Cultural Learning Journal
Since I was deprived of the vast Asian-American culture during my childhood and through high school, I`ve been trying to rediscover my heritage ever since I left for college. Here are some of my cultural observations from my travels and experiences. Most of them are based on the Vietnamese-American culture and are meant to be humorous. If you agree with me or find any of them offensive, then write to me and try to explain to me the reasoning for these cultural differences because I`m always trying to expand my knowledge ofthe world instead of always prejudging it.
Read Previous Entries
"Jail Bait or Love?"
This topic might be a sensitive one for some AA's, but it is one that I've had a hard time trying to understand. My first experience with this subject occurred a couple of years ago while I was visiting a cousin in Savannah, Georgia. I was living in Augusta, GA at the time and decided to visit him and his wife one weekend since I was new to the area and didn't really know anyone else. I continued to visit him on the weekends because he recommended that I attend the weekend classes at the church to learn Vietnamese and even volunteer to help out with the Viet Sunday school program there since I had mentioned to him that I needed to complete some community service hours for a certain job requirement. Of course, I decided to take up his offer since it was an opportunity for me to learn more about the Viet culture. Plus, I enjoy working with kids anyway. So there I was, a newly graduated college guy with a computer engineering degree, sitting in Viet language classes every Saturday with a bunch of grade school and high school kids that were teaching me how to say the alphabet and count numbers in Viet. Sounds crazy, doesn't it?
Anyway, back to the primary topic of this entry, which occurred while I was volunteering with the Viet Sunday school program there. While, getting to know some of the kids in the program, some of the older girls told me about their boyfriends. Of course, these girls were only 13-15 years old. They told me that they were dating guys that were 25-30 years old. Of course, the term, "dating" referring to much more than just going out on the occasional dinner or movie, if you know what I mean. Maybe it was due to my strong American influences or my education, but these girls' dating situations totally blew my mind. From what I was taught about American society and its laws, what these guys were doing was completely wrong even if these girls willing consented. In fact, in most states, if you are not 21 and over, sex with minors under 18 (16 here in Georgia) is considered statutory rape, a felony that is punishable by imprisonment.
So I questioned these girls about why they were dating these guys, and they tell me that it is was normal and acceptable in the Vietnamese culture. Of course, my comment back to them was that maybe it was acceptable in Vietnam and other countries, but they were living in the US now, as US citizens and, therefore, governed under US laws.
These guys must have some serious social problems if they couldn't find girls their own age or even of legal age. Don't get me wrong, because I don't have anything against large age gaps with in relationships, as long as both sides are of legal age. I don't know. Maybe my cultural ignorance on this subject matter is still too great. I just don't see why one's foreign cultural beliefs would supersede the laws and social standards of a country one now calls home.
"Red Headed Asians"
So this one time while I was visiting California, I was hanging out at a house party with some friends at UC Irvine. UC Irvine was impressive to me just because I think Asians probably made up 75% of the student body with Vietnamese-Americans making up the majority of the Asians. I figured I`d fit in pretty well around the other students. Keep in mind that I`m coming from a white American background where I was 1 of 2 Asians in an all white private high school. The other Asian being my brother.
Anyway, back to the party. I`d been to many parties before this one, but this was my first all Asian college party. It seemed like any other party, so I was enjoying myself -- meeting some cool people and noticing some of the hot Asian girls. As the party went on, I noticed that just about all of the guys that were drinking were becoming very red in their skin complexion. I`ve been doing a good amount of drinking also by this time and start to wonder what the f@#* is going on. Was there some crazy drugs in these drinks that`s making everyone red or what or just making me hallucinate? It seemed like the more they drank (or maybe the more I drank), the redder their skin got.
So I go to the bathroom and check my face in the mirror and notice that my face is still normal and not red at all. So maybe I wasn`t hallucinating? So I ask one of my friends later on why everyone`s skin was so red. He tells me that it was normal for Asians to turn red when they drank. In fact, they called the phenomenon "Asian Red." So I figured that either I wasn`t a normal Asian or my alcohol tolerance was a lot higher than all of the Asian guys at this party. So if my skin doesn`t turn red when I drink due to a high alcohol tolerance, does that mean I`m an alcoholic?
"Pursuit Of The American Dream"
No matter where I`ve been in this country, one thing always seems to be a common norm where ever Asian-Americans have a small or large community presence: Chinese tend to open restaurants, Koreans tend to open dry cleaning stores and restaurants, and Vietnamese tend to open nail salons and restaurants. Could someone please tell me why this is so common? I`m not trying to say that these are bad career choices because I`ve met several AA`s that have become very successful in these career fields. I`m just wondering why these career fields are so popular among these AA groups when there are so many other career opportunities available in this country.
"These Would Look Nice In My Dining Room"
This experience is not really an AA one, but an international one. So I`m in a mall with a friend in Seoul, South Korea, and we get hungry and decide to get something to eat. We go to the food court and order our food. Surprisingly, I get my food and drink in a nice wooden plate and cup, along with a nice set of chopsticks. This wouldn`t be surprising to me if we were in a nice sit-down type of restaurant, but this was at a fast food court in the mall. We had to return them to the respective food court counter after we finished eating. So I tell my friend that these were some pretty nice plates and cups for a mall food court restaurant and ask why Koreans don`t ever take them home with them after they finish eating. I mean, wouldn`t most of you agree that American food courtswould go out of business quick if they served their food in nice, reusable dinnerware here in the US? Could someone enlighten me on why the Korean fast food restaurants trust their public enough to serve their food in this manner without having to worry about constantly having to buy new dinnerware?
I`ve been hooked on Korean food ever since my trip to South Korea. I think the Koreans have the best rice. I`m sure some of you would disagree about their rice if you new what they grew it with. I didn`t care, it`s still good to me.
I`m moving to Korea in January `04, so if you are familiar with the Korean culture, than feel free to educate me on Korean society and culture.
