Post by SWANCHIME in FALSE PREM(I)SE comments

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I really loved this and as a viet-american who has spent a lot of time in queer/trans centric communities (after being obviously cast out by visually and socially conservative asian communities, since I "wasn't the right kind of expensive and proper looking heterosexual cisgender asian,") I ostensibly ended up searching in queer/trans grounds that I didn't immediately notice were all-white exclusionary with an implication no one speaks that "white is right" but that everyone silently knows to be true can be suffocating in a way you can't see when you're in it.

and, an issue that's really degrading and grating is that so much of queer/trans communities that are white-dominated also have a weird orientalist air that's hard to pin down but can be explained by bizarre and fetishistic notions about japanese media where the notion of japanese people's humanity is some kind of spectacle, fascination, or used as "evidence of elite education and being cultured." this also extends to attitudes about all asians, since to whites there's not much difference between japanese people and chinese people and korean people, and also no distinguishing or discernment between the difference from east to southeast asia.

I think you did an incredible succinct and poignant job capturing some of the frustrations of orientalism and anti-asian racism. really good work

wallpapergirl1 day ago (1 edit)

I totally get it!!! I'm a Chinese person who's spent a lot of time in western queer/trans spaces as well, and I completely did not understand the overwhelming whiteness in all of those, until I slowly realized nobody wanted to talk to me. Just by existing I sort of rocked the boat in those spaces, since with me around they couldn't make crass or insensitive jokes about Asians anymore, despite the fact they shouldn't be doing so to begin with. It was so bizarre, I agree.

The thing with Japanese media in particular -- a lot of it is 'palpable' to a white audience in the way that Chinese and Korean media isn't. It's sort of easy to cling to if you're white because fundamentally Japanese values and imperialism are very similar to the west. At the same time, a lot of white people don't like to acknowledge the humanity of Japanese people, like you've said, so it turns into something that's nearly wholly fetishistic and orientalist. I still think about the white trans woman I met at a party once who called herself by a Japanese name.

As with south east asia, there's a complete non-acknowledgement of that region by the west due to their lack of 'oriental value' beyond maybe food. I remember at school people didn't know where Indonesia was, despite how big it was across the map. Since I have family in Singapore and the surrounding countries, it only made it even more crazy as I realized growing up that nobody outside of south east asia likes to talk about it. And those that do? Well... it's sometimes hard to discern intentions. For example, there's a Japanese singer that bases off a lot of her songs with words from south east asian languages, and despite the obvious marketing tactic of catering to south east asia doing this, she gets away with it due to those within south east asia happy there's people interested in our culture. It's a greater problem of racism and imperial powers against those that have been robbed. One of my friends worded it quite well: you're either the colonized or the colonizer.

Thank you so much for reading and commenting! I'm very happy to see another south east asian around :) I'll check out your work some time as well!

SWANCHIME1 day ago(+1)

everything you said is so true!! I couldn't put it all together before but you're right that japanese media has an underlying implication of an imperialism that is very palatable to the west especially compared to chinese media...(not very familiar with korean media!) like, way more white people are willing and comfortable to engage with anime than ever read a danmei novel, and the ones that do read danmei often have kind of... I can't put my finger on it, but Weird Attitudes...

it's the kind of Weird Attitude that's like, the assumption chinese takeout 🥡 places serve Authentic Chinese Cuisine™️ as if the fortune cookie isn't a california invention 🥠 (also how much of a monolith do they think china is!! there's so much regional cuisine...)

I read a ton of (translated) chinese danmei webnovels and it's just an incredibly vivid and irreplicable landscape even within the singular genre of "danmei" that can't be captured just by what's been cunningly licensed by the english publishing industry to appeal to (white) americans because there's definitely a phenomenon where white americans can self-insert into anime protagonists in a way they can't fudge the default with chinese characters who are in every way shape and form "unforgettably and unerringly chinese."

something something the game honor of kings (which mainly features characters from the romance of the three kingdoms, ex. kongming and zhou yu and other chinese lore like daji) dominates the moba landscape across every country in the world Except for usa, where there's silently a vague discomfort about it being "too chinese to forget" unlike the dominant moba, league of legends and related games

I think one of the roots of sinophobia in usa is the racial discomfort of threatening your position as an american of being "the center of the world" ie the ultimate colonizer. it's related to the decentralization when english monolingual americans become extremely defensive and uncomfortable when you delocate them from the assumption "to speak at all is to of course speak english" by the description of "english speakers" because of english language imperialism preferring to imply english is the most superior (and most human) language and naturally is the tongue all humans should speak, and it's pitiful and disgusting when non-white immigrants open their filthy mouths to speak "bad english" as if bad english makes you a bad person, not even to mention the vast majority of native english speakers remain monolingual their entire lives.

in my toxic yuri game prince swallow contains a lot of the chinese idioms I've picked up over time and the (summarized) statement that "over 1000 years the intrinsic nature of empire hasn't changed, they've just changed the names" ie. they're have always been kings.

it's really great to hear your insights

itch.io

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