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'Good-looking for an Asian': how I shed white idea

gohaikhan — Fri, 23 Oct 2020 16:35:09 +0800

warning. very long woh.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oc...male-insecurity

For a while, though rarely now as I get older, white women used to tell me I was “good-looking for an Asian”. I used to believe it myself. Until I moved to Korea when I was 23, visiting for the first time since my adoption at age two, I dated only white women. As an adoptee with white parents, whiteness was the model of desire I knew. “For an Asian” seemed as desirable as I could get.

During my childhood, my parents insisted that we were the same as any other family – which, because they were white, I took as saying I must be as white as them to be their son. “If I were white, I would be accepted” became “because I must be accepted, I must be white”.

I wasn’t able to see myself clearly. I mean this literally. One day, I stood at the mirror and suddenly realized that I was Asian. I can’t remember where this thought came from, but it is a realization that is common for transracial adoptees with white parents. I used to wonder what took me so long to see myself. Now I wonder what I saw before that day. A white boy with white skin? Or did I simply assume that the image in the mirror was white, because it was normal and normal was whiteness?

It wasn’t my gaze with which I looked, of course. It was my parents’. I saw who they wanted me to see. That is the thing about desire: it comes from the outside. Desire is a story in which you are a character.

•••

When the film The Big Sick, starring Kumail Nanjiani, came out in 2017, it seemed like progress for Asian American representation – yet it received mixed reactions from Asian American critics, especially south Asian American women who wrote about the film’s stereotypes of brown women. The most difficult sequence to watch is a montage that switches back and forth between shots of Kumail – the main character – courting a white woman, Emily, and shots of him tossing images of brown women into a cigar box one after the other, each deemed unworthy by comparison.

It’s a striking sequence, making literal Kumail’s rejection of brown women in exchange for whiteness. The film heavily links Kumail’s masculinity to the performance of race and sexuality – he picks up Emily after she jokes that he might be good in bed and he writes her name in Urdu. He hides his relationship with Emily from his parents, and when he finally tells them about her, he is the one who connects his love for Emily to his nationality. In the face of their disappointment, he demands to know why they immigrated in the first place if they didn’t want him to become “American”, completing his association of Americanness with whiteness.

As an isolated case, the film would still be problematic, but what really frustrates critics like Tanzila Ahmed and Amil Niazi is how frequently stories about Asian American masculinity rely on sex with a white woman. As early as 1982, scholar Elaine Kim noted this trope in Asian American literature, where the symbol of the white woman indicates an Asian American male character has been accepted into society or not. If the terms of masculinity are white, women of color are excluded.

But so are all people of color.

In fact, Kim found that one other group of writers also symbolized white women as access to American masculinity: straight white male writers writing about Asian male characters.

In other words, the story of how we view Asian American masculinity can be understood as a story about white male insecurity.

Perhaps some history is necessary. The current stereotype of Asian American men as “emasculated”, “weak”, and “effeminate” can be traced back to white insecurities over the male Chinese labor force during and after the construction of the transcontinental railroad in the late 19th century.

Chinese railroad workers were both valued and devalued as men. Railroad work was seen as exclusively male, and Chinese men were expected to work more, in more dangerous situations, and take less pay than white counterparts. In addition, it was cheapest to prohibit wives and children from joining them, which also conveniently limited population growth (the 1875 Page Act legalized this prohibition). By 1880, there were 27 Chinese men for every one Chinese woman, and with the railroad completed, the economic value of Chinese masculinity decreased while white fear of Chinese masculinity increased.

Out of this context, two different stereotypes of Asian American men emerged: emasculation and hypermasculinity (two sides of the same racist, misogynist, homophobic coin).

Leading up to the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, which banned Chinese immigration completely, much of the propaganda depicted Chinese men as out to rape and pillage. Specifically, to rape white women and pillage white men’s jobs. White masculinity depended on the sexual and economic possession of white women. By 1907, white masculinity’s fear of its own emasculation produced anti-miscegenation laws that promised to revoke citizenship from any white woman who married an Asian American.

If the hypersexualization of Asian American males was an expression of white male insecurity, their desexualization was an attempt to ease that insecurity.

Despite depictions of Chinese men as desperate for white women, they were also represented as asexual or homosexual (both considered antithetical to white masculinity). Labor and immigration laws further contributed to the “emasculation”, as Asian Americans were forced to take any work they could get, namely the work white men didn’t want, often service jobs like cooking and laundering. (This is where the stereotype of the Chinese American laundromat comes from.) This work was seen as “women’s work”, and further associated Asian American men with sexual and gender deviance. The effect helped both to address white male anxiety and to establish white heterosexual masculinity (and patriarchy) as the norm.

Anxiety haunts desire.

In 2014, Elliot Rodger, half white and half Asian American, killed six people and injured 14 in an act of revenge against white women.

“It’s an injustice,” he explained in a 100,000-word manifesto, that he was still a virgin, a condition he linked to being Asian American. In a particularly self-hating passage, he writes: “Full Asian men are disgustingly ugly and white girls would never go for you … You’ll never be half white and you’ll never fulfill your dream of marrying a white woman.”

In his twisted mind, Rodger managed to turn his self-hatred into the beliefs both that he had a right to white women’s bodies because he was white and that he was not attractive to white women because he was Asian. Neither of these inventions, notably, are really about Asian American desire at all. These are problems of the limited male imagination. Rodger’s was especially problematic.

Teaching involves quite possibly, insemination

gohaikhan — Tue, 20 Oct 2020 22:35:26 +0800

"Thus perhaps... to teach, if by teaching one is opening one's students and oneself to possibilities... even if one is taking all care to say no, to teach is to always already f*** one's student; insofar as one is always also being f***ed by her, him, them.

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/sack...scussed-teacher

Sacked Tembusu College don accused of sexual misconduct had openly discussed teacher-student relationships

SINGAPORE - Former Tembusu College don Jeremy Fernando, who was fired amid sexual misconduct allegations, had openly discussed the idea of sexual relationships between teachers and students.

In a paper that was part of his 2017 book Why Hasn't JB Already Disappeared, he wrote that "insemination" can be a part of teaching and could open up students and teachers to possibilities.

In the paper, titled Teach Me Tonight, read by The Straits Times, the academic wrote: "Teaching involves dissemination, spreading, growing, germination, trimming, cutting, pruning - quite possibly, insemination.

"Thus perhaps... to teach, if by teaching one is opening one's students and oneself to possibilities... even if one is taking all care to say no, to teach is to always already f*** one's student; insofar as one is always also being f***ed by her, him, them.

"And, a categorical dismissal of the potential relationality between a student and a teacher - even if this relationship extends to a sexual nature - is to make teaching a mere profession."

Dr Fernando was a fellow at Tembusu College when the academic book was published in 2017.

Two doctors discussed which patients vulnerable

gohaikhan — Fri, 02 Oct 2020 22:28:06 +0800

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singap...cision-13178276

Lewd messages exchanged between Dr Ong and Dr Chan, in which they discussed sexual conquests with women, using terms such as "sluts" to label them, were shown in court and reported about.

WhatsApp messages between the two doctors include texts where Dr Ong told Dr Chan to "feel free to play your game" and made a reference to anal sex with the patient. He also shared a patient's contact with Dr Chan and egged him on to meet her.

"No doubt, the messages (were) in exchange between friends ... but it is often only in private messages, when (one's) guard is down, that true colours reveal themselves," said the judge.

Judge overturns decision and finds woman defamed doctor in making sexual allegations, but says doctor has 'no moral victory'

SINGAPORE: A doctor who sued a woman for claiming he and another doctor colluded to take sexual advantage of patients won a legal victory on Friday (Oct 2) but had no moral victory, a judge said.

Justice See Kee Oon overturned a lower court decision, and found that the woman had defamed Dr Julian Ong Kian Peng in saying that he colluded with another doctor, Dr Chan Herng Nieng, to take advantage of "other vulnerable woman patients".

Dr Ong runs a private practice at Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital, while Dr Chan is a former senior consultant of psychiatry at Singapore General Hospital.

Ms Serene Tiong, a business development manager at Thomson Medical Centre, had alleged that the two doctors exchanged with each other potential patients and colleagues who could be easily taken advantage of.

The judge on Friday allowed Dr Ong's appeal against a lower court's decision to exonerate Ms Tiong of defamation, and Dr Ong will now have a claim for libel and an injunction against Ms Tiong.

Ms Tiong was also ordered to pay Dr Ong costs of S$40,000 for court proceedings. Separate damages for defamation will be assessed at a later date in the lower court.
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Justice See said Ms Tiong failed to prove her defence of justification, as she did not prove that the two doctors colluded to take sexual advantage of more than one "vulnerable woman patient".

For a defence of justification to stand in defamation, the person making the allegedly defamatory remarks must prove that what they said was true.

Even though the judge found that a woman named only as K was indeed a target and a vulnerable patient, no other such patients were named. The judge also rejected Ms Tiong's claim to be one of the vulnerable patients, as there was no proof of when she became Dr Chan's patient, and she had been having an affair with him years before taking any medicine from him.

Even if Ms Tiong was Dr Chan's patient all along, she had never complained at any time of being vulnerable or taken advantage of, until she found Dr Chan's "surreptitious" messages in April 2018 and realised she was not Dr Chan's exclusive lover.

There was no evidence that more than one woman, who was a vulnerable patient of either of the doctors, was targeted, said the judge.

"It is not open to the court to speculate that because one patient was targeted, there must be others in the past or that there will be others in the future."

NO MORAL VICTORY

However, despite granting Dr Ong his claim for defamation, Justice See stressed that he cannot say the doctors are fully vindicated.

"What they did with their sexual partners outside of their roles is entirely their choice," he said.

"But they do not have any reason to hold their heads high. For there is no moral victory that they ... can hold claim to."

He said that while he recognised that Dr Ong was forced to claim litigation to protect his reputation, he had to have his private sex life in full view of the courtroom.

Lewd messages exchanged between Dr Ong and Dr Chan, in which they discussed sexual conquests with women, using terms such as "sluts" to label them, were shown in court and reported about.

WhatsApp messages between the two doctors include texts where Dr Ong told Dr Chan to "feel free to play your game" and made a reference to anal sex with the patient. He also shared a patient's contact with Dr Chan and egged him on to meet her.

"No doubt, the messages (were) in exchange between friends ... but it is often only in private messages, when (one's) guard is down, that true colours reveal themselves," said the judge.

To protect his reputation, Dr Ong had "been forced to come clean" on repeatedly cheating on his spouse, he added, while Dr Chan admitted making inappropriate touches in the past.

The two doctors' "smug boasts" of their trysts with women speak to their true character, said Justice See.

"They may be competent doctors and their sex lives are of course private matters, but their blatant treatment of women as sex objects sullies whatever professional reputations they have built up for themselves."

The Singapore Medical Council said in June that a committee it appointed found that conditions had to be imposed on both doctors' medical practitioner licences, for public safety and in the public's interest.

For 18 months from Jun 18 or until disciplinary proceedings against them conclude, Dr Ong cannot contact female patients other than for medical purposes. If he has to, a clinic employee has to do so on his behalf unless there are certain conditions.

He is also not allowed to send personal data of his patients to others unless required by medical practice or by law.

Dr Chan was given the same conditions, with an additional condition: He must record his contact with any female patients in a separate log if he has to contact them for psychiatric care, or if he is taking a call from them or their family members relating to psychiatric care or treatment.

Ong was also suspended from practising at Gleneagles, Mount Elizabeth, Mount Elizabeth Novena and Parkway East Hospitals, said a filing on the Singapore Exchange in April.

However, he was still allowed to practise at heartland centres by medical service group HC Surgical Specialists.

Estimating cost to build this kind of house

gohaikhan — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 09:21:00 +0800

This kind of house, is it cheap to build?

I can see inside is:
zinc metal roofing sheet wihch is maybe corrugated zinc sheet. i try to find price for sheet but instead could only find price of rm2000 for 1 ton. but i am sure that 12 sheets cannot be 1 tonne. maybe only 100kg right? so estimate rm1000 max?

glass walls . or is it polycarbonate?

the most important thing must be the h beam i think because that is what supports the whole house

underneath looks like concrete footing inside sand . i don't think any concrete foundation.

What do you thinks?

Advise on how to receive payment from Australia

gohaikhan — Tue, 14 Feb 2017 20:53:34 +0800

Hiya LYNers. I have potentiol customer in Australia want to pay me to do writing work. But she can only pay using creditcard. I want to ask your advice on how to receive the payment. If I use Paypal , there is no way to bring money back into Malaysia bank account. What other option? Any advice?

close

gohaikhan — Sun, 21 Feb 2016 20:36:48 +0800

[WTB]Residential near digital mall, section 14, pj

gohaikhan — Sat, 31 Aug 2013 16:09:10 +0800

I looking for house/apartment to buy near Digital Mall, Section 14, Petaling Jaya. Budget is around 300k. Studio apartment is fine. No care the size, just location. No need furnish. 1 car park. leasehold or freehold both can. non-bumi.

goh.aikhan@gmail.com

recommendation for dermatologist

gohaikhan — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 13:12:04 +0800

On my right leg above the foot, there is some reddish patch skin. It has become itchy for more 3 months. Maybe is it fungus? I work in Tropicana City Mall. Any recomendation for dermatalogy nearby?