Author's Comment:
Phew, at this rate I'd be churning out 1 post per year. The law of quality over quantity does state that a more focused, specialized and detailed product tends to shine above mediocre mass production. Highly doubt that's the case here though.
But I digress.
*Clears throat* so, I'm going to be a tad selfish this time around and talk about me; myself. Although, considering the erratic pattern which is my personality, I suspect that somewhere in the middle of this post the scope of the topic will expand by itself.
Our society is a funny thing. I've always said that. We love to judge, we love to categorize, and we love to isolate things into their respective categories. Curious, "isolate", considering we are a social species. I am revisited by a quote from a movie, "Transcendence", uttered by Dr. Will Caster, played by Johnny Depp. "They are only afraid because they don't understand". That sums up the bulk of our species quite well; we are a bunch of space monkeys that are insecure about things we "cannot" comprehend. Yet we do naught to remedy this flaw. When the automobiles first appeared, there were mass hysteria over possible problem automobiles might represent, but 100 odd years later and we shudder at the thought of not owning a car now.
We are afraid of things we don't understand, yet we don't even try to understand them.
It's not only automobiles mind you. This applies to humans too, and this is where the "me" part comes in.
I was raised in a rather.. unorthodox household. unorthodox within the boundary of my own culture and nation. I'm a single child, and I was brought up in an English household, with a dash of Chinese dialect known as "Hokkien". The bulk of my childhood, and my life really similar to many others, is centered around that: the household. I was raised with English as the only medium for me to interact with the world around me, so naturally I'd work with the tool I'm most comfortable with.
And there's where the problem begins. See, in my country, we have a term for people like me. "Bananas". The logic is that we are yellow outside, and white inside.
But what exactly is a "banana"? Yes, I know it's a tropical fruit rich in potassium, but I'm referring to the criterion for somebody to be labelled a "banana".
Well, to the "pure" Chinese clique, a banana is defined as a person who has apparently zero capabilities of speaking their mother tongue (Mandarin), and has adopted a western way of living and thinking.
The actual consensus is very fuzzy, but one thing is for certain, the "prestigious" title of being called a banana is only bestowed upon those who "fails" at being a Chinese. This is where I crack my knuckles and abuse my keyboard.
First off, what constitutes as being Chinese? The language we speak? How we eat our food? Bidet over tissue? As far as I know, the only sure way of determining the lineage of a person is via their genetics. You wouldn't identify a Mandarin speaking Welsh as a Chinese now would you? You'll just call him by who he is, a caucasian, or at the most "That-white-guy-who-speaks-suprisingly-good-Mandarin". Or better yet, his name.
Yet Malaysian Chinese don't understand this fundamental concept. My "kind" has been oppressed (heavy wording, but accurate), by those who consider themselves "pure Chinese" for as long as I can remember.
During conversations, we (bananas), get left out. Cultural Barrier activated.
When we violate a "taboo" unknowingly, we get criticized for being ignorant.
It's not that we do not try, we do. I know I did, oh and how I tried. How I tried to fit in. How I tried to be more "Chinese", to be like "my people".
I try to speak, I get criticized and made fun off, and perhaps worst off is I get ignored.
I try to learn their humor and culture, I get walled off and pushed back, simply because "I wouldn't understand" or "it wouldn't translate".
I try to ask my own family, yes, my own flesh and blood. I get told off "Hah, who ask you never want to try to speak or adapt? who ask you never try to learn your own heritage?"
I do not mind being laughed at for trying, but I was broken when nobody around me was willing to pay attention to me because I just wasn't worth a damn to spend their effort on. I'm just another banana after all right? People like me are better off being "that guy" in a group of friends, the comic relief. Cause that's what we are, an overglorified zoo exhibition.
I'm sure there are those out there who feels this way, regardless of their ethnicity. Isolated because they are the black sheep of a community. Never given a chance to try, shot down and wings grounded.
I am honestly disgusted with my people at times, I really am. I've had my foreign friends come to me countless times to complain "hey man, why is it that Chinese are so reserved and cold towards us? It's so hard for us to establish a dialogue because they are always with their own".
I usually just respond by saying "you just answered your own question, we are akin to tribes from yesteryear. We prefer to wander among ourselves where the world makes sense to our eyes. However, those of us that are different, we are shunned out of the pool to the perilous world out there. Little did those outcasts know, the world is so much more vast and breathtaking. I am one of those outcasts, and I'm still exploring".
I never forget who I am, I never forget my culture nor my heritage, and I do respect them contrary to popular belief (when I say "popular"...). But I'm not proud of it, in the sense that I put no superiority on my heritage, nor on any other individual's heritage. Many Chinese do however, and for that I hate many of my own kind. I won't lie, many Chinese find that their crap smells sweeter than others, akin to the "Purity & Supremacy" doctrine of Hitler (perhaps not that extreme, but you get my point).
If being balls deep into an ethnicity's socio-cultural aspect qualifies them as a native, I'm 20% Japanese, 50% American, 30% Martian. But I'm obviously no Americano Martian-San. I'm 100% human, and I have the culture of the world in me. I am an Earthling and always will be.
If my incompetence disqualifies me from being a Chinese, then so be it.
Segregation is so 1800s anyways.
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