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Post by meep on May 17, 2009 3:05:40 GMT -5
To what extent does your physical appearance affect your cultural identity or the relationship with people of your respective ethnicites?
Based on the fact that most of us are Eurasian (or racially mixed in general), some of us may look more Asian, or more European. Does leaning to a more Asian or European physical appearance lend anyone to reject (subtly or otherwise) a particular culture of their heritage and/or embrace another?
This could be due to one side of your family rejecting or refusing to acknowledge you as part of their cultural group because your appearance is not familiar to them... and so you find more belonging to the other side of your family...
I don't know I am just curious.
Because I ended up looking more European, the Chinese side of my family tend to view me as being 'gwei'. This has to a certain extent formed a barrier to my belonging in a Chinese community. However, I don't reject the Chinese culture, I am learning mandarin and Chinese history. I can imagine someone in my circumstance, i.e, looking more European and getting called 'gwei' to perhaps reject their Chinese side entirely through a feeling of not belonging to the Chinese culture.
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Post by Kalvien on May 17, 2009 3:54:48 GMT -5
this is actually major issue among eurasians in Indonesia. Most of the third generations of indo people (those who have mixed blood of dutch and indonesian/chinese indonesians with any other blood) tend to reject their mixed heritage because they feel "they look too asian" and not "indsiche".
this is getting worse with presence of eurasian artists in our sitcom which looked more europe than being asian. the 1/4 eurasian mix somehow feel inferior for those have 1/2 mix, because they feel they are not "too eurasian enough to admit themselves as eurasian".
for myself, I'm the only person to continue my family surname (since chinese family is patrilineal). I feel more chinese than being dutch or javanese. My grandmother (1/3 dutch, 1/3 chinese, 1/3 javanese) speak dutch fluently but she didnt inherit it to her children. most of her grandchildren love dutch cuisines though.
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Post by Subuatai on May 17, 2009 5:49:00 GMT -5
My family looks Mongol to other Mongols, which some foreigners consider "Eurasian look" for some reason, but we still consider our look Mongol. Therefore we're pretty cool with other Mongols... most of the time Russians however, it really depends. Some are cool with us, others follow the Western race thing. Nonetheless, we don't identify as Russians even though my father/aunt/uncle are halfies, as we found more acceptance in being Mongol.
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Post by nemesisgalofdoom on May 17, 2009 16:48:34 GMT -5
the 1/4 eurasian mix somehow feel inferior for those have 1/2 mix, because they feel they are not "too eurasian enough to admit themselves as eurasian". This is rubbish to me, I think that 1/4 Eurasians are more interesting ... Back 2 topic: Yes, the physical appearance did/do affect my cultural identity ! My physical appearance doesn't fit in any category: 1: I never liked to identify myself as Eurasian because of the image that all Eurasian have to look soooo good (like anine chars), what I'm not at all. 2: I am and will always be a "gaijin" in Japan, although I look much more Japanese than German (But somehow I dont look Japanese, hard to tell...) - the little difference is a very big difference to them (brighter hair/eyes....) 3: I'm Asian for German, mostly. If u look Eurasian, but also a lit Asian, u are Asian. But this never has affected any personal relationships - and I don't identify myself culturally. I just identify myself with my name and my person, not more or less. This is the easiest way for me to get over it
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maow
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Post by maow on May 17, 2009 17:29:13 GMT -5
Thankfully, more positive experiences with people who are more curious than subjective, but I have to admit to being close to using violence against someone who pushed the right buttons in getting me pissed off about identity. From my point of view, there will always be some smart ass who will point out that no matter how good your language, cultural knowledge etc is you will always be regarded as a "gwai lo", which depending on the circumstances makes it good to know where you stand with that person but I try not to stay around when the conversation ever so much as hints at going in that direction. On the other side, especially from my time in Germany, I noticed no initial reaction as I look more European but it was interesting to see how some people reacted when they found out my other half. I was in a small town so that explains it to a degree but I did get referred to as "Schlitzaugen".
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nakanaka
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Post by nakanaka on May 17, 2009 19:33:57 GMT -5
the 1/4 eurasian mix somehow feel inferior for those have 1/2 mix, because they feel they are not "too eurasian enough to admit themselves as eurasian". This is rubbish to me, I think that 1/4 Eurasians are more interesting ... Back 2 topic: Yes, the physical appearance did/do affect my cultural identity ! My physical appearance doesn't fit in any category: 1: I never liked to identify myself as Eurasian because of the image that all Eurasian have to look soooo good (like anine chars), what I'm not at all. 2: I am and will always be a "gaijin" in Japan, although I look much more Japanese than German (But somehow I dont look Japanese, hard to tell...) - the little difference is a very big difference to them (brighter hair/eyes....) 3: I'm Asian for German, mostly. If u look Eurasian, but also a lit Asian, u are Asian. But this never has affected any personal relationships - and I don't identify myself culturally. I just identify myself with my name and my person, not more or less. This is the easiest way for me to get over it I agree with you nemesisgalofdoom, I have a kinda asian... kinda european look. I've been told I can't pass for being fully white or asian. In Japan people say I look kind of japanese if I say I'm half japanese. but mostly I'm just another 'gaijin' with an unusual knowledge of the language and culture. Frankly, I don't think I could reject either one of my cultures... but i definitely see how it could happen to people
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Post by nemesisgalofdoom on May 18, 2009 1:13:48 GMT -5
Sometimes, but here in Germany, people just doesn't know - those are moments where people are just curious and ask for my background (ethnically), I dont like those moment because I don't like to make big deal about it, I try to see is as a fact.
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Post by Subuatai on May 18, 2009 2:44:15 GMT -5
Why don't you just make up some smartass story like I do?
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Post by Altan on May 18, 2009 3:17:04 GMT -5
Well, from what I've seen as an "Observer" tribal outer appearances do play a role in group cohesion. Unless it is a cultural thing. But that only goes so far when a group member is so obviously different from the group and that could be a problem or a deviance. And in many instances that is. Like, the light-skinned (Coffee with a little Cream) Negroid, Hamitic Obama he is so different from all the rest of the former Presidents that it is an affront to the United States mentality perhaps Richard Cheney has some smart good advice on deviancy and being American. ;D
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fei
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Post by fei on May 18, 2009 4:01:56 GMT -5
I mean it will be great if you look more European or more Asian as you able to identify with the cultural of your physical appearance. But what happen if you look evenly mixed, too white to call Asian and too Asian to call white! It bad enough to be reject by one culture race but it worse to be reject by two culture. Always feel like an outsider, no matter what hard i tried to fit in.
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nakanaka
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Post by nakanaka on May 18, 2009 17:25:54 GMT -5
I mean it will be great if you look more European or more Asian as you able to identify with the cultural of your physical appearance. But what happen if you look evenly mixed, too white to call Asian and too Asian to call white! It bad enough to be reject by one culture race but it worse to be reject by two culture. Always feel like an outsider, no matter what hard i tried to fit in. sometimes i feel like this... but other times it can actually be kind of cool and funny to keep people guessing... But generally, I think being mixed is good. Sometimes I get to identify with both of my cultures ;D
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Post by ahliang on May 19, 2009 4:59:49 GMT -5
speaking of which, someone mentioned to me today that he thought it was rude that some person on my facebook went "hey asian!" ... the thing is, he s not the first person here to call me "asian"...and i don t think i look particularly asian...in a white environment, i guess i do...but in an asian one...they know i m mixed or can t even tell i m part asian at first...i ve had a LOT of korean and chinese friends here mistake me for eastern/southern russian...that i can count from these past 6 months, 4 people i met through friends (2 were korean, 1 was chinese and the other taiwanese) mentioned they thought i was russian...it s weird that they re so specific about it because a filipino guy just mentioned it again yesterday!!!!! "i thought you were russian! you know...from the east and south...russians that are close to turkey" <--i m not sure that guy knew his geo well but i m assuming (given that he said to the east.......) he meant more leaning towards kazakhstan than chechnya...unless he thought i looked uzbek which would explain a lot since they re turkic/mongolian...not the point though....the point i was getting at is that i ve been mistaken for kalmyk on quite a few occasions too...so for some reason, because i have, i ve been interested in the culture and enjoy learning a lot about russia, more specifically kalmykia, which i would love to visit!!!! as for asian versus western culture...i think i look evenly mixed. the reason for which i ve been more influenced by my asian side is because they re a lot more accepting of my parents interracial marriage/me, and a lot more caring. i also spent most my childhood in asia, and if i did finish high school and started college in the west, as is the case now, i ve never been "white" to western people...i was talking to an old classmate who s now working where i used to work and she mentionned that my boss s nephew grew up in thailand...upon remembering i said i recalled meeting his nephew who mentioned it to me...her answer: "of course he would! how could he not seeing your lil asian face!" not to mention...on my white side, like robyn said, they don t acknowledge me as part of their cultural group because of my look...i was always the more "asian looking/behaving (my dad has had more influence on me...although in some ways i wish he hadn t at the time )" one and my grandma hated that...she d actually tell my sibling not to play with me because i was such a bad influence...
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Post by helles on May 19, 2009 11:53:08 GMT -5
^ i think calling someone " hey asian" can be quite endearing, depending on the level of friendship you had with the person using it. i'm constantly referred to as the 'gwai mui' (white/ghost girl in canto) and i'm cool with it.
my white side had more issues with us being asian than chinese side with us being white. my white grandparents were quite old-school and anti anything non-british, they wouldn't even eat non-english food (even european stuff like spaghetti or pizza etc). and well, i dont really have much white family left anyway, so its always been more about the chinese family.
i think due to darker features, and being in Asia, i am drawn more to asian friends, altho mostly those who have studied/lived abroad. i can probably count on my hands the non-asian friends i have here at the minute. :/
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Post by thesa on May 19, 2009 12:41:54 GMT -5
Had an interesting conversatin with a Korean friend the other day. He tried to explain some very technical things to me (capacitances, resistances, holding potentials, blablabla...) and at some point I just drew a blank as I'd never heard these terms before in Korean. He had a great time making fun of me for not knowing what he was talking about and I got really annoyed with him and asked him why I would need to know Korean and that it wasn't of any use to me anyways... This left him really insulted because in his eyes I should identify more strongly with my Korean side rather than my white side. Had similar conversations with my white friends when I told them how German people didn't know how to cook or so... and they were like: yes, but you are German too!!! I don't actually think it's so much of a physical appearance issue rather than a relating/bonding issue. It's like you want to share something with your friends rather than seeing them distance themselves from you. On the other hand, sharing a similar physical appearance probably does make the 'relation' stronger.
totally off-topic, sorry...!!
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Post by Groink on May 19, 2009 15:25:55 GMT -5
^
Funny you should bring that up. Language for me has always been the bonding "item". If you can talk the talk, then we're simpatico. It is much more of a priority for me to easily get my ideas across than to find somone who (God forbid) looks like me.
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