and walloped over rice. These are the complimentary meals the laborers eat every day of their working lives.

Other than Lunar New Year, there’s basically no time off for these laborers. I asked one woman who worked the factory floor what her idea of a vacation was, what did vacation mean to her? She smiled and said, “Taking a whole day to go into the city with my best friend Ling and watch a movie.” (My idea of a vacation? Two weeks at a resort in Maldives getting pampered in spas.) She and I were around the same age, two similar looking Asian females. While we chatted, we were in disbelief at the other, at just how different two people’s fates could be.

Yet whether the first-world hipster activist is willing to acknowledge it or not, by the standards that Bob is most familiar with, he was right. He was a savior of sorts. The laborers come from the faraway rural villages of China, places with living conditions I cannot even comprehend, places where paved roads, indoor plumbing, electricity, and abundance of food are unheard of. They hail from places where rice is a prized delicacy, a scarcity, served only to honored guests. And here we thought all Chinese people eat rice every day.

Where they come from, few get the chance to attend school past junior high. If you can’t get an education, then the next best thing is to work at a factory and learn some trade skills. That’s why so many of them enter at the age of 15. For them, factory work is basically an equivalent to school.

Factory work is their golden opportunity. Here at this Dongguan factory, there are paved roads to walk on, which do not cause as many blisters as the pebbled dirt country roads did; there are lights that turn on and off with a switch, electric fans when it gets too hot, heaters when it gets too cold; you don’t have to put on a coat and go outside, mosquitoes nipping at you, for a toilet, oh and by the way the toilet flushes so when you do go, you don’t have to smell the stink of other people’s poo; and the food? Vegetables and meat over rice? Every day?! Yes, please!

When Bob was 17 and his parents, younger brothers, and sisters were starving, he made the trek from his village in central China to Dongguan. He started off as a laborer in a factory not unlike the one he owns now. He was a fast learner, did his best to absorb every skill learnable on the factory floor. Then he became a manager. Bob didn’t just work 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, oh no, he worked every hour the damn factory was open, 7 days a week. When he hit 30, he had saved up enough to buy a couple of machines and in a rundown apartment, started his own boutique factory with a couple of entrepreneurial buddies. By continuing to work every hour possible, 7 days a week, he grew that home business into the factory I was visiting that day. His mode of transportation went from a bicycle he stole off the streets because he was that desperate to a Porsche.

Bob is by no means a unique case study. There are literally millions of folks just like Bob in China and their ascent to dirty crazy wealth started on the factory floor. It is so common that it’s a cliché, a stereotype of Chinese “new money.”

That is the golden opportunity Bob talks about, what he believes he offers to his factory workers. It is, in fact, the ultimate all-American dream, ironically enough. So Bob  can’t help seeing anyone who works less than 12 hours a day, 6 days a week as lazy because in direct comparison to the hours he’s worked his life, it is. Bob isn’t some privileged, sheltered trust fund baby who doesn’t have a clue. He was one of them, a migrant laborer. He doesn’t have a high school education. He got where he is today by working until his fingers were gnarled stiff (he showed me). And (I suspect) a little fakery, lying, cheating, and that’s perhaps why he now doesn’t trust anyone. Point is, had you pitied 17-year-old Bob, he would have spat that pity back in your face. Grown-up Bob would gloat and ask you, “So what kind of car do you drive?” all the while stroking the Porsche crest on his key fob.

That’s the aspect of Daisey’s monologue that made me uncomfortable, not the actual monologue itself but the responses. What we Americans are really feeling is pity. We pity the Chinese factory workers because we look down on their lifestyles because by our assessment, our life is way better. Okay by any assessment our life is way better. But that’s the social food chain. Doesn’t make it right. Just makes it a whole lot tougher to change than the simple little proposition Daisey made. More on that later.

The city girl and translator from Hong Kong that Daisey hired pitied and looked down on the Shenzhen factory workers because her quality of life is better. In turn the average working class American enjoys a better quality of life than that translator and a white collar middle class American enjoys a better quality of life than the working class American and Paris Hilton, well she… she would totally pity and look down on my 99% quality of life. And so while I see Daisey’s perspective, I also see Bob’s: You work long hours on the factory floor and aw, you’re tired? Well tough shit. Guys like Bob were there, they did that too, and now they (while stroking the Porsche crest on their key fobs) drive Porsches.

Back to the solution Daisey proposed: switch out the workers so each one has a shorter shift. Simple and feasible enough. Yet is he so sure that this is a sustainable proposition for the workers? It sounds just peachy until the workers get their drastically reduced paychecks. It’d be like only having part-time jobs available when you and your starving family are desperate to find a full-time paying position. You are plenty happy to put in the time and the labor if it means you can earn enough to help your family get rice on the table. And that is the limitless resource that China has: desperate starving villagers. Even if one wave of workers unanimously strike and demand overtime pay, owners can easily, too easily find another wave of workers somewhere in China to migrate to their factory and do triple that overtime without objection.

True, notwithstanding, labor unions are cropping up (because conditions really are shit even by shit standards), but progress is slow. Recall the bribery/extortion money factory owners pay government officials. One reason the owners agree to pay the money is because the officials in turn agree to do what they can to keep the factories profitable. And that means ignoring the complaints filed by disgruntled laborers. And issuing false certifications so that the factories can convince the rest of the world that they’re legit, humane, eco-friendly, green, sustainable, whatever the first-world trendy demands du jour require. Most first-world corporations who attempt to run due diligence investigations on Chinese factories typically only call for copies of those certifications. Once they see it, they’re happy and give the thumbs up. It’s not really their onus if those certifications are falsified. Right? Right. Thus, even if first-world corporations like Apple succeed at demanding certain labor conditions be met by the Chinese factories they deal with, the factories and the government officials who issue the certifications who are in bed with these factories will just lie. What’s Apple going to do about that? Move manufacturing back to America? Oh, but that would make business operations way too expensive for American corporations. That’s why we should inconsiderately make the demands on the Chinese corporations and dictate to them how they ought to run.

And it’s not like China is the only culprit. Don’t get swept away by the Sinophobic media. South American countries deal with the same issues. Child labor? Plenty of it. When there are no schooling options for the 13-year-olds and their parents need these able-bodied kids to bring home some income, families decide the only fighting chance at survival they have is to send these kids to work. The life and times of a Peruvian sheepherder seem way worse than the Chinese factory worker. And as a woman, I would rather be a Shenzhen factory worker wiping iPhone screens for 15 hours a day than be living in the Congo.  Oh but wait the Peruvian sheepherder and women raped in the Democratic Republic of Congo have nothing to do with us (at least not with our beloved iPhones), with corporate America? Oh but it does. Open your eyes to what’s beyond the headlines and inevitably you realize, holy shit, the whole world sucks, not just China. Even China’s neighbor, India, is on board with the child labor factory shenanigans.

All this is horrifying, yes, especially to the privileged, sheltered trust fund baby. Anyone with the power to make change ought to make change, yes, and Daisey’s monologue is important, yes. But before we take arms against China, let’s step back for a moment and reason here. To expect a third world country (or at least a country with people and a subculture still firmly rooted in third world lifestyles) to uphold first world labor and legal standards right now because someone wrote an exposé and we read it and now we’re upset is not just preposterous, it’s fucking stupid.

Plus, and I direct this to you, NPR, since your program is called “This American Life,” why not focus on the sweatshops and scandalous labor conditions that are still pervasive here in the States? Would you believe there are factories on American soil that mirror the conditions in these Chinese factories we’re denouncing? Care just a little more, dig just a little deeper, and you’ll find them. What about the loophole around fair wages that is the migrant workers who stand out in front of Home Depot? All sorts of U.S. companies big and small retain their services and grossly underpay them just to save a buck. Are these U.S. companies big and small somehow less evil than the Chinese factories exploiting their workers? We Americans can hardly get a hold of what’s going on within our own borders that it seems highly inappropriate to be propositioning quick fixes for labor code violations abroad.

Daisey’s monologue? Powerful. Galvanizing. Honest. But naïve.

It has not been easy for my Taiwanese family and my Chinese in-laws to understand each other. That is a gross understatement and for now we’ll leave it at that and table the wildly contentious, high-tension stories for another time. While I was aware of the cultural, political, and social differences that left a gap between the two families, I in part hoped it was particular to our personal predicament. Yet I’ve encountered many echoes of similar conflicts when Chinese and Taiwanese families merge that I thought it warranted its own focused consideration.

A dear friend of mine who is Chinese complained to me about her Taiwanese sister-in-law. She told me that the Taiwanese sister-in-law would yell at my friend’s parents (so the sister-in-law’s in-laws, if we’re following), not want them anywhere near her children (the in-laws’ grandchildren) because there were profound disagreements over best parenting tactics, and ultimately that sister-in-law kicked the in-laws out of her house. The sister-in-law wrote out a list of her complaints and allegations of everything the in-laws did wrong and presented it to the in-laws as justification for why they were being kicked out. They had little choice but to pack up and spend the night and the remainder of the trip with their daughter, my friend.

“It’s so messed up what this girl is doing, so messed up!” my friend exclaimed to me. I nodded, yeah, it was pretty messed up to toss your in-laws out on the streets after they flew all the way here from China to see you and their grandkids, though frankly I’m curious what was written on that list. My friend looked tentatively at me and I could tell she was selecting her next words carefully, deliberating whether to even raise the question. “Are all Taiwanese girls like that? I hear…I hear the…the culture is different.”

My reflex was to say, “No, that’s not true; we’re not all like that.” Except damn. That’s kind of exactly how I treat my Chinese mother-in-law. Oh, and it gets worse.

The Taiwanese sister-in-law would complain of the language barrier–the way they spoke Chinese was so different from the way she spoke it, she could barely comprehend. She didn’t like the kind of food the Chinese in-laws cooked. She said she thought some of their behavior was odd. She felt their lack of education and class “showed.” Inside I could pierce right through all the gripes and excuses and knew instantly what was going on in that Taiwanese sister-in-law’s head: she looked down on the Chinese. She wasn’t disrespectful toward her in-laws because she was a bitch; she was disrespectful because she saw them as second class citizens.

But I wonder– was there another side to this story?

It was clear the Taiwanese sister-in-law thought she and her own Taiwanese family were better than the Chinese. The sister-in-law would make snide remarks like “I come from a family of higher education than yours” or “I grew up pampered, privileged…I am not used to your cut-throat dog-eat-dog uncultured way of life. My culture is different.” In every argument, the last remark uttered would have something to do with being Chinese and being Taiwanese. “We’re just different.”

Yet my Chinese friend did the same. At the end of the day, she, too, pegged the conflict on the Chinese-Taiwanese differences. She remarked how she did not realize before just how different the two cultures were. They speak Mandarin differently. They eat different foods. They behave differently. Their styles of news broadcasting is different. Their ideologies are different. They’re different. She feels the Taiwanese can be (“no offense”) snotty, superficial, elitist, and while they are at their core Han just like the mainland Chinese, the Taiwanese intentionally distance themselves from their Chinese roots.

I feel for that Taiwanese sister-in-law who I don’t even know and who I should be condemning because I oughta side with my dear friend. Except I’ve been there. All that mainland Chinese tongue rolling “arrrrr” for certain enunciations in Mandarin grate on my nerves after hearing it for 24 hours straight. It just does. The way the Taiwanese speak Mandarin is softer, dare I say prettier. It doesn’t grate on the nerves in quite the same way. There is a harsher, more militant comportment with the Chinese. I find that they can be ruder. They would say they’re more direct, honest. The Taiwanese tend to be more two-faced and duplicit. We’ll fake the smiles and civility until you’re out of earshot (unless you’re Chinese; we seem to have no reservations about showing our true colors to the Chinese). And let’s not ignore how both sides have been brainwashed by their media to hate/look down on/despise/show disdain for the other. It ain’t easy to rise above all that media influence.

My husband’s uncle married a Taiwanese woman. The whole Chinese family hates her and speaks utter ill of her. She would not let the in-laws, my husband’s grandparents, see her children. They all live in Taiwan and it was only when the grandmother was on her deathbed that the Taiwanese woman relented to a meeting. She bundled up her kids in masks and rubber gloves to greet the grandmother, explaining that she “didn’t want the children to get infected.” (Infected with what?) When the grandmother, on her deathbed mind you, wanted to give these grandchildren a hug and a kiss, the Taiwanese woman barred it and said no. Then they all left, didn’t come back, and spent the rest of their stay in China shopping. The grandmother died broken-hearted.

This, of course, is what I heard from my husband and his Chinese side of the family. I would love to hear what the Taiwanese woman has to say, though I think I already know. The woman sees her Chinese in-laws as second class citizens. That reminds me of the time I was in China and overheard several Taiwanese tourists (or businessmen? not sure) speaking in the Taiwanese dialect. They were talking shit about the Chinese people around them! It got so foul even I felt a bit uncomfortable.

It’s beautiful when couples from different backgrounds can find something in common and fall in love. That should be encouraged. And I’m so glad it happens with frequency. Many of my Taiwanese friends have married Chinese spouses and while their marriages are strong, the Chinese-Taiwanese familial relations are typically tense.

See, it’s after marriage that cultural, political, and social differences begin to truly challenge the couple and the new merged family. Both sides feel justified in their biases and bigotry. A lot of Chinese mainlanders really don’t hold back when it comes to criticizing and remarking negatively about the Taiwanese. My mother-in-law does it all the time in my presence. “Taiwanese are like this… Taiwanese are like that… Why can’t they be more like this… like that…”

When she does this, I bite my tongue and hold it all in, hold it all in until I simply can’t anymore, and then I explode and do/say something irrational. Then she’s all like, “Wow, you’re so messed up.” Likewise, the friend I was talking about earlier also alludes to antagonistic sentiments she and perhaps her family members hold of the Taiwanese. I can only imagine the comments they might unknowingly make in front of the Taiwanese sister-in-law, which she holds in, holds in until she can’t. Then she explodes, has an irrational panic attack, and does something messed up like kick her in-laws out of her house.

The Chinese can be abrasive and far too insistent and imposing of their values on others. Out of nowhere with no provocation from me whatsoever, they’ll say to my face, “Taiwan should be a part of China” and “You’re not Taiwanese, you’re not American, you’re Chinese. You’re Chinese!” You can’t bring up Tibet or the Tiananmen Square incident or pretty much anything without them aggressively correcting your viewpoint: The Chinese brought civilization to Tibet, food, our soldiers built schools and houses for them. The Tibetans are thankless. The Buddhist monks are tyrants, it’s a big sham, we’re just there to protect the Tibetan people. The Tiananmen Square incident never happened. It’s a big conspiracy and lie set up by the Western media to make the Chinese government look bad. Of course the Chinese government cannot allow free speech. Free speech leads to anarchy. [Sadly, not joking or exaggerating about any of this.] Listen to that incessantly for an entire week and tell me what irrational conduct you’d end up capable of.

Likewise, the Taiwanese can be exactly everything the Chinese criticize them for. The Taiwanese have a tendency to adopt the mentality of their colonizer and gravitate toward all things white and Western (we were imperialized by the Portuguese at one point) and now toward all things Japanese (they were here too) and Taiwanese girls who are born Mei-Ling will intentionally change their names to Keiko. In ways that weren’t always obvious to me, Japanese culture is a big part of my upbringing and the lifestyle of my parents and even grandparents. I just alway thought “that’s Taiwanese.” Regardless Taiwanese or Japanese, it’s definitely different from Chinese. And, perhaps adopting the mentality of the colonizer, the Taiwanese tend to then look down on the Chinese and view the Chinese as less civilized.

It’s horribly wrong, but it’s also a lot to ask of anybody to let go of everything they’ve known, after accusing everything they’ve known to be biased and bigoted, something both sides of the strait are guilty of. Ultimately I don’t know what the solution is. I didn’t write this post with any propositions in mind.

Oh, one peculiar exception to all this: the Shanghainese and the Taiwanese seem to get along swell. Not sure how or why this became an exception to the norm. Nevermind, I know why. Because the rest of China have negative things to say about the Shanghainese. They’re too sharp, too sly, too good at business; materialistic, vain, extravagant. They’re sharks. They’re too bourgeois (a charge that the Chinese have brought against the Taiwanese before). No, I don’t really know why. It’s just worth noting that there seems to be less tension between the Shanghainese and Taiwanese. Wait…. What?…. Not true?… They hate each other too?…. Sigh. Oh well.

Note also I’ve conveniently left out the whole “American” element. I’m way more American than I am Taiwanese when it comes to ordinary life. I only become “very Taiwanese” when my Chinese in-laws are involved. Because that’s the part of my identity that comes up constantly.

Will Chinese-Taiwanese familial relations ever be just normal dysfunctional instead of cultural-political-social dysfunctional? Perhaps for future generations yes, but in mine, not likely.

A Chinese businessman tells me offhandedly that he’s under federal investigation. He doesn’t know enough to explain that he’s being investigated for massive amounts of trademark infringement. Those words aren’t in his vocabulary. IP isn’t part of his knowledge set. Instead he says, “You ever heard of Chanel? My factory in China makes Chanel bags. I ship them here and sell in America, in Chinatown. Oh, but my bags are much cheaper than what Chanel sells them for. You want one? You can have it, free. I like you.” He’s beaming with pride. Needless to say, he doesn’t have a license from Chanel to make their bags or use their trademark. Hence the federal investigation.

It’s astounding to me how many manufacturers in China thrive on the business model of copying. They copy designer handbags. They copy electronics, furniture, coffee mugs, medicine, anything that will yield even a penny of profit from copying. And I’ve come to see why. They simply don’t give a rat’s pink hiney about intellectual property rights. It’s not about creativity or establishing one’s own unique brand. It’s not about making your mark in the world. There’s just no respect for any of that. The only thing the Chinese value is money. And until China can educate its entrepreneurs to think differently, to value creativity and intellectual property, it won’t become a world superpower. It just won’t. Because they won’t be intellectual enough to make it.

Once while I was visiting factories in China, a factory owner whipped out samples of next season’s collection from a very well-known French designer and showed them to me. I didn’t ask him to. He did it to boast about his factory, to brag about landing a contract with a big name designer. But I was aghast. I shouldn’t be looking at these designs! These should still be secret until they’re presented to the public next season. I’m technically a competitor! He went on and on revealing all sorts of trade secrets about that French designer, who is one of his paying clients. Unbelievable!

There just isn’t any sense of respect or value placed on intellectual property. The owner didn’t think he was doing anything wrong by showing me the collection because the concept of IP doesn’t register with him. He smiled and pointed at the designer’s bags. “We can make these bags for you, too. Promise you, they will sell very well. And we’ll give you a good deal on the purchase order. Instead of [the French designer’s] logo, we can put yours on.”

WTF?

“They’re in France. You’re in the U.S. Oh, it’s fine!” he tells me. Meanwhile my eyeballs are popping out of their sockets.

I tried explaining to the factory owner that designers value their own work. We pursue designs that are the product of our own creativity, sprung from our own sources of inspiration. Pride comes from other people’s acknowledgment and acceptance of these designs we have conceived, inspirations that are all our own. Pride doesn’t come from the net profit.

And as for trademarks, it’s about pushing yourself to cultivate a brand that is recognizable, that stands for something special, something that is also a reflection of you. Entrepreneurship is about coming up with a business model or mission that is distinct from what’s already out there, and to protect your brand via trademark, so when consumers see the mark, they know it’s you. Why would you want somebody else’s identity, someone else’s brand? Or am I just so full of hubris that I love being me too much? Because nowhere in my mind would I ever process the notion that I should copy somebody else’s design. I want to create my own. And I want to succeed on the merits of my own creativity.

It’s true, unintentional copying happens. It’s the way our brain absorbs information subconsciously and we dupe ourselves into believing it’s our own idea. Or it really is our own idea, but somebody else thought of it too, and they got it registered before we did. I’m not talking about that kind of infringement here. I’m talking about the guy who “makes Chanel handbags,” the designer who would have the effrontery to copy a French designer’s upcoming collection and slap her own logo on it. That’s the kind of intentional infringement that is so commonplace among the Chinese. That’s the kind of infringement that disgusts me.

Sure, America built itself by copying Europe. We were terribly guilty of copyright, trademark, and patent infringement during the Industrial Age. Yet from that heritage of copying, we finally found our own voice. Then up rose the creative class. American society as a whole came to respect IP jurisprudence, right down to the layman. Even your average Joe Plumber has some rudimentary grasp of intellectual property and why it’s important. Your average Joe Chingchong? Not yet.

I’m not saying that it won’t happen to China, that it won’t someday find its own voice. I’m just saying that until it does, China won’t earn the respect it craves from the world. (And boy do they crave it.) Creativity is the highest form of intellectualism. And I’m holding my breath for the day the Chinese recognize that.

[Details, brand names, and such changed to protect the Chinamen referenced herein. In fact, this is a work of fiction. For reals. Any resemblance to actual persons, Chinese or otherwise, is purely coincidental.]

Women get together and complain about men. It happens. Yet no other group of women display such visceral antagonism toward men of their own race as Asian women do. We Asian women never say generally “men are horrible.” We say “Asian men are horrible.” We ourselves buy into the rumor that somehow Asian men are more misogynist than other men. The complaints ring universally: Asian men are more abusive; Asian men are more chauvinistic; Asian men are weak; Asian men fail to protect their women. Why?

As Amy Tan and many other Asian female writers have discovered, as every American who has ever watched the glowing screen mesmerized by the gloriously vicious Yakuza gangster strutting through the red-lit parts of Tokyo or the pockmarked Korean actor who is playing a Chinese guy who rapes and beats the white protagonist’s girlfriend know, Asian men are the perfect villains.

Byron Wong (of BigWowo.com and Fighting44s fame) wrote an editorial in the International Examiner, “Heterosexual Asian Men and the Invisibility Problem” (October 19, 2011) that sounded off on the lack of positive representation of straight Asian men. More surprising than the dearth of non-evil straight Asian men in the mainstream media (because really, white people getting it wrong about people of color–when has that been surprising) is the dearth of non-evil straight Asian men as a viable model even within the APA community. As Wong noted, the invisibility of straight Asian men in the APA blogosphere is a “mutually-recognized irony” among straight Asian men.

At APA conferences, non-profit organizations, and even on hit blogs, the voices of APA women and gay men dominate. That’s because APA women and gay men are easy to sympathize with. APA straight men? Not so much. They’re evil, remember?

See, it isn’t just the gloriously vicious Yakuza gangster who makes a perfect villain. Here is where the issues Wong brought up in his editorial weave into feminism. Just as women get defined by the men they’re with, men in turn are also defined by women…the women they protect.

Society defines a positive male role model as someone who can protect women. And if one hurts women, he is without question the purest form of evil, the antithesis of a positive male role model. So the vicious Yakuza gangster is a bad apple for obvious reasons: he hurts women. But the effeminate Asian guy is equally “bad” because he is incapable of protecting women. Sadly, that’s just how society still judges the genders. And Asian men are either the absolute perfect villain in that they hurt women or they are still no hero because they are incapable of protecting women.

In a sense, then, APA women hold APA men in lesser esteem because they’ve bought into the notion of straight Asian men as perfect villains: they’re the worst kind of horrible, the horriblest of the horrible men. Straight Asian men, as portrayed in the Western media and as believed by APAs, will either hurt women or are incapable of protecting and defending women. When I think back on all the anectodal evidence my memory has collected over the years, I can boil down all the Asian women’s complaints of Asian men to one point: straight Asian men don’t protect us and don’t support us.

I’m not saying that’s the reality-reality. I’m saying that’s the reality of the opinion. And it’s that opinion that’s got to change. Because with such strong latent biases against the straight Asian male anchored in us, we have no motivation to be compassionate or promote more positive representations.

In our eyes, the inequities that straight Asian men face weigh less, less than the inequities that Asian women and gay Asian men face. Is this because we are calculating with simple addition? Asian men just got their skin color. Asian women got their skin color plus being woman. Gay Asian men got their skin color plus sexuality. Is that how inequity should be weighted? By simple addition? Or is the mathematics of it more complicated than that?

The Wong editorial says that straight APA men are invisible. I disagree. They are fully visible: as perfect villains.

Are they invisible at APA conferences?  No, not really, at least not Minority Militant at the Banana I conference. Him? Invisible? (Although his personal blog is protected now, boo. He was always such a fun read. My kind of guy? Hell no. He disgracefully insulted a friend of mine. But a solid writer and sound activist? I’ll give him that.) Rather, a mockery was made of him and I cannot help but question whether the punishment fit the crime. Now, as I said, his blog is protected and what once was a distinctive voice in the APA community is lost.

Take as another instance any straight APA male blogger who raises the interracial dating issue. He would immediately get dismissed. A guy could make the most profound, valid, irrefutable point, and no one [who should be hearing it] would have heard it because as soon as we see “IR,” we tune out. Yes, “we”– APA females, I’m staring right at you.

And what about Frank Chin? Well okay maybe now he sort of has been MIA and if you were born any year after 1990 apparently he isn’t the only Chin you’ve never heard of. (So sad.) But once upon a time you couldn’t be involved with the Asian American Diaspora, literature, and not know Frank Chin. He was just that un-invisible. Frank Chin’s brilliance and impact on APA literature is incontestable. Yet the APA literati predominantly sided with Maxine Hong Kingston and Kingstonianism in that legendary Chin-Kingston feud. Chin was characterized by many as irrational, belligerent, and hostile, and with that characterization, his activist propositions were dismissed.

The problem isn’t invisibility; it’s being taken seriously. So the Minority Militant guy had a bit too much to drink at the Banana conference. So he isn’t ever going to win a Mr. Congeniality award. But he had real ideas, real opinions, and real ways of expressing those ideas and opinions. We shouldn’t have run him out of town.

As for the IR disparity, yeah, haha, we can laugh about it and say it’s just ‘cuz some of the guys can’t get some. Or we can say people of color don’t score as high on LSATs because they’re not as bright as white people. Or maybe the game is rigged from the get-go so that certain people will always lose. The LSAT racial disparity issue? A big serious deal. The IR disparity issue? Not a big deal. Why not?

Likewise, on the whole, the APA community did not take Frank Chin seriously enough and as a result, his legacy hasn’t gotten passed down to the younger generations of college APA the way Kingston’s works have. Only a few straight APA male activists have written empathetically about Chin, and they, too, weren’t taken seriously.

Why don’t we take straight APA men seriously? Is it a matter of invisibility? No. We see them. The truth is, we don’t really like them. They’re villains. They represent male dominance. Heterosexual dominance. And before anyone can do a doubletake on the logical fallacies there, we got the waves of APA women feminists who reinforce the villain archetype with narrative after narrative of straight APA men who fail to protect women, because whether or not we realize what it is we’re doing (*cough* traditional gender roles *cough*), at the heart of it that’s what women want: men to be protective. So it isn’t that Asian women believe the crazy villain stereotypes of Asian men; it’s that we don’t necessarily see them as protective over us, and so subliminally it’s easier for us to buy into the overt stereotypes, or worse yet, generate them, and then proceed to ignore and dismiss the rational straight Asian men who challenge those stereotypes.

Okay, so here is where I ought to make a confession. I have no idea where I’m going with this. I kinda started without a point, in case that wasn’t flawfully obvious already. So I’ll just end by sputtering the remaining thoughts that come to mind.

(1) While new and independent media have continued to offer more representation of straight APA men these days, they seem only to be fixated on having the Asian guys hook up with women. That isn’t enough to overturn the perfect villain stereotypes, especially if society still defines heroism as protecting women, not banging them. So. There should be more portrayals of straight APA men who protect women. It’s not enough that the Asian guy hooks up with a girl. That’s, dare I say it, such a heterosexual male chauvinist view of what it means to be a positive male role model. No. What’s more important is representing straight APA men in protective roles.

(2) Point number (1) is sexist. But it’ll work, if your goal is to use the media to improve the standing of straight Asian men. At least it’ll get Asian men noticed by women. Like how it works to wear something red and slinky if you’re a woman wanting to get noticed. In fact I think that’s why Asian women got noticed in the first place. “Me love you…”

(3) Earlier in this piece I mentioned the mathematics of weighting marginalization. Here’s the complication: Since anything whites are part of is still considered more important, more worthy of public attention, i.e., the feminist movement and the gay rights movement, APA women and APA gays have that affiliation, and that sympathy. I’m not saying those movements perfectly include the voices of their APAs, but at least with that affiliation and sympathy, there’s mainstream support. Straight APA men are not a part of any white-backed movement and as a result, do not have any affiliations, sympathies, or mainstream support. They are the more marginalized and thus if there is any work left for activists to do, it would be to seek a dynamic equilibrium between the APA sexes. After all, isn’t that what feminism is all about?

Screw that Confucian nonsense. Let’s not even get into the quagmire of East and West cliches; that exercise has never proven productive. Let’s just state this for what it is: my Chinese mother-in-law is a monster.

She objectifies me. I am the wife of her son, a wife that thankfully has credentials she can brag about to her friends. But that’s the extent of it. Actually, my credentials bug her, because it means I don’t have the time to obey her command to have her grandbabies right now. Every time she sees me, that’s the command she gives: give me grandbabies now! Where are my grandbabies! After that, she passes me by and completely ignores my existence to dote on her son. She fusses over him, whines about how far away he lives from Mommy, all the time throwing implications my way that it ‘s my fault she’s not already living under the same roof as her son. (Okay, it kind of is. I’ve already resolved death and divorce before I live with that woman.)

I try to understand where she comes from. Everything got taken away from her during the Cultural Revolution and she, a city girl, had to spend her young adult years toiling away on a farm, and gee, really, all this sucks, I feel for that woman, I do. Immigrating to the U.S. to work menial jobs in Chinatown was no walk in the park either, I bet, and the best thing to have ever happened to her (after an abortion or two because the fetuses were female and she wanted a son) was the birth of my husband, her beloved, precious “bao bei er zi“– all hail the Little Emperor.

Now he is great and I mean that. No facetiousness intended. He is a great, great guy, but nowhere near the greatness his mother thinks he is. When she visits us and he comes home from his cushy cubicle desk job at 6, she mollycoddles him with all this “you poor Atlas, you! Coochie, coochie, coo. Weight of the world on your shoulders. Work was tough and stressful, wasn’t it! Don’t you worry. Mommy is here!” He can do no wrong in her eyes. It’s either his boss’s fault, his company’s fault, the world’s fault, or my fault.

What’s more she constantly implies that I don’t keep the house (MY house) clean enough for her son, so whenever she visits, will set about cleaning it herself. Nevermind that I work full-time and am starting my own small business on the side (not related to the “working full-time”; hence the “and”) and manage several non-profits and spend the bulk of my weekends doing pro bono and am trying to do research for a book. It is of no significance whatsoever that I hold the highest degree out of anyone in her family, nuclear or extended, dead or alive, ancestors inclusive, and am working my hardest to apply that degree. It is more considerable whether I have wiped the kitchen table clean enough for Hubby to eat. Nevermind that Hubby has all his arms and legs and could in theory wipe the table clean himself.

Every time we visit her, we spend a small fortune on gifts because she declares stuff like “I love it when my son buys me gifts!” (actual quote, no exaggeration) so to keep her happy, my husband lavishes her with gifts, half of which I’m sure she does not use or does not know how to use, but loves all the same because she can tell they were expensive. The more expensive, by the way, the more she loves. We pay all her bills, we give her money for new cars, new toys, new gadgets, new everything. We pay her travel expenses to China. We pay for everything so, again, she can brag to her friends about how successful her son is, proof of that success being his ability to pay for all her shit.

In my presence, she insults my Taiwanese culture and political beliefs. She refers to Taiwanese foods, people, and fashions as “stupid,” “weird,” and “silly, those silly, silly Taiwanese people… who are really Chinese. We are all Chinese. *cough* One China.”

And in my presence, she makes fun of my mother. Now granted, it would not be an entirely inaccurate observation to say that my mother is an overly religious, overly superstitious housewife who sometimes acts like a Japanime character on speed. I can say that my mother acts funny, but you can’t. And the monster-in-law, an atheist whose sole beliefs of divinity are (1) her son and (2) the unstoppable rise of modern China, constantly remarks that my mother acts funny. Thankfully the husband intervenes at these times and will tell his mother not to say such things in my presence. But then she gets resentful, defensive, and exclaims, “I’m not saying anything bad! I’m just saying Taiwanese people are strange. Her mother is strange!”

Finally, worst of all, and the real reason I nitpick at every other abhorrent thing she does, is if she could have things her way, she would have full custody over my womb. Every day, every hour, every minute with her it’s “Where are my grandbabies? Where are my grandbabies? When are you going to have my grandbabies? You have to have my grandbabies. I want grandbabies. Where are my grandbabies? Grandbabies!!” Oh, and when I explain to her that my eyes are focused on my career, she calls me selfish. A less selfish daughter-in-law would have grandbabies already.

As all women who’ve married Chinese men will know, I’ve only scratched the surface of the horrors that come part and parcel with having a Chinese mother-in-law. I recently came across Kristy Shih’s article, “Power, Resistance, and Emotional Economies in Women’s Relationships With Mothers-in-Law in Chinese Immigrant Families,” an academic dissertation that basically uses big words to say “Chinese mothers-in-law are manipulative anti-feminist bitches.”

Shih and Pyke’s article discusses the ways that mothers-in-law reinforce patriarchy and male privilege when they try to force the daughters-in-law into submission, and how this continues even today, amongst Chinese American families. The Chinese mother-in-law doesn’t care about the daughter-in-law’s ambitions and accomplishments. It’s not in her best interest to care. It is in her best interest to care about whether the daughter-in-law will look after the son in the absence of the mother, whether she will adequately cook and clean and fawn over him as the mother has, to do exactly as the mother has for the son and no different (hence all the criticisms and passive aggressive facial expressions of disappointment whenever the daughter-in-law does something that diverges from the way the mother does it). Ambitions and accomplishments are matters for the husband, for her son, because they give the mother-in-law even more reasons to brag and gloat about her boy. Ambitions and accomplishments in the daughter-in-law, ultimately, mean nothing. That is why mothers-in-law are the ultimate enablers of patriarchy and male privilege.

Another informative piece I came across, a blog post by Jocelyn Eikenburg, “The Troubling Chinese Mother-in-Law Relationship,” delves into filial piety and the pervasiveness of the mother-in-law / daughter-in-law tension in Chinese society. It could also be a general Asian thing, after reading the Hyphen piece, “Me, You, and Your Mama Too,” and sure, sure, the argument can absolutely be made that it’s just a human nature thing, that in every culture throughout history, the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relationship has been deadlocked and tricky.

Yet something very specific may be said about the Chinese mother-in-law, a woman whose life has been affected by the Cultural Revolution and the One Child Policy. She is a woman who did not have it easy and was deprived of so much that in the end, all her hopes, ambitions, and dreams were singly channeled into her one child, a son. She has had so little control over the other aspects of her life that now, the least she wants, the least she is asking for is to be able to control her son (and grandbabies). And me, the Americanized contemporary career woman with one too many ideas and opinions, is in her way. Perhaps, then, I’m the one being perceived as the monster. Alrightey. Well. Cheers to that. And may the scarier monster prevail.

Lately I’ve been surrounded by liberals. My friends, most family members, co-workers, and colleagues at the non-profits and institutions I serve lean decidedly left. So imagine my elation when I stumbled across Eugene Liu, founder of AsianConservatives.com.

Liu is a Christian conservative of Asian descent. Liberals will assume that someone fitting that description must be stuffy, stoic, and closed-minded. In contrast, Liu is full of humor and wit, and expresses empathy for liberal points of view. Does he agree with Asian liberals? Probably not. That doesn’t prevent him from writing with a great deal of empathy.

His character and the blog AsianConservatives.com fascinated me, and I asked him if he would be open to an interview for 8A. I warned him 8A was a liberal bunch, writers and readers alike, and still Liu was willing to step forward. That’s two tons of awesomeness right there.

His responses to these interview questions resonate with me and express ideologies that I find better equipped to pull our nation out of this recession and provide for a more perfect union. We tried “change” already, and it didn’t work. So it behooves us all to consider what the other wing has to offer.

Moreover, of greater interest to 8A readers, what is the conservative’s view of APA activism exactly? Here, Liu offers a glimpse.

Recent polls find that the Asian American community leans decidedly Left and liberal. Why do you think that is?

Polls, like media outlets, can also slant left or right. I would say, however, that liberal Asian Americans have traditionally been more vocal and active. We can all agree that historically political activism and grassroots organization stemmed from liberal elements. It wasn’t until the recent Tea Party movement that conservatives have really mobilized en masse in the public eye.

I actually believe that the split between liberals and conservatives among the Asian American community mirrors closely to that of the nation as a whole. For every young liberal Asian college student there probably exists a conservative parent. The majority of universities are overrun by liberal academics and administrators. I went to an engineering school in the south (deep red state) and even ended up a liberal until I became a Christian. (And no, we cannot determine whether Jesus was a conservative or a liberal. However, we know he’s a Jew so he probably would’ve voted for Republican Bob Turner in NY-9.)

Perhaps there are also cultural factors at work. And I bet there are plenty of fiscal conservative Asian Americans that lean left on social issues. How would we label them?

Winston Churchill once said, “If you’re not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you’re not a conservative at forty you have no brain.” It’s one of my favorite quotes about politics because it speaks to my own transformation, too (though I am not yet over-the-hill).

I also love that Churchill quote! I’m interested in your transformation from a liberal in your twenties to a conservative in your…still twenties, am I right? We’re all 21 here. Anyway. Based on what you wrote earlier, it sounds like becoming Christian had much to do with your transformation. How? Why? If you had always been deeply Christian since birth, would you have been a conservative in your 20s? If you never became Christian, would you still be a liberal today? Is politics and religion that interwoven? What is the relationship between politics and religion for you?

One of the reasons I became a Christian was the realization of God’s hand in our lives, and that God has a plan for each person, whether he or she knows it or not, believer or otherwise. A person’s ideology is often shaped throughout his or her life, influenced by others (parents, relatives, friends, coworkers, etc.) as well as by personal experiences such as faith. In my case, Christianity certainly steered my ideological meter to right-of-center and perhaps accelerated my ideological determination as a conservative.

Is politics and religion so interwoven? Well, politics stem from ideology, so is ideology and religion interwoven? Yes, but not in the way most people tend to think. There’s a lot of talk surrounding conservatism and religion, and yes, our Founding Fathers sought divine providence in declaring independence from the British crown. But let’s not forget the leftists political philosophers in modern history: Marx, Lenin, and Mao, just to name a few, all had something to say about religion and politics. Even if they did advocate atheism, it is still about religion, except it is godless. There’s nothing wrong with religion and politics being interwoven, but there’s definitely a line we do not wish to cross: becoming a theocracy. And we all should be proud of the fact that so far our Republic still stands not as a theocracy.

To me things aren’t so complicated between politics and religion. Life, Liberty, pursuit of Happiness, and there’s wisdom in that order of things, too. God gives life, God gives free will, and God gives us the ability to labor so we may enjoy its fruits. Government has infringed upon those “unalienable rights” with abortion, numerous regulatory institutions, and an unbecoming steward of the people’s money. (I know I’ll probably open up a gigantic can of worms with this, but guess what the government has to say about this can: how big is the can? how many worms fit a can? what nutritional label to slap on the can? where do the worms originate from? are they organic worms? how high is the sodium content? will smoking worms be hazardous to my health? etc.)

As an Asian American conservative, what is your mission and vision for the Asian American community?

I want to educate the Asian American community about U.S. politics and how decisions from elected officials impact the lives within the community. When I hear somebody complain about an issue, whether it’s about taxes, the education system, health care, etc., I’ll ask “So what are you going to do about it?” and that usually draws a blank stare. Then I follow up, “You can at least vote.” We need to learn about the power of the ballot.

The overwhelming majority of Asian American bloggers are liberal. Where are the conservative Asian American bloggers?

Obviously, Michelle Malkin is by far the most prominent conservative Asian American blogger. I do agree that we’re a rare breed, and I cannot think of a reason. I welcome any theories others may have…

Since you brought her up… what are your thoughts of Michelle Malkin? Her book In Defense of Internment struck a raw nerve in the Asian American community. Where do you stand with regard to that book’s thesis? Are you aligned with Malkin? Do you diverge from her opinions? What are your opinions on Michelle Malkin as a role model for the Asian American community?

A disclaimer first: I have not read Malkin’s In Defense of Internment. Perhaps we could have another discussion once I’ve read the book. But to comment on her being a role model for Asian Americans… Why not? She’s intelligent, she’s a great opinion writer, and has done well for herself as a conservative voice in the media.

Maybe it’s just me, but I’m willing to bet the farm that there are young Asian Americans in this country who are smart and aspire to be a great writer or a media personality. Malkin can certainly be a role model in that case, and so can Akrypti. (This is the part where I get easier interview questions after kissing up to the interviewer…)

When the media portrays Asian Americans in a racist or offensively stereotypical light, it is often the APA activist Left that come forward to protest, not the APA activist Right. Why do you think that is?

Well, I think “racist” has been used so much in the mainstream media these days that the word has lost its meaning. And I suppose liberals get offended easily with all the political correctness going around? What’s great about this nation is that offensive comments and insults can go both ways! The Civil Rights Movement — that was about racism. Somebody calling me names and making fun of my slanted eyes — that’s just an immature moron stating the obvious.Oh, stop me if you’ve heard this joke before: How do you know if the burglar that raided your house is Asian? (If your valuable electronics are missing and your kid’s homework is done. Har har.)

One of the issues that Asian American liberals tend to be hypersensitive about is the portrayal of Asians in the media. The slanty-eyed thing you brought up is a big deal to liberals, case in point. If that kind of thing isn’t as big a deal to Asian American conservatives, what is then? What is a race-related issue that you would consider a big deal?

(I guess the kissing up part didn’t work…)

Okay, I’m going to say it: Dear libs, stop being so sensitive to every. little. thing. If a popular sitcom doesn’t have an Asian actor, that doesn’t mean the viewers don’t know that Asians exist. If an Asian actor portrays a nerdy student in a Hollywood movie, that doesn’t mean everybody thinks we’re nerds (do you think blacks — ahem, African Americans — are nerds after falling in love with the Steve Urkel character?). It’d be an issue if Asian American citizens were denied voting rights. It’d be an issue if Asian Americans were being persecuted as a follower of Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Falun Gong, or some other religion. It’d be an issue an Asian Americans were being taxed differently than other ethnic groups. It’d be an issue if Asian American parents were prohibited from making babies.

Remember: Life, Liberty, pursuit of Happiness.

Seriously, we’re just Americans. We’re parents, children, teachers, students, lawyers, judges, scientists, artists, engineers, musicians, punks, rockers, goths, metal heads — you get the idea.

Except we’re full of Asian awesome sauce. After all, you cannot spell Caucasian without Asian. Xiexie!

Asian American conservatives are often viewed by the liberals as apathetic toward Asian American activism and racial inequality. Is there any validity to that view? Where is the Asian American conservative voice in these matters?

That’s an unfortunate perception and by no means a valid view. I think Asian Americans on both sides are sensitive to racial issues. If you don’t see Asian American conservatives at a rally somewhere doesn’t mean they aren’t calling the politicians to give them a piece of their mind on the issue. Again, I think conservatives have just started recently to be more visible with their activism. They do have to thank the liberals for that, to learn from the best.

In 2009 the BANANA Conference was founded. BANANA is an annual gathering of the blogosphere’s most notable Asian American bloggers from across the country. These bloggers are collectively a liberal-leaning, progressive bunch. Where are the Asian conservative bloggers? It’s not called the BANANA Liberal Asians Conference. Any ideas?

Hey, how come nobody invited any of us from AsianConservatives.com? This is the first time I’ve heard of this conference. Sounds like a lot of fun and a great opportunity to network with other bloggers (umm, right, guys?). I definitely will look into it next year (if it’s still scheduled)…

Finally, what are your main criticisms of Asian American liberals?

The same with any liberal: Don’t be so open minded that your brain falls out. Learn to use your sixth sense — common sense. And treasure the traditions and history of America, that we are a nation of free individuals living under the rule of law, that America is a republic and not a democracy, and what the government gives it can easily take away.

Eugene Liu is a Christian conservative of Asian descent. He is the founder of AsianConservatives.com, a blog that serves to further the conservative cause (as if the blogosphere needs another right-wing echo chamber, eh?). Besides politics, he’s also interested in technology and movies.

I received word that late last week Pipe Dream, the campus newspaper at my alma mater published the above cartoon.

My response can be summarized in two words: Not funny.

I don’t mean “Asians-are-the-butt-of-this-joke-(again)-and-therefore-this-is-not-funny-to-me” not funny. No, I mean it’s not funny. Period. It doesn’t even make any sense. Sure, Asians like money, but to get money, we’re not going to doctor your fortune cookie fortune for a bigger tip. That’s just not how we roll. Instead, we’ll nickel and dime you on the menu or scribble Chinese on your tab so you don’t notice that we’ve inflated your bill. Those are the Chinese restaurateur’s preferred schemes for getting one dollah one dollah. If you’re gonna be racist, do it with style. This racist cartoon? No style whatsoever.

Below, I submit for your consideration my proposed revision of the racist cartoon. All the cartoonist had to do was switch around the races. Render the waiters white and the patron a Chinaman. The revised racist cartoon now actually makes some sense because we children of Fu Manchu are stereotyped to be stingy-ass bad tippers. White waiters attempting to con an Asian guy into tipping better, the implication there being that Asians tip like shit, is funnier to me. It’s still racist, but at least now it’s racism that makes sense. And it makes me laugh. I don’t mind being offended by your racism so long as you make me laugh.

Non sequitur racism aside, what truly bothers me about this cartoon is the tragic level of cartooning skill exhibited. It’s shit. And it’s embarrassing. This stupid cartoon will garner public attention and everybody will stereotype my school as a place full of shit cartoonists. Great. Now I feel compelled to plead to all you people, “Not every cartoonist from my school is shit. We are individuals. Please do not generalize.” It’s offensive how one sloppy doodle can make a complete mockery of cartooning. I mean come on, Pipe Dream editors! This can’t possibly be the funniest panel submitted.

In any event, Asian Outlook, the student-run APA magazine at SUNY Bing, is asking the public to sound off on this issue in a comment, signed or anonymous, for them to submit to the school and impress upon the Pipe Dream editors how inappropriate it is to caricature Asian Americans with the Mister Wong logo. Send your comments to ao.editor@gmail.com (Asian Outlook editorial staff) or write directly to Nate Fleming, editor-in-chief of Pipe Dream, at editor@bupipedream.com. I have no idea who is in charge of the cartoons. Maybe the fun page editor Mike Manzi. So if you’re at it, email him as well, at fun@bupipedream.com. Or go straight to the top, Student Association, at getinvolved@sa.binghamton.edu.

You should probably also say something to these folks about the whole slanty eyed thing. Yeah I don’t know why that’s so popular right now. At least the cartoonist didn’t have the white guy pull his eyelids taut while he read his fortune. That would have been something.

Is this racist cartoon a big deal? Nope. I don’t even mind it if this cartoon stays published or if the cartoonist really, really likes doodling slanty-eyed coolies and never, ever wants to stop. However, that doesn’t mean activists should turn a blind eye. Activism is also in the little things, and in fact it’s the little things that we old APA fogies find more feasible. Let the youngins march and protest and rally. We can shoot quick emails from the comfort of our homes or offices. Part of activism is letting people know when their shit stinks, no matter how seemingly insignificant their shit might be. And my nose right now is telling me that somebody forgot to flush.

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Final Note. The facts presented here were provided to me by a third party source through an e-mail from current students at the school. Frankly, I’d really like more information on this matter. If anyone out there knows more, please add it to the comments section below. Thanks.