Matters of Betel and Areca

Well, there was still one more aspect of my identity I had to think about before going back to studying for my midterm. That Peggy McIntosh quote was just too thought-provoking. (“[W]hites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average, and also ideal, so that when we work to benefit others, this is seen as work that will allow ‘them’ to be more like ‘us.’”)

I dug through the archives of my old blog and found two entries, one I wrote in January 2006 and the other in February 2008. Reading them, I felt both embarrassed and accomplished, embarrassed because I was so fucking stupid back then, and accomplished because I had come such a long way since the last three years.

These were a few lines from my February 2008 entry that made me roll my eyes, “Chuck What?”:

“My goal is not to be ‘whiter’ or ‘less Asian;’ I’d just like to live my life without having to be associated with any kind of racial label that automatically defines my character and likes and dislikes.”

“Today was Tet, or the Lunar New Year, which Vietnamese and Chinese people happen to celebrate for some reason...Of course, to celebrate tet, I wore my special tet outfit: jeans, white shirt, white hoodie, and white shoes. I also emptied out the trash in my car.” [According to Vietnamese lore, wearing white and doing housekeeping on the day of Tet brings bad luck for the rest of the year.]

“I came home from work today to find rice and some wrapped shit (in other words: dinner) spread out on the living room table. There were six places set up, each for my dead ancestors. They got to eat first, and they spent a really long time eating. Hell, I think they were just chatting it up, making racist jokes. The food just sat there accumulating bacteria and digestive juices from flies. As though my parents’ unhygienic cooking methods aren’t enough.”

“I had McDonald’s tonight by the way. 2 cheeseburgers, both with Mac sauce and lettuce added = 1 Big Mac for $1.50 cheaper.”

“Well, I made sure that I was disrespectful as possible today, so does that mean bad luck for the next entire year? No. Because superstitions are just fucking superstitions (and Karma is crap). My only wish is that I could somehow top what I pulled off on tet two years ago (coming out lol). Maybe next tet.”

And these few lines were a few lines from my January 2006 entry about a formal engagement party that I went to for a cousin, “Out of Place”:

“This morning, my parents dragged me along to some kind of wedding. Wait, no, it wasn't a wedding; it was a formal engagement. There's still a wedding that I'll to go to in the future, [fuck]. But anyways, I tend to not like weddings, especially Asian orthodox. Well, it's really just Asian orthodox that pisses me off.”

“They [people conducting the wedding] only spoke Vietnamese. To me, it seriously just sounded like, ‘blarfgh jakllia adfdafdass smakcldkf crackerad dwidge garagh,’ and I spent my time watching the clock.”

“When all that crap was done, people sat down around the kitchen and started eating. I wasn't going to eat because the food was all boring Asian shit, but my mom handed me a plate with rice piled over fried crap piled over more rice.”

“I just can't stand it. My wedding will not be Asian Orthodox (but then again, nothing can really be orthodox if it's homosexual). And at my wedding, I will serve elegant French food. And nobody at my wedding will be wearing those tight shiny Asian dresses.”

“I'm not ashamed to be Asian, and I don't wish to be any other race.”

I used to hate that I was Vietnamese. I was ashamed of it. I didn’t admit it back then, but looking back in retrospect, I could say that I was lying to myself. Shit, I didn’t understand how I could possibly rationalize that I wasn’t ashamed to be Vietnamese back then. I attributed a lot of problems between me and my parents, mainly (what I perceived to be) their disapproval of me having a black friend and a Mexican friend, to some aspect of Vietnamese culture. I didn’t want to be Vietnamese. I just wanted to be “regular,” another human being whose ethnicity didn’t matter.

I was too culturally assimilated, back when I didn’t understand what that even meant. I thought rejecting my Vietnamese culture, language, and history meant making myself racially neutral, but I was really replacing it all with the “regular” culture, language and history. I was glad I came to realize that “regular” meant “white.” When I said I didn’t want an “Asian orthodox” wedding, just a regular wedding, I now knew that I meant a white wedding.

Tuxedos at a wedding? White. Elegant French food? White. Cheeseburgers from McDonald’s? White. Understanding English, not Vietnamese? White.

I’m going to get married, not because I’m a gay guy trying to be straighter in this heteronormative Western society, but because I’m a Vietnamese guy trying to maintain my Vietnamese heritage in this oppressive, white-dominated Western society. And it’s not just for my heritage; it’s for my parents too.

The wedding will thus be a Vietnamese wedding. And I don’t care if I’m marrying someone Filipino. He’s gonna wear that “tight shiny Asian dress” (áo dài), no exceptions, bitch.