WF Getting Inside Look at Asian Culture | Asian Air True Stories

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WF Getting Inside Look at Asian Culture

'm a 20 y/o WF raised in Colorado. When I moved to the East Coast, I had had little contact with asian cultures. A Japanese unit in 4th grade, a Chinese classmate in elem. school, and talk of the Vietnam War. I realize now, how little the American school systems teach their children about Asian cultures. Europe is everywhere, I remember making colored maps of it, along with S. America and Africa, but I didn't even know Loas or Burma existed until I was 18, no one ever asked me to plot Cambodia or even the more popular Thailand on a map. I think many children see the Asian race(s) and think of China or Japan, but aren't taught to really know the difference, why would a child differentiate between them, each country has it's own look, but who will teach children so that they will know? Everything I know abt SE Asia I learned outside of school. I don't remember much of the Japanese culture they tried to infuse in fourth grade. Little preperation for when I met my Thai b/f last year through a mutual friend. I remember being completely intrigued, thinking to myself, I wonder what he thinks about behind his almond eyes. I remember thinking that he couldn't possibly have any interest in a white girl, wide eyed and broad backed. What did we have in common besides friends and the English language? He alone has taught me more than any geography book, history book, and Japanese tea party ever did, ever could. As we walk together I see scowles from older asian ladies, or I see wonder in the faces that are my own race. For once I lose myself to what it means to be different, away from the norm of pink or black faces. I walk into an Asian Market, eyes averted, drawn in, staring at the floor. My once ouwtward confident personality excapes me as I take my seat in a dim sum restaraunt with a capicity of 400 and see no other blondes. I see the Chinese and Korean faces of strangers that could easily have been kids in my high school. Like the one who sat at my art table barely speaking a word in weeks. But now they are loud and smiling, I see them joking. I notice that I haven't said a word or looked up from my food. The chop sticks are awkward between my fingers, though I have mastered them long ago. I am more alive and compassionate. I smile in my uncomfortableness at a small boy whos playing under a table, and I see the face of a child that could one day be my own...
jane jsbdc@aol.com Thursday, July 26, 2001 at 08:48:27 (PDT)

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