When I was younger, there was a movie that came out called Kangaroo Jack. It’s about a white guy named Charlie and a black guy named Louis that go down to Australia and get into some trouble together. It’s a comedy, and I probably shouldn’t have been watching it as a first-grader, but it’s too late to change that now. At any rate, I thought the movie was hilarious.
Now, I’m not going to complain about Asian stereotypes. I’ve never had an experience where I was made to feel lesser in any way for being Asian. I think I’ve been called a chink a couple times, but I didn’t know what it meant back then and also I don’t care. The way I remember it, it was just a bunch of older guys on my elementary school bus calling me names, and nothing to do with actual racism. I think there was also a guy in my middle school who called me a chink, but I called him a cracker and we shook hands and got over it.
The funniest racist joke I’ve ever heard was this one time, when one of my online friends found out I was Asian:
“So I heard you were korean”
“Yeah, why?”
“Can I tell you a joke? It might be kind of racist”
“Sure?”
“Do you see in widescreen?”
I still crack up when I think about it. As for whether or not I do, it’s never going to matter because if I do see in widescreen, I don’t feel that it’s affected me or my life in any meaningful way. But then again, do I see in widescreen? lol
As for high school, I did my absolute best to perpetuate certain Asian-American stereotypes. I somehow managed to convince a large portion of my school that I knew “… kung-fu or karate or some shit.” I have a yellow stripe in Tae-Kwon-Do, which is one step up from complete novice. “You’re like, super smart, aren’t you? Straight A’s and shit.” I was a straight B student until my junior year, when I started getting way more C’s.
It was probably towards the end of high school when I started thinking more seriously about the idea of race and racial representations. Maybe there was another movie that came out around that time where people were complaining about this whole ‘whitewashing’ business. I thought about it, and I sort of realized that I didn’t really see myself represented in movies or TV shows. We got guys like Jackie Chan, one of my childhood heroes from that one TV show on WB kids, I think it was called Jackie Chan Adventures. We got Bruce Lee, a cultural icon. Chow Yun Fat, Maggie Q, Jet Li and Donnie Yen… waitaminute.
And of course, there’s always that one quiet Asian guy sitting in the corner of the office space, probably some sort of genius that minds his own business for the most part, whom people occasionally go to when they got problems they can’t take care of themselves.
As for me, I’d just like to be a regular guy. Nothing special, I’m just kind of here. Like uh, Charlie from Kangaroo Jack, or that stoner dude, Harold from Harold & Kumar. I haven’t watched Harold & Kumar though, so I’d like to stick with Charlie. Just a normal guy trying to deal with all the craziness in his life.
I don’t know kung-fu or karate or anything. I wouldn’t call myself a genius. I’m not incredibly tech-savvy, I don’t do coding, I don’t build crazy contraptions in my spare time. I’m not looking to be a doctor, or lawyer.
I’m just kind of here, y’know?