I Freaking Love Being Asian

I freaking love being Asian. This love has grown more and more over the past year. Especially over the past COVID months.

Between my watching of Chinese dramas, Taiwanese dramas, Korean dramas, my listening to Mandopop and Mandarin rap (Yitai Wang) and all sorts of K-pop (Eric Nam, Stray Kids, ITZY, Twice). My full descent into stanning BTS and becoming an ARMY. My Duolingo and other language app learning - I’m out here learning Mandarin (187 day streak BABYYY) and Korean. BTS World Domination in general (a detailed description of this will come in another blog post). Kpop (mostly BTS) re-inspiring me as a musical theatre artist/artist in every aspect - dance, singing, writing, as well as just a straight up nerd with my analytical, sociological brain being like “omg what is this whole Kpop culture? How does this work? What are all the elements that have led to BTS world domination? How did this happen?"

I also went blonde a few months ago and am loving it. I’ve wanted to go blonde for so long but didn’t really think it was for me but seeing all these Kpop idols/ASIAN PEOPLE with their blonde hair and me just being obsessed with the look, I did it. And I love it. Ryujin from ITZY really led that obsession and my full decision to go blonde. That’s where its at.

Anyway, so YES. I freaking love being Asian.

We have the best food. We have so much rich culture and history. Even just learning bits and pieces about languages and how Chinese has influenced different Asian languages - how Korean has Sino-Korean and have used Chinese characters as a writing system (hanja) in addition to hangul, or even just finding that some Korean words sound similar to the same words in Chinese (it's more Cantonese than Mandarin but some of it still sounds like Mandarin). Traditions, outfits - umm hello, traditional outfits like cheongsams (Chinese) and Hanboks (Korean) are absolutely beautiful. Asian fashion is EVERYTHING. Street style, Harajuku, Kawaii vibes, traditional outfits being street style. I am obsessed with all of it. Kpop idols being fashion icons.

Not to mention the duality. The duality in Kpop. This is a huge thing I’ve noticed and relate to so much. Literally, one second they are hardcore badasses and could kill you with a look and the next second they are the cutest, sweetest babies ever (uwu). This goes for males and females. In Western society, for some reason, it has always felt like it’s one or the other. You have to be cool and emotionless and a badass but for some reason you can’t also have a room full of stuffed animals and be cutesy. But I’m realizing, that duality is me. The cutesy Asian parts and the tough parts of “I could cut you with my eyes”. And I love it. The duality is powerful.

Then even more specifically for me, of course, being Chinese. I love it. And I’ve written about that a bunch before.

Being Asian kind of feels special in this world and society that I am so sick of. Of course racism is still rampant and BIPOC people (myself included) are tired as hell trying to fix the world ourselves. Something someone said back in September was that it isn’t the responsibility (or solely the responsibility) of BIPOC folks to “fix” racism. It’s on the white folks, those with privilege. And then again, as a Chinese person and in general, as an Asian with less racism and disadvantages towards us, I do still have a level of privilege. There is a responsibility to educate myself and have meaningful conversations with others.

I really love who I am. Of course that kind of changes and ebbs and flows everyday but for the most part, I love who I am as a person. The mix of badass and Kawaii or aegyo or cute or whatever, the weird, awkward me. That’s just me.

For school, I’ve been writing a “creative acting project” and there is so much stuff in there I want to share. Bits and pieces of me in these different voices or characters. Bits and pieces of these thoughts on my Asianness. It’s the me right now in a time capsule of words and theatre.

2020 has been a hell of a year. We all know that. But I also think it has been an incredible year for growth. And that’s beautiful. Maybe a little too much thinking and reflection, maybe enough, maybe just the beginnings of it. This year I have found more of myself. I have found my writing, which I lost and forgot about for a long time. I started this blog. I wrote a play and shared some of it online in a livestream with Missus Productions. I was in an online livestream Zoom rehearsed and performed play, also with Missus Productions. I put my singing voice on the internet (big scary). I wrote music for class and on my own (or at least attempted to). The future feels promising. It doesn’t always feel like that, but that’s what I’m feeling right now, as I’m writing this at 1am on a Sunday night listening to BTS.

It has taken a hell of a long time for us as a society and institutions to implement change but we’ve started now. And that is powerful. Let's keep going. Cheers for a better 2021.