physical appearance and cultural identity

[Kush]

I think I've posted before that I look more Asian and I think I could pass for Chinese/Japanese. No doubt made me identify with Asians more than Europeans. But being told by everyone your Asian, is really the clincher.

I don't identify myself as Eurasian. To be honest, when people talk of a Eurasian look I honestly don't have a clue because from my experience, it doesn't exist.
Eurasians tend to either lean one way or the other (again, this is just from my experience) because most people like to have you down as either Asian or European otherwise their brain explodes and you respond to that identity which your peers give you.

Vaguely related, recently I've taken to buying Asian stuff - clothes mainly, that sort of hint at it. Such as these jeans I have with a rising sun on the back which I rather like. Also thinking about getting some Chinese t-shirts - some of them do look awesome. I grew my hair to style it but it was just a bit too curly to style into anything Asian.

[jenbrook]

Hmmmm.. You know its funny, i never had to take on a cultural identity until i moved to canada. Before that, i lived in asia and went to international schools, where seemingly everyone is just another component in international society and cultural identity was important but not at the forefront of everything.. simply because it gets tiresome and trivial to always talking about what differentiates us all. So i guess we all just looked at what we had in common instead, so i never even had to think about cultural identity!

However, when i moved to north america, that all changed very quickly and all of a sudden your cultural identity was very very important. I've never ever had to address it and all of a sudden i was put in a situation where i had to put some kind of cultural identity forward so that people could look at me and say, 'oh, thats what you are'. Took me a while to realise.. I dont have a one! Even based on physical appearance, as i look like both asian and white.. and i relate to both sides equally. My cultural identity is made up of a mix of western, international, asian.. i dont know if that comes across in how i look.

Therefore, in regards to physical appearance, i think its how other people culturally identify you rather then how you culturally identify yourself. How would you culturally identify me based on how i look?

[maow]

From this photo you could pass for native especially in British Columbia

[fei]

^ on your pic you look evenly mixed like me but on the other hand, in Asia you studied in international school. It a heaven for Eurasian cause most likely you meet up with another EA in that sch. But if you studied in local school or government sch like me, there only 4 race quo, either you Malay,Chinese ,Indian or other!! And i belong to other group. Growing up, i always getting question on "how come i can speak Malay/Chinese" and "You dont look like a Malay" and even in England i feel foreign even though my dad is English!

So the truth is, even if you speak your Asian language but you dont look the part, you not in it. It better that you said you are from mars and people might amuse by your amazing ability to speak in their language. In this case it win-win situation on this sad truth...

[varietyii]

jenbrook: Some people may look at you and identify you just based on how you looked. But culture identity is a lot different than racial or ethnic identity. Perhaps some people in North America are more ignorant that people who look similar may have been raised with different cultural values, but one shouldn't identify oneself just based on the vague conclusions other people may make. From that picture, I would look at your clothes, how your hair is done, the details of your surrounding, what aspects of you are being shown in the picture, etc. to get an impression of cultural identity. However, from that picture in-particular, I can't really tell.



It may be easy for some of you people to culturally identify if you look closer to one side of the family or the other, but its not always the case. Looking like one side of the family can actually make it harder to determine a cultural identity. What if you are culturally closer to one side of the family but look similar to the other. I personally am not in such a situation, but there are posters on this forum who are.

I haven't had problems with cultural identity so far. Sure, there may be a lot of ethnic possies in the area I live with, but there's also enough diversity where there are lots of people who don't split off into these groups. In the environment I'm in, I'm not forced to identify with any certain race, culture, or ethnicity. This hasn't always been the case. Sometime during class years 6-10, my primary group of friends were South Asian. I didn't socialize much, but when I did, it was mostly with them. However, it wasn't as though I we're the only non-'South Asian' hanging out with them at the time. I stopped hanging out with them when they started becoming more involved South Asian cultural activities and hanging out more and more specifically only with other South Asians. The primary reason for this is they were starting to become more and more interested in South Asian girls. Its hard to fit into a group that forms specifically because of how people look. I made a decision that I would act as my strange and peculiar self and make a conscious effort to find a greater variety of friends not based on race or ethnicity.

I'm not going to let how I look limit my activities and interests. I look white, but that doesn't mean I can't cook Indian food, listen to classical Indian music, or read Indian news. However, a lot of these activities are personal things. Many of my peers think I'm a weird person. I've never faced these problems that some of you are talking about. I've never had to face the issue of being lumped into a racial category. However, I can say that this is probably because I look white rather than just being in an open-minded area. When looking at me, people aren't going to be perplexed about how I look. Its really a no-brainer to a lot of people. It only messes with people when I actually tell them my background.

[jenbrook]

^Yea but the point of the thread is to discuss how physical appearance affects cultural identity, you're right but unfortunatly i think we all quite primatively still categorize people based on appearance.

[jefe]

May 19, 2009 11:53:08 GMT -5 helles said:

^ 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. :/

Change a couple of your words here and there, and I think I would be writing the same thing.
- locals choosing to address me as "gwei-lo"
- major issues from the white side of my family (who were anti- anything that was not white southerner -- my going to a largely Jewish university near Boston and moving to HK did not sit well with them at all. )
- my Mom, her brother, her parents are all gone, but whoever are left remain in small towns in Alabama -- a total world away from me now, and a place that is not easy for me to get to and offers me nothing were I to go. Even when I go to the USA, it is to DC, NY, California where my Asian relatives (and increasingly, EA relatives) live.
- I also tend to be drawn to overseas educated Asians in HK -- I find it even much more difficult to relate to most non-Asians than I do to the very local types who call me "gwei-lo".

[meep]

Its interesting reading what everyone has to say about this.
The white side of my family have never really associated with me being partially Chinese and I suspect this is because I resemble the whiter half. Had I turned out looking more mongoloid, I believe things would be different.

On a personal level, my physical appearance leaning to the more anglo side hasn't affected or questioned my cultural identity. I can't ever remember asking myself whether I actually was as Chinese as my 50% suggested despite getting called 'gwei' and 'little foreigner' by my Chinese relatives. I do remember wanting to look more Chinese however in order to stop getting called 'gwei' and getting surprised looks when I tell curious people of my ethnicity. But I think this was less to do with cultural identity than physical representation of.

[jenbrook]

^Asian people can spot a eurasian five miles away and even if you look wayy more asian then european, you're still called 'gwei lo' or 'ang mo'.. just something we all have to put up with

What i do love, is that no matter where i am in asia.. i always get the same comment.. 'you look like [insert country i am in] people!'

[meep]

May 23, 2009 5:36:49 GMT -5 jenbrook said:

^Asian people can spot a eurasian five miles away and even if you look wayy more asian then european, you're still called 'gwei lo' or 'ang mo'.. just something we all have to put up with

What i do love, is that no matter where i am in asia.. i always get the same comment.. 'you look like [insert country i am in] people!'

Haha yeah, I noticed this when I went to Southeast Asia. They could straight away tell I was Eurasian. However, in mainland China, its a totally different story. I got told 'you look like Vietnam people!' in Nha Trang and 'you mother thai?' in Thailand. How refreshing! Ahh... I miss Southeast Asia. Give it baaaaaack.

[jenbrook]

^More like give robyn back to south east asia .. arent you going to be here this summer?

[betahat]

My brother looks more Asian than I do but we pretty much have the same cultural identity, so based on a rather small natural experiment with a minor difference in appearance, I would say no, it hasn't affected us. Then again, we're pretty white-washed in general - I'm not even sure it's fair to say that my father has a "Chinese" cultural identity (he barely speaks the language anymore), though my grand-mother certainly does. Of course, you have to identify what cultural identity means - we still cook and eat a lot of Asian food, watch kung-fu movies, cheer for Yao Ming, etc. - but to me language is the biggest barrier to culture and unfortunately thanks to my father that's been more or less cut off. My children have greater chance of speaking French or Hebrew than Mandarin at this stage.

[meep]

May 23, 2009 14:52:24 GMT -5 betahat said:

My brother looks more Asian than I do but we pretty much have the same cultural identity, so based on a rather small natural experiment with a minor difference in appearance, I would say no, it hasn't affected us. Then again, we're pretty white-washed in general - I'm not even sure it's fair to say that my father has a "Chinese" cultural identity (he barely speaks the language anymore), though my grand-mother certainly does. Of course, you have to identify what cultural identity means - we still cook and eat a lot of Asian food, watch kung-fu movies, cheer for Yao Ming, etc. - but to me language is the biggest barrier to culture and unfortunately thanks to my father that's been more or less cut off. My children have greater chance of speaking French or Hebrew than Mandarin at this stage.

"Language is the key to culture" my high school history teacher would say. I think he was right about that one.

[meep]

May 23, 2009 8:30:48 GMT -5 jenbrook said:

^More like give robyn back to south east asia .. arent you going to be here this summer?

No , I'm going to China and Hong Kong instead.

[catgirl]

I ve wondered about this question myself!

I know people think I look somewhat Hispanic or Latina or whatever you call it... So every time I'm around such people I'm scared they will ask me if I'm "like them" or start speaking to me in Spanish or whatever language they have.

Ive always felt Viets view my as more Euro, but not sure whether its because of language (dont speak Viet) or looks.

Some Euro mothers of EA (Viet-Norwegian) kids say I look "Lighter" (Whiter) or more Euro than their kids. I just say: Everyones different

Some African and Euro people have said that they see the Asian in me, but not a single Asian person has said the same! Weird that ;D

I dont really quantify myself as Asian or Euro too much, when it comes to identity!

I think I can relate to most people Ive come across, because I feel I have some stuff in common with most Nations. Maybe not yet Africans or Super religious Muslims too much.... But maybe one day?