asian stereotypes | Alice Vega

Oh Avril… please do us all a favor and just go back to singing about skater boys.

Avril Lavigne is back and released a new single titled “Hello Kitty.” If that doesn’t already make you somewhat cringe, just listen to the first four seconds of the song where she totally butchers the Japanese language and made people worldwide unanimously go “SMH.”

This sadly isn’t anything new in the land of pop music. Katy Perry donned a full geisha outfit during the American Music Awards last year and flashback 10 years before that Gwen Stefani donned her whole Harajuku girl posse everywhere she went. Can we all just take a moment and say “WTF WHITE PEOPLE? WTF.”

Cultural appropriation is the adoption of specific elements of one culture by a different cultural group. This is a phenomenon that’s been happening for years, but has recently been pushed to the forefront of any pop culture discussion thanks to people like Katy Perry and Gwen Stefani. Miley Cyrus doin’ that whole “thug lyfe, I’m a bad ass bitch that can twerk” is yet another example of how one culture appropriates another. This can be a hard concept to understand by some because some people interpret this adopting as a positive thing. Like, we’re all sharing ideas and we like how this culture does this, so therefore, this is something that should be celebrated, right?

Well… no. Not exactly.

It’s one thing to exchange ideas and celebrate diversity in a RESPECTFUL manner. (Notice how I capitalized the word RESPECTFUL.) It’s another thing to do a modern day version of colonizing a culture and its people and use their ideas as your own. People are not accessories to your identity. People are people. Appropriating cultures in this manner dehumanizes people and belittles years and years of rich history from these cultures.

So let me sound off here. It’s really fucking annoying to see yet another pop star take this aspect of Japanese culture and wear it like a cute pair of shoes. I mean, can you see those robotic, emotionless Asian back up dancers?! That’s all INTENTIONAL. That was choreographed that way. This song and video is absolutely terrible in every sense of the word. It’s pretty much just like that Chinese food video that the other White girl sang about on Youtube.

Dear God,

Make it all stop.

Sincerely,
one of the many pissed off Asian girls that can’t take off this skin.

Photo from chibiland.windy-goddess.net

Hey there friends! Happy TMI Tuesday.

So I was actually in the process of writing another blog post about… well… let’s keep it as a surprise for now. But I ended up saving that as a draft and writing this instead.

So let me be real. I have a midterm at 9 AM. It’s almost 3 AM and I haven’t really gotten a lot done. (Oops, sorry parentals.) I’m way too relaxed right before a big test and honestly, it’s because I HATE studying. In all my years of being a student, both high school and college, I am absolutely terrible at sitting down and memorizing shit. I’ve even fancied the thought that maybe my short attention span might be due to A.D.D, but then I realized, I don’t get THAT distracted. I’m just straight up lazy and I’d rather spend my time doing other things.

If there was a test on the entire series of Sailor Moon or Youtube Star Trivia, dear lord, I would get an A++++. I’d be that student that everyone wants to cheat off of because they bring their book to every class and actually open the book.

I titled this post “Asian Stereotypes” because this will be one of many blog posts where I address a stereotype that I definitely do not fit. I’m not sure why Asians are always perceived as smart, but hey, to me that’s a compliment! I don’t even have to do anything and I already look smarter than my non-Asian friends. But that goes out the door once you hear me open my mouth and I sprout out nonsense about the most random shit you’ll ever hear.

I thought it always sucked when my other Asian friends had parents who were super strict on their grades. I’m lucky to have parents who just trust that I’m doing well (until they read this post and see that I’m not getting anything done) and let me pursue what I want to pursue. You know what I’m talking about, right? Those parents that just expect you to be doctors or nurses or something else that’s highly regarded as a prestigious career. I for one would be so unhappy if I was forced to study something I didn’t care about. College is expensive!! Why on earth would I be spending thousands of dollars on a subject I give no fcks about? I’m happy that I got to study what interested me because it helped shape me into the person that I am today. (Which is a person that loves to talk. Can you believe there’s a major for that?!)

In all the anime that I watch, I always admired the bookworms that study hardcore and got top scores on tests. I remember when I was in 3rd grade, I was really inspired by Ami (Sailor Mercury) and one time at a sleepover when my friends and I didn’t know what to do, I pulled out a random textbook I had and said, “Hey guys! Let’s study!”

Needless to say those girls aren’t my friends anymore.

(Just kidding, we still keep in touch. Kinda.)

I hate to end this post on such a negative message that studying sucks, because in all honesty, we all do need to study in order to be good people. Even if you’re not in school, you still have to spend time working hard at your job in order to be great at it. So the moral of the story is, study hard. Read that textbook with laser focus and get good grades, kids.

Or you can be like me and blog about how much this sucks.

-Alice