Avant-Orientalism

There’s a thread, a substrate maybe, that’s been running its way through my life. I didn’t notice it until I was an adult and even then it didn’t occur to me to give it a tug. Eventually the idea sprang to mind. Tug tug, it unravels and I discover that I’ve been fruitlessly chasing a connection to Asia ever since I could talk, maybe earlier. I felt that I was being deprived of something that should belong to me. A culture I should belong to, but am kept away from. A heritage that only exists in abstract.



I’m Chinese on my donor father’s side and some generic variety of white on my mother’s, but whether or not I’m “Asian” is based on convenience. Usually the convenience of white people. It’s politically useful for me to be white today, but perhaps tomorrow it’ll be aesthetically useful for me to be Chinese. Who can say? Given how these interactions typically go it would certainly seem to not be me. I, of course, reject the inherent racism of many of my social interactions; but that does not mean I have the luxury of ignoring it. It presents in as subtle a thing as the simple phrasing of a question, in body language, in tone. There is always a line in a person’s head between us and them. I am always on the them side of the line.

When I was a young kid I watched martial arts and Godzilla movies, I wanted to dress in traditional Chinese clothing, and I briefly had lessons in Mandarin. As a slightly older child I practiced Shotokan Karate, I watched Korean indie films, and I wanted to learn (still do a little bit) the sitar and Muay Thai. Today I still crave anything that can let me see a pathway to China, be it tattoos of Jiang Shi and Guan Dao or listening to guqin music. And if I can’t quite make my way there I’ll settle for somewhere relatively nearby. Many if not all of my interests and pursuits all warp themselves around this quirk to some degree.

I recognize the inherent shallowness of it. I’ve read the Tao Te Ching, but only in the most likely inferior English translation. I can say all of four words in Mandarin. I’m first to call out the racism of the famous “Chinaman lick” when it rears its ugly head, yet if I tried to compose an “Asian melody” it would probably be only marginally more authentic. My understanding of what is supposedly my culture is shaped by the orientalism of the occidental culture I was born into. Try as I might, my exploration of Asia is an illusion. My hands reach out to embrace a cardboard cutout. I am forever trying and failing to build my own silk road.

It would be remiss for me not to mention how much I owe my ability to plumb the depths of myself in this way to professor Edward Said's post-colonial work. It's right there in the title. Given Said's Palestinian ethnic background and given what is happening in Gaza right now I feel it appropriate to let him have the final say with this:

“Every single empire in its official discourse has said that it is not like all the others, that its circumstances are special, that it has a mission to enlighten, civilize, bring order and democracy, and that it uses force only as a last resort. And, sadder still, there always is a chorus of willing intellectuals to say calming words about benign or altruistic empires, as if one shouldn't trust the evidence of one's eyes watching the destruction and the misery and death brought by the latest mission civilizatrice.” - Edward W. Said