Danny ChaiA response to Henry and Dave’s latest posts.
I think the issue is not when people can’t distinguish Asians, it’s when they fail to even realize that there are differences at all. So like people using “Chinese” as a catch all for all Asians, that’s what’s bothersome, I think. Just like, while we don’t know the difference between a Salvadoreno and a Mexican, we know that they are different, and would use Latino or Hispanic, whichever is in vogue now, as the group label. (SN. One of my favorite lines in Clueless is when Cher says she doesn’t speak Mexican.)
But yeah, I don’t care if they can’t distinguish Asians. Maybe just because I’m used to it. Growing up, the elementary kids would always ask if I was Chinese. I’d say no. Then they ask if I’m Japanese. I’d say no. Then invariably, they’d say, “Then what are you?” But at least they knew there was a difference.
Re: Dave’s entry, I completely, 100% agree. I meant to talk about this in my grand thesis about there being no free will and its implications, but yeah, never got to it. The great oxymoron of our legal age is that when something goes wrong, we want to blame someone else and sue them, but at the same time, we believe that we’re entitled to all the best. In short, we’re not responsible for any of the bad that happens (it’s someone else’s fault), but we do deserve all the best. I’ve never quite understood that.
I understand the first part, it not being our fault. Modern science lends itself to that the more we understand causality. Addictions, aggressive behaviors, whatever, we can all trace to causes outside ourselves. So I understand that mentality.
What I don’t get is the second, why everyone thinks we’re entitled to the best. I kind of have a weird theory about it, that part of it is we’re so far removed from agriculture. We have no idea how food comes to us, it just sort of magically appears. But when I read Scripture and its examples and parables of farmers and whatever, it’s clear that it’s more uncertain than that. You can plant, but you never know for sure what might happen, it’s not a sure thing that there will be a good harvest. So I think they were more in tune with the fundamental uncertainty of life. Whereas we just see our sustenance magically appear for us, so we come to feel that we’re entitled to all things just being there in our lives.
I dunno, not something I’ve thought about in detail, but yeah, just a theory.