My Tinder Experience

I don't know if people even read my blog but that's okay, because it's kind of supposed to be a place for me to think and reflect anyway. On the bright side, I HAVE A WHOLE 84 VIEWS!!! I haven't written in such a long time but things got really busy with school, Kyle and my sorority so I didn't really have time to update my blog. Today's post is going to be comparatively lighthearted in relation to my other posts about race dynamics and structural inequality and all that good stuff because I'm going to be talking about my Tinder experience.

I downloaded Tinder around May of my first year in college (so thats May 2014), as a result of me perpetually complaining about being single and seeing happy couples and my best friend at the time literally taking my phone and downloading it for me just to cease my complaining. The first message I got was something like "hey girl let me eat my way from your pussy to your heart" - not exactly the best way to start off but I thought the whole idea of it was really interesting (and I was honestly flattered that I was getting matches) so I decided to keep swiping anyway.

Over the summer, I traveled a lot (Seoul, Singapore and then back to California) so I accumulated a lot of matches but never actually met anyone, mainly because 1) I didn't reply to most of the messages I received, 2) I wasn't in a place long enough to meet up with anyone, and 3) I was really afraid to meet a stranger that I met on the Internet. I didn't really have any serious conversations with anyone in particular, and there wasn't anyone that seemed particularly interested in me or that I was particularly interested in so I wasn't really taking it seriously.

Towards the end of summer, I came back to California to start summer school. I was extremely jet lagged having just arrived back from Korea, so I spent a lot of the time in which I couldn't sleep on my phone. Anyway, I was swiping and Kyle's profile came up and he had a bunch of pictures of him in his USMC uniform and I thought he was really cute and attractive, so I swiped right and we matched. Before I continue, I should probably explain that we were able to match because we both had our distances set to a 100 miles radar since he was stationed around 3 hours away from me at the time. I wish I still had screenshots of both our Tinder profiles, because I'm sure they would be hilarious to look back on but alas. Anyway, he messaged me saying something along the lines of "hey, I think your smile is really beautiful. What's your major at UCI?" - which as messages go, is pretty genuine and a decent conversation-starter. Again, I wish I had screenshotted the conversation or something just so we could have something to look back on and laugh at.

After about a week of talking (and by talking I mean very very long text messages being sent throughout the day), Kyle suggested we go on a date near me. I was really excited because it was my first time being asked on a date since like the 8th grade, even if it was by a stranger on the Internet. Even though I had previous qualms about meeting up with strangers on the Internet, we really clicked in our conversations and he seemed like a really decent, nice, genuine and interesting guy. Also, it probably helped a lot that he had the kindest and sweetest face ever so I wasn't all too worried about meeting up with someone who turned out to be an axe murderer.

The night before we were supposed to meet up, I was so nervous I couldn't sleep. I was so worried that this guy that I had connected so well with would find me awkward or ugly in person, and that I would clam up and have nothing to say. Turns out I didn't have much to be worried about. Kyle picked me up at around 11 from my place, and the first thing he said to me was, "Finally, in the flesh!" He was tall and handsome, and the first thing he did was pick me up in a giant bear hug. I was immediately relieved; I didn't think giant bear hugs came naturally to axe murderers.

Naturally, it was a little strange meeting someone you've only seen pictures of and had conversations with online, but it only took us 20 minutes to fall into an organic and enjoyable rhythm of conversation. We both retained information that we had told each other before we had met, and it was honestly like meeting up with an old friend. One of our conversations was about how I killed all my previous plants and pet fish, so we even made a stop at a nearby pet store for a new pet fish (which was named Dr. Fishy and lived for a glorious 8 days). By the time Kyle had to leave for the drive back on base, I was smitten. We even had our next date planned for the next weekend, and he had even asked me to be his date to the USMC Birthday Ball in three months.

Dr Fishy before his tragic demise

I had no idea, upon downloading what I perceived to be a harmless app, that I would find my soulmate. Kyle and I would never have had the opportunity to cross paths without the assistance of a mobile app.

In my experience, Tinder has been what you make of it. It's great because people who want to hook up can find others who are likeminded, while those who are interested in pursuing a relationship can find others who are interested in the same. You get to talk to different people without the hassle of being "involved", seeing as how there is no required commitment you have to strangers on the Internet. Those who are shy may find it easier to approach people online, as opposed to in person - making starting a conversation easier. You get to know someone and maybe even develop feelings for their character and personality, instead of their physical appearance.

Kyle and I at the USMC ball :)

On Being An Outsider Everywhere (But Especially in America)

Third Culture Kid: A term used to refer to children who were raised in a culture outside their parent's culture for a significant part of their development years.

I was born in Singapore, but moved to New York City when I was 10. From there, we moved to Shanghai, China just after my 13th birthday in which I attended two different international schools in the span of two and a half years. After China, my father was posted to Seoul, South Korea where I spent a year and a half finishing up high school before I applied to school in California, where I currently reside at the University of California, Irvine.

Being a third culture kid is confusing, exhausting and stressful. I say this because the people I meet outside of the international community often 1) don't understand my experiences, or 2) think I'm lying about my experiences. I have been exposed to both the local culture of the countries I have moved to, as well as the cultures of my friends. Attending international schools has allowed me the experience to learn about a myriad of different cultures and meet people from countries I will probably never be able to visit. In my senior year, my friend group alone consisted of individuals from India, Korea, Kuwait, America, Belgium, Germany, Australia, England, Sweden and Canada.

Here we have a portion of my group of friends at my senior prom

Countries of origin from left to right: America/Korea, India, India, Canada/Korea, Kuwait/Belgium/England, Singapore (me), America/Korea, America/Korea 

The two moves I have struggled with most have been the ones from Singapore to New York City (at age 10), and from South Korea to California (at age 18). Part of the reason behind this is because America hates (for lack of better word) foreigners. The attitude that Americans have towards foreigners and international students really astounds me; there are so many unspoken negative connotations that come with being "international". Upon meeting me, people tell me that they "can't even tell" that I'm international like it's a fucking compliment. Being a foreigner in America is associated with the stereotype of Mexicans climbing over the fence separating the borders of America and Mexico.

My biggest pet peeve is when people look at international students and say that they should speak English or dress a certain way because "they're in America now". A friend of mine literally said this, word for word, just the other day, completely forgetting that I myself am an international student. Upon realizing her momentary lack of discretion, she quickly apologized. I remain confused: why would I ever conform to the ways in which you think I should act? The longer I stay here [in America], the more it bothers me that I have nowhere to go and that there is no place where I will ever fully fit in.

In fact, I have found that the international school community is my only safe haven where being international is considered to be a good thing. International schools often have their own culture - a culture that I have spent most of my developmental years in and have trouble letting go of. The more places one has lived in or traveled to, the better. International kids often have the same accent - one that isn't American, isn't British and isn't really anything but a mix of different accents from amalgamating with different cultures. Those in the international community often know of each other; my friend from Seoul is now attending high school with a friend from Shanghai in Edinburgh, Scotland; my cousins attended the same international school in Dubai as a kid I had met in Shanghai. International kids argue over which country has the best food and are able to joke about each others' countries without being racially offensive.

From my very first day at "International Orientation" at UC Irvine, during which we were taught to fist-bump and high-five, I have noticed that there is a certain prejudice that I have noticed specifically here at UC Irvine that targets international students. The majority of the international students here are from mainland China. I have heard more offensive comments from friends who say that these international (Chinese) students are unsanitary, rude, "smell weird" and "should just speak English". Having lived in China, I know that these students aren't actually "rude" - they're shy about English being their second-language, just as anyone picking up a second language would be. I have seen the initial looks of hesitation on people's faces when I first introduce myself as "international" (especially when I went through Greek sorority recruitment week at UC Irvine), and many of these people ended up writing me off because of the many presumptions they had about international students.

Ironically, I can safely say after living in China that the Chinese people are the most welcoming group of people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. While other nations turn their noses up at the Chinese tourists and immigrants in their country, the Chinese have been nothing but welcoming towards expatriates and foreigners. People in China were extremely accommodating towards my lack of Chinese-speaking ability, and would try to Google Translate what they were saying into English for me. Our local Chinese driver would often drive two hours out of his way into a province in order to surprise my family with the peaches he knew we loved. This behavior was completely the opposite of that I had experienced in other countries. In New York City (where I was the only Asian and non-American girl in my middle school), I was the target of comments like, "you must eat dog because you're Asian", "wow your English is really good for someone from Asia" and "do you live in Chinatown?", while in Korea, an old man came up to my sister and her friends (who were speaking English on a crowded street in Seoul) and told them that "you stupid bitches should shut the fuck up and speak Korean in Korea". People are extremely unforgiving towards people who do not assimilate in the local culture, and I have seen this pattern in every country I have ever lived in, except for China.

Many people I have met here in America (especially New York and California) are quick to spurn people of other countries as stupid and backwards. I have been the receiver of comments like, "Wow, you must be so fortunate to be able to study here!" Ironically, I have found that Americans are often (hilariously) the ones being dismissed as stupid and backwards outside of the United States, especially in the international school community. Whenever I return to Singapore during the long summer break, my grandmother often brags (as grandmothers do) to her friends about how well I am doing in college to which she often hears responses like, "Well your granddaughter studies in America. It's so much easier there - she had better be getting good grades. Did she not get into any schools in Singapore?"

It is very unsettling to feel like an outsider wherever you go. Here in America, I'm too international. Back in Singapore, I'm too American. People have boxed themselves into one-dimensional categories in which you either are, or you are not. To this I say: what the fuck?

My Good (Racist) Grandfather

Disclaimer: the following post is extremely personal for both my family and I, so I have taken it upon myself to change the names of the people involved.

It is safe to say that most people of color have grown up experiencing at least some overt sense of racism. While acts of racism may not always be obvious, they exist in micro-aggressions: in the side glances I get as the only non-white person shopping in Brandy Melville at Fashion Island, in the innocently curious questions like, "How is your English so good?" and in the incredulous looks from my friends when they found out I didn't know what Chow Mein was (since you know, I'm Chinese).

But growing up, I had experienced a deeply rooted form of racism - the kind that separated families and was often violent. My grandfather, who has raised me since birth as both my parents were working, is racist. Because he was one of the only adults I actually liked during my childhood, I never questioned his logic.

"We can't go to that store," my grandfather and role model would say. "The man who owns it is Indian, dirty and smells like curry so the things he sells are probably expired."
"Oh my god, it smells like curry. It must be those bloody Indians cooking again."
And perhaps most dangerous of all: "Those children aren't my grandchildren. Their passport says that they are Indian, not Chinese so they do not have my blood."

"Racist" is such a strong word, because our world has associated it with Hitler, the Rwandan massacre and countless other historical events in which people were killed for being people. It is a word that I was never able to associate with someone I cared deeply about, especially if they had raised me.

In my grandfather's stubborn mind, any flaws that any Indian person might have was directly associated with their race. Lazy? Must be because he's Indian. Overweight? Definitely because he's Indian - must be all that curry. Accidentally stepped on your foot? Those fucking clumsy Indians.

So imagine the shock my grandfather had when my aunt Nancy, his oldest daughter, married an Indian man. Similarly to how white American men zealously guard the virtue of their white women from immoral and hypersexual black men, Singaporean-Chinese men shield Singaporean-Chinese women from Singaporean-Indian men. My grandfather just could not understand how my aunt, a respectable and attractive Chinese woman, could fall for my [now] uncle Joseph, a similarly respectable and attractive Indian man. His attempts to save my Chinese aunt from her Indian fiancée included boycotting their wedding, cutting off all contact with her and denouncing his grandchildren (my 3 mixed-raced cousins) as part of his lineage.

I never had a problem with my grandfather's blatant racism, perhaps because it never affected me. I was his token grandchild because I am Chinese, not ugly and educated (but mostly because I am Chinese). All of this changed last summer when I was hanging out with my cousin Alyx (the daughter of Nancy and Joseph) and I had to drop off something at my grandfather's house. My grandfather hadn't seen any of my 3 cousins in years, and I naively assumed that he had somehow given up on these racist ideologies he had against Indian (or in this case half-Indian) people. Imagine my horror when my grandfather opened the door and found himself face-to-face with his two granddaughters, and promptly began screaming at Alyx to "get the FUCK away from my house" and to "never even think about stepping in this door" before slamming the door in the tear-soaked face of my cousin.

The incident, however trivial it may sound in words, was life-changing. I had grown up as a fish swimming in water that I could not see, and suddenly I realized that the water was dirty, murky and reeked of disgusting and irrational prejudice. My grandfather had taken everything he had taught me, shoved it in my face and suddenly I could see that the man who had taught me right from wrong, waited outside my pre-school for 8 hours because I could not bear to see him leave, and wiped away my tears, was undeniably and unquestionably racist.

My grandfather is to many, a good man. He is independent, intelligent and takes good care of the people he loves. Ta-Nehisi Coates sheds light on an incident involving Forest Whitaker getting frisked in a deli after being accused of stealing in his article "The Good Racist People" and writes that, "...we believe racism to be the property of the uniquely villainous and morally deformed, the ideology of trolls, gorgons and orcs. We believe this even when we are actually being racist." The system has taught us to revere some and hate others. But how do we separate the system from the individual?

Hello Singapore, You Are Racist

Colorism: Discrimination based on skin color, in which human beings are treated differently based on the social meanings attached to their skin color.

I created this blog to discuss issues in Singapore - specifically, race issues that local Singaporeans choose to ignore. Although I was born in Singapore, I haven't lived there in almost 10 years, making me an outsider. Every time I return "home", I see many patterns that people who have lived there and been ingrained in the culture might not be able to see. The Twitter argument I was involved in (as explained in an earlier blog post) exemplifies the ways in which dark skin has become globally accepted as "bad" and how colorism has come to define the social hierarchy. Singapore is composed of three major racial groups: the Malays (who were the indigenous people of the Southeast Asian region), the Chinese, and the Indians. These racial groups are further divided into the religious groups of Christianity (which is seen as the most "civilized" religion for the upper classes because of the Western elements), Mahayana Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam. Of course, people of Caucasian descent reside at the top of the social hierarchy because of Singapore's colonial history with the British empire.

Chinese make up 75% of Singapore's population - meaning that as the majority, they control the majority of the policies the government passes through having an (overwhelming) majority in voting, tend to have more positions in government, and define everyone else as a "minority".

To emphasize the importance of race, Singaporean passports require that parents state the race of their children. Thus, children are automatically labelled as Chinese, Indian, Malay or Other (leaving no room for those of mixed heritage) from the minute they are born.

Similarly to how America's social hierarchy is defined by skin color (white at the top, black on the bottom), Singapore's social hierarchy positions the Singaporean Chinese (who mostly have relatively lighter skin tones - not to be confused with the newly arrived Chinese immigrants who are looked down upon) at the top and the Indians (including both the newly immigrated and those who have resided in Singapore for a long time) at the bottom. Much of the argument is based on the premises that dirt is black, and thus black or brown skin is dirty and deemed unworthy.

Singapore prides itself on being "racially harmonious" after the People's Action Party (PAP: Singapore's ruling political party since independence) saved the country from racism and bigotry after the bloody 1964 race riots in Singapore. On Racial Harmony Day (which frankly, in my experience, is bullshit), which was meant to honor peace, harmony and the 1964 race riots, students are encouraged to dress up in traditional costumes such as the Cheongsam (Chinese), the Baju Kurung (Malay) and the Punjabi Suit or Saris (Indian). The logic employed by the PAP here is that if we force the idea that we're a racially tolerant and harmonious society down everyone's throats, we will be a racially tolerant and harmonious society. Young students are even encouraged to culturally appropriate other races by donning their traditional costumes and to "slip on" new customs and traditions through costumes- hooray for racial equality!!

Here's me at age 7, actively participating in cultural appropriation (yay!):

Just this summer, I was on the bus with my sister when a group of Indian men and women (who were all friends, and obviously on the way to town for a social event and speaking Tamil) got onto the bus. Immediately, I could feel the air change. I literally saw people stiffen. People (mostly Chinese people) moved so that there was no possible way that they could end up sitting next to one of the Indian men and women who had just hopped onto the bus, and were looking for seats. An old Chinese man went as far as to put his bag and his feet on the seat next to him, just to be extra certain that no Indian person would dare to sit next to him. 

The Singapore Pledge, which school children are made to recite every day, begins with the verse: "We the citizens of Singapore pledge ourselves as one united people, regardless of race, language or religion...". Bullshit. 

I am so ashamed of the country I have grown up calling home.

I Don't Normally Get Into Twitter Fights But...

Just two weeks ago, in the midst of procrastinating for my upcoming midterms (in which, ironically, we were being tested on our knowledge about blackface minstrelsy and "modern" blackface), a family-friend of mine from Singapore retweeted the following image (which generated 1,393 retweets and 435 favorites):

As someone who is admittedly soft-spoken and avidly avoids confrontations, I surprised myself when I decided to respond to the person who posted the picture and call him out for performing a form of modern blackface by painting his face black and photoshopping an image of himself as a demonized caricature of a Black person. The four pictures clearly illustrates the user putting black paint on his face, before posing diabolically in the last two pictures, which are enhanced by the edited glowing eyes and blinding white teeth. In the last image, the user's picture is edited even further to make his hair draw similarities to the African American hair texture. 

If this isn't blackface, I don't know what is.

I would even argue that while blackface was typically used to portray African-Americans as dim-witted, jolly and lazy (cue the Zip Coon and Happy Sambo), this user went as far as to demonize himself in blackface so as to portray Blacks as villainous and sinister.

The response I got was incredibly frustrating because of its small-minded nature and the users' refusal to admit the racist element of the post. Not only did I get numerous tweets from the user's friends, who jumped on the bandwagon to attack my gender and comments, but I also got many responses from the original poster trying to defend himself by repeatedly stating that his actions were not racist because he had just employed some "lighting and black&white filter" changes and that I needed to just "chill a little". 

Side note: Can we just laugh at the habit that men have where they accuse women of being on their period every time they [men] are about to lose an argument? Just saying.

Eventually, after an excruciating hour of me screaming on the phone to my sister about the backwardness and stubbornness of these users, the original poster admitted that "yes yes it's racist but you are just being too sensitive" but "the intentions weren't there". *insert big sigh here*

Similarly to how UC Irvine's Asian Fraternity (Lambda Theta Delta) inserted a short slide about their innocent, non-racist intentions before performing extremely racially offensive actions, the Twitter user might not have intended to be racist towards Blacks, but he has grown up in a structure and society that already places people with darker skin tones at the bottom of the social hierarchy - making them equivalent with all negative adjectives.  So while the poster might not have had racist intentions and could be described as innocuously participating in a Twitter trend #makeuptransformation (in which most people post supposedly funny pictures of what makeup can do to oneself), his upbringing in a society that shamed dark colored skin essentially led to his performing (apparently) innocent but racist actions.

Although blackface has certainly modernized itself in this situation, it remains a public spectacle and a form of entertainment just like in the days during and post slavery. Such is seen through how Twitter acted as a platform onto which this user posted this demeaning picture for likes and retweets. The way in which I received backlash from many of the user's friends who mocked me by commenting on the original poster's other [irrelevant] tweets, "THAT'S SO RACIST!!!!" draws attention to the "publicness" of the situation, in which everyone is participant. 

Sadly, the picture is still available on the user's account on Twitter despite multiple attempts by yours truly to have it removed. Oh well, I tried.