An Annoying Asian

I recently had to be in the company of a friend of my roommate’s who I don’t really like.  He’s a Chinese American guy and since I met him 3 years ago has never been very friendly to me.

He’s socially awkward, doesn’t ask me any questions and seems to look down on me.  It seems like an anti-Asian thing.   He’s a rabid potato queen and I think looks down on all minorities in general.

He has a mean look to him and seems to have an angry affect.  He is not someone I want to hang out with and he pushes my buttons.

Why am I wasting time on this?  He reminds me of the white-washed Asian Americans I encountered when I was at Stanford University in the late 1980s.  Asians at Stanford were very assimilated into white culture and seemed hungry to blend in.  To some degree, they were probably self-hating and certainly didn’t want to associate with other Asians.  This is the sense I got from my roommate’s friend.

I also got the sense that beneath his mean and stuck up affect was a socially awkward, fundamentally geeky guy who used words like “dude” to sound cool.  Also, he wasn’t particularly engaging or funny or interesting, probably because he didn’t really care to give me the time of day.

In addition, I got the sneaky feeling that if I were a really handsome white dude that he would be all over me.

I don’t need to be around that kind of energy or mentality.

My roommate says that he’s from a humble background and doesn’t judge people on their education or class background.  He himself is a Stanford-educated doctor.  He says he doesn’t like being an elitist.  That’s fine but he’s being an elitist in regards to RACE.  In my book, that still makes you an elitist.  You can’t be egalitarian with certain people and not others and still consider yourself egalitarian.  Selective egalitarianism is fundamentally un-egalitarian.

On the other hand, I’ve noticed with this guy that when you make tons of effort to be nice and engage him, he will respond.  That’s a lot of energy that I’d rather not have to expend.

I was finally straight with my roommate about her friend and it really hasn’t been an issue.  She seems to take my opinions in stride.  But I hope she doesn’t bring this friend around anymore.

My Beef with Stanford University circa 1986

What was my beef with Stanford University when I entered as a freshman in 1986?  It was just so white.

I felt deceived.  The glossy freshman book had attractive pictures of people of color- Asians, Latinos, Blacks- who were engaged in a variety of activities and who seemed to be a major part of campus life.

The reality I experienced was a white majority and a great deal of culture shock.  My freshman dorm revolved around football and all the rituals related to it- the drinking, the tailgating, the partying, the whoop, whoop whooping.  Being from a squeaky clean Asian-majority high school that emphasized academics and de-empasized sports and partying, this environment was quite alien to me.

The white kids at Stanford seemed spoiled and privileged.  They all seemed to be from pampered backgrounds where they didn’t know hardship and struggle like the minority kids.  People in my dorm always complained about the dorm food not being tasty, but they didn’t realize what a privilege it was just to eat 3 meals a day.  Kids from immigrant and under-privileged backgrounds know the value of any meal- bland tasting or not.

I remember one white female student complaining about not having laminated student ID cards.  Stanford student ID cards were just made out of paper and got easily mangled in one’s wallet I guess.  That was her BURNING issue.  Come on!  The black students were trying to get white businesses out of South Africa to defeat apartheid and the Latino students were organizing boycotts against grapes to prevent Latino farm workers from being poisoned by pesticides.  Ridiculous!

Hopefully, Stanford’s changed since then but this was my reality as I faced it in 1986.