#HAKKA WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK

[ministarfruit]

tell me why that was the most unhinged interview i have ever witnessed

[pancitmousse]

Thoughts on Holostars Tempus (New Members)

Gavis Bettel

First Impressions: honestly his design doesn’t really appeal to me. my friend said he looked like a TWST chara but honestly i can’t see it based off what I know about that game. also his name makes me think of betel nuts. that said i like the little skits he did for his pre-debut vids.

Debut: he has a very… “bro-ish” voice lol. also he’s talking really fast. idk if it’s bc of the nerves or not. pulling out the slide out of his hat was very creative ngl. betel nut man confirmed. idk what to make of his comedy, it’s good but not really to my taste. he’s really loud so i probably wont watch him much or my ears may explode. mascot is cute tho ig. purple likers based. also… this guy laughs at his own jokes? at least he loves himself so good ig? actually nvm he doesn’t RIP. fuck cockroaches tho. he plans to do drinking streams? oh god i can’t imagine how chaotic he’ll be on alcohol. also he can’t cook?! dear lord. omg that catwalk is pretty af. also his design has grown on me, bro jumped out of an otome LMAO.

Machina X Flayon

First Impressions: he looks like a tiny little apple 🍎. baby boy, baby (or is he? i didn’t follow these guys on twt so i wouldn’t know). but lmao at that edgy-ass name 🖤🥀⛓. then again one of my oshis also has a chuuni name (but its in japanese so my monolingual ass can ignore it kek) so i can’t really judge. it seems the name was chosen to fit with the design as it is more overt abt the sci-fi stuff than all the others. friend said he looked like an edgy und3rt4le oc and while i get the edgy oc part i don’t get the und3rt4le part. his skits were frankly amazing and i don’t think anyone can top them.

Debut: that intro screen is so cute oml. also the logo bounces around like a tv on standby thats really neat! music is cool too! omg he did a “behhh” i like him alr! his lore video was nice and funny too. if im not mistaken he’s the first tempus member to have a dedicated lore vid right? now that i’m hearing his natural voice it sounds really pleasant! must protecc. i may be shorter but im calling him short anyways for lols. he looks cute when he’s angry www. his layouts are pr creative i love this man. he screams loud but its okay he is babi. vegetable dislikers are based and no one can tell me otherwise. if this is him at low energy, how would he be at high energy? headpats tskr. outro is cool.

Banzoin Hakka

First Impressions: pretty boy. purple is my favorite color + most of my oshis are associated with blue so his indigo color just makes me mesmerized. and because of that it would be funny if his voice was deep as hell. my friend said he looked like a jenshin chara and while i do understand that bc jenshin is many people’s first exposure to this kind of fashion… okay yeah he kinda does look like a jenshin chara. instant roll lmao.

Debut: his intro is pretty dope, especially with the music. omg he can do metal screams?!? his voice isn’t deep as hell but its still not what i expected. weirdly enough it still fits. i really like his sense of humor the most so far. he talks at an average speed to me but ppl have said i talk fast so im probably not the best judge i retract my statement he actually does talk fast. OMG A VOCALOID FAN B A S E D. i think i can hear an accent, a pretty thick one at that. yknow what, shinri has competition when it comes to who’ll get demonetized first. my boy drawing with ms paint lmao. probably gonna become my oshi for this wave (?).

Josuji Shinri

First Impressions: the boing boings are on full display. pec nation has won. now we must prepare for the ultimate battle, the battle against demonetization. jokes aside his design is kinda generic imo but if it works it works. also he actually looks slightly older than everyone else so thats a plus. friend said he looked like a himbo and tbh i get that. but from what ik he doesn’t seem like one so far? he’s giving off more “father figure” vibes to me.

Debut: the intro bgm is chill which makes me hope he’ll be chill too. holy shit his voice is really deep, like probably the deepest out of the vtubers i’ve seen so far. i think his laugh is cute. so far the chillest of them all, which admittedly isn’t a hard bar to clear. i do appreciate the simpler debut this time, the other guys production values and ideas were good but this one will definitely age gracefully. daddy (platonic). mans has his priorities in order. the little JRPG section was neat, my friend called it when they said “jrpg vibes”. yet another league player, nobody is perfect. probably won’t watch him much if he goes ahead with the horror stuff bc its not my genre but i appreciate him carving out a little niche for himself.

OVERALL:

I like most of them, but I’m worried the group dynamic may be a bit unbalanced this time around. We got three loud guys and one chill dude, which will be an… interesting combo. These guys seem to have lots of cool ideas and potential, so I would be interested in seeing how they could improve. 8/10 stars, mostly enjoyed the relay.

[mycomori]

sad sad sad an i actually sad no kk no i’m actually hakka i’m living in thriving it’s jsut had dif i dotn ahve a direct focus rn in fucke duo i get all fuck eh in the head but in doing good i’m doing good and i’ve got groceries and food aplenty and a third roomate one of my best friends to move in the next couple of months and yeha jsut hope egerything goes well and shit idk why i can’t l’ora alchol like im already well and drunk to a very good and functional but also fun level like this is what i wnat of drinking be happy and accept it bich

[hotaruyy]

Mulan (2020): A Scathing Review

Or, an extremely long rant by two extremely mad Chinese girls.

Before we (@hotaruyy and @meow3sensei) watched Mulan (2020), we didn’t expect too much, since the director and screenwriters aren’t Chinese (even though they claimed to want to be more culturally accurate). But holy shit, this film didn’t even fulfill our exceedingly low expectations (and we’re speaking as people who didn’t mind the loss of the musical aspect because look at the Beauty and the Beast live action). Our review will focus on our critiques of the presentation of different aspects of Chinese culture in Mulan (2020).

The Chinese Aspect of the film was especially infuriating to us as a Chinese audience. Disney emphasises that many of the changes made to the film in comparison to the animated film were to accommodate backlash regarding cultural and historical inaccuracies from Chinese audiences, but what we saw on the screen showed otherwise.

On Set Design (By a slightly irritated Architecture student)

Mix and match of architecture from multiple dynasties, which removes a lot of the sense of realism and authenticity from the film

Tang-style architecture is used (and if we’re being specific, Tang with hints of Song Dynasty) in the Imperial City’s set, which one would assume depicts the time period in which the movie is set in. Identified by the wooden balustrades, relatively simple and small dougong, vertical lattice windows, wooden piles for waterfront, organic shapes in landscape architecture etc. (fig. 1)

fig. 1 - Scene in film

Understandably, information on architecture before Tang (618-907AD) is scarce, so I do think there was an attempt at referencing the original poem that was written during the Southern and Northern Northern Wei Dynasty 南北朝北魏 (386-581AD). Taking creative liberty here makes sense.

That being said, the film didn’t care for retaining a consistent style of architecture, resulting in a wormhole of a set that somehow spans five different dynasties. Only two examples will be listed to avoid an entire essay :)

Exhibit A. Mulan’s home in Hakka Tulou 客家圍土樓 (fig. 2) (roughly translates to Hakka Mud Towers), which originated in the Song and Yuan dynasties (960-1368AD), and started maturing in the late Ming dynasty. (Why use something that didn’t even exist when the Ballad was written and by doing so, physically place Mulan in Fujian?? Just put her in an ambiguous village like how the animation did??). Somehow Tulou started existing before the Hakka clan migrated down south :) To put it simply the presence of Tulou is a locational and historical bug. The jump from the Hakka Tulou to the Tang-styled Imperial palace (fig. 3, which is strictly speaking a hybrid of different styles but I’d argue still mostly Tang) in the opening scenes is only a taste of the amount of inconsistencies later seen in the film.

fig. 2 Scene in film - Hakka Tulou

fig. 3 Scene in film - the Imperial Palace

Exhibit B. This scene (1:20:14) showing Qing Dynasty architecture in what is supposed to be a Tang Dynasty setting, identified by more elaborately decorated dougong 斗栱 (fig. 4 a key feature in the structural system in Chinese architecture, referring to the interlocking structure that sits on top of each column; at least three different kinds of dougong from three different dynasties have been spotted in the film).

fig. 4 Examples of different Dougong in Ancient Chinese architecture (top left being a good example of Tang-styled Dougong)

An insignificant building is not supposed to have more glamorous and larger dougong than the Imperial Palace, not to mention the lack of decorative dougong at all during the Tang Dynasty.

fig. 5 Scene in film that features a building with dougong

fig. 6 Shenyang Imperial Palace built in the Qing Dynasty

An actual Qing Dynasty Palace (fig. 6), for reference, and a random scene from the film (fig. 5). Note the larger dougong both fig. 5 and 6 (the ratio of dougong to column is significantly larger) with more layers of interlocking segments, as compared to the Tang-styled dougong that we pointed out earlier.

On Costume Design

Blue fabric on people who are NOT ROYALTY/NOBILITY. Soldiers guarding the imperial gate would not be wearing blue shirts under their armour. There wouldn’t be such a big supply of blue fabric in the first place; blue fabric would absolutely not be mass-produced for soldiers.

Ancient Chinese people made blue dye from crushed butterflies, did no one care enough to consider the sheer amount of wealth it takes to dye blue fabric organically? Soldiers would very simply not be wearing blue fabric because of how expensive these colours were at the time. Artistic liberty is fine but at least make it make sense in a clearly hierarchical society??

The painful inaccuracies in Mulan’s costume in the matchmaking scene (fig. 7). Ah, the scene that managed to translate breathtaking Hanfu (and there are plenty of resources to take inspiration from) into a Western caricature of a Chinese Halloween costume.

fig. 7 Scene in film featuring Mulan’s Hanfu from the matchmaking sequence

There’s nothing wrong with taking artistic liberties for costumes with a historical context. For instance, exaggerating certain characteristics of the era the story is in, or modernizing certain features so that they align with the character’s more modern way of thinking to contrast with the traditional setting. Good examples that come to mind are the costume designs in Marie Antoinette (2006), or Nirvana in Fire (2015), which also happens to be a Chinese period piece set in a fictional, historically ambiguous era. Inspiration for its costume design is taken from the Han Dynasty and the Southern and Northern Dynasties, so its costumes combine clothing silhouettes from the two periods, and use different characteristics such as colour to reflect class and status, and to represent characters’ personalities. It does a really good job of creating a new style while still giving subtle visual cues to the audience.

But Mulan’s dress can hardly be called an interpretation of traditional Chinese clothing. This is something the animated film did poorly on as well, and this probably contributed to the costume design in this film as an adaptation of the cartoon. The fabric had a shiny sheen that cheapened the costume. Coupled with the strange silhouette of the Hanfu (especially the bottom part of the skirt), this further detaches the audience from any hint of authenticity. The pictures below can speak for themselves. If they’re aiming for ambiguity in terms of the dynasties as seen in the set, then at least make something that is visually pleasing??

fig. 8 Evolution of Hanfu

fig. 9 Tang Hanfu recreated with references from Tang artifacts (top: early Tang; bottom: golden era of the Tang period)

For whatever reason it seems like the extras in the background have more accurate costumes than the main character

And as a girl from a farming village why is she being trained like a noble lady??? A question I’ve had since the animated film…

The film wasn’t consistent when taking artistic liberties. Audiences subconsciously make visual connections to historical periods when watching a historical fiction film. It would be visually more cohesive if artistic liberties were taken on elements from one dynasty or by combining elements from dynasties with similar aesthetics, instead of jumping across centuries of very different stylistic approaches.

Basing the set design on the Tang Dynasty, but then including random shots of Qing Dynasty architecture of no particular importance (two very contrasting architectural styles); extras having Tang-style Hanfu, but Mulan not having one that's remotely close to any style of the multiple dynasties the film has taken inspiration from; alluding to the time period in which the ballad was written by painting Mulan’s forehead yellow 黃額妝 (which was poorly done but I digress), a style of makeup used by women of the Six dynasties and the Southern and Northern Dynasties (六朝女子), but everything else alludes to Tang or later. And finally, basing many things off the Tang Dynasty, but the Tang wasn’t in risk of invasion from the Huns or the Rouran??? We’re fucking confused :)

Small details like the ones we’ve listed above are visually off-putting; as an audience member I’m immediately thrown out of whatever universe the film is building due to the contradicting visual cues. If this was Disney’s and the director’s attempt at cultural accuracy, then it’s plainly insulting to the intelligence of their Chinese audience. (Respecting cultural concerns should not be Disney’s scapegoat for producing a bad movie.)

Ultimately, the film is based on a ballad and we wouldn’t say the points we’ve mentioned are considered common knowledge. So let’s treat it as a fictional era and put less significance on historical consistencies and authenticity. Let’s narrow it down to the crude representations (and misrepresentations) of general Chinese culture and society.

On Stereotypes

“Chi”: Why are soldiers receiving chi-related martial arts training, which takes years and years of elite, specialised training and experience? Ordinary soldiers don’t train their chi, they are not Wuxia 武俠 (roughly translates to martial arts chivalry). These people aren’t training for Jianghu martial art contests (江湖俠道的比武), they are training to kill for war, which does not require finesse at all. Even disregarding the lack of logic in training ordinary soldiers in martial arts (especially them teaching Taichi in the film), logistically it is simply not worth the economic and time cost of training entire regiments in martial arts only for them to be mostly killed off in battle. (Sorry, it’s difficult to explain wuxia and jianghu in a few words, but they’re super cool so please search them up if you’re interested!)

Many others on tumblr have commented on how chi itself is not the weird masculine "power" the film made it out to be, which is also very true (it's also actually very interesting so search it up if you want to!)

On Language as a Limitation

Clumsy translations of Chinese idioms and phrases that are just tragic comedy, e.g. 四兩撥千斤 being translated into “four ounces can move a thousand pounds”, which neglects the subtlety and gentle vibe of the original word choice while twisting the concept into something related to brute force or physics (but we guess this specific example is not entirely the screenwriters’ fault, since some English Taichi classes also translate it as that).

Replacing Chinese concepts and mythology directly with Western concepts such as witches, phoenixes rising from the ashes etc.

The single clumsy reference to the original “Ballad of Mulan” 雄兔腳撲朔，雌兔眼迷離；雙兔傍地走，安能辨我是雄雌？(translates to: when being held by the ears off the ground, male rabbits would have fidgeting front legs, while female rabbits close their eyes; who’s to tell male and female apart when the two rabbits are running side by side?) This line is an acknowledgement and compliment to Mulan’s intelligence and capabilities. It also challenges patriarchal beliefs of gender and women.

On Traditional Virtues (or the oversimplification of them, and a continuation of Language as a Limitation)

The film’s traditional values of 忠勇真 (translated as loyal, brave, and true in the film by using the most direct translations possible) and 孝 (translated as "devotion to family" in the film) seem to be a reference to the core values of Confucianism. We assume that the film is referencing these Confucian core values: 仁 (to be humane)、恕 (to forgive)、誠 (to be honest and sincere)、孝 (filial piety) and 尊王道 (to be loyal to the emperor). If the screenwriters were going to use traditional values, it is curious for them to choose only those three specifically, and to grossly simplify the actual values in their choice of Chinese characters (instead of using the conventional characters), then to grossly simplify them again in their English translations, and then to put them together in that order. The film also just briefly goes over the values by plainly listing them out in the form of an oath, thereby erasing the complexities of the values...

In a hilarious weibo post by 十四皮一下特别开心, they point out that the three values of 忠勇真 used in the film actually directly translate and correspond to the FBI motto of “Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity” :)

Let’s talk about 孝, the fourth traditional virtue engraved in the sword gifted to Mulan by the emperor at the end of the film. Over everything else, this is the original ballad’s central moral, and what we believe the film is also trying to evoke, so the weak translation diminishes the story’s message. The animation was smart in not directly translating it and instead demonstrates what it entails through the progression of the plot. The film does the opposite and translates it as “devotion to family”, when they could have just referred to it as filial piety. Care, respect, thankfulness and giving back to one’s parents and elderly family members. While obedience and devotion are part of what the virtue teaches, it's not supposed to sound like an obligation, it’s not something ritualistic, it’s just something everyone does as a “good” human being.

(And if the director and screenwriters were trying to diminish the role and significance of filial piety in the film on purpose because they wanted Mulan to appear “stronger” and “individualistic”, then… I really have no words for how painfully insensitive that is in terms of how white feminism does not and should not apply to or be imposed on other cultures.)

And here’s our list of Things That Also Pissed Us Off that other people on tumblr have talked about already, which is why we’re mentioning them without much elaboration:

On Feminism

We get that Disney was trying to make a female empowerment movie but they really missed the mark? Even with a female director, somehow. Stepping back and ignoring the Chinese aspects of the film, as a female audience this film was equally, if not more, hurtful

Mulan is only seen as “strong” because of her extraordinarily powerful “gift” of chi that led to her being physically more powerful than the men, especially in that scene where she lugs the two buckets of water to the peak of the mountain (which is in sharp contrast to how Mulan in the animated film is strong because she’s intelligent and is able to utilise teamwork and her strengths properly, and doesn’t let her understandable disadvantage in terms of physical strength trip her up)

All female characters are one-dimensional as fuck and are mere caricatures (though to be fair, the male characters aren’t treated much better) BUT PEOPLE, MULAN IS THE MAIN CHARACTER!! Her name is literally the name of the film!!! Maybe give her some character??? And what happened to wanting to produce good Asian representation in Hollywood???

The character of the witch was slightly more complex than everyone else, which, good for her, but then the screenwriters had her killed when she could easily have not been written with that conclusion to her arc?? Seems to us like some bullshit where the witch had to be punished in a narrative sense because she “succumbed” to using her powers (which are again dubiously chi-related) for “evil”, when instead she was merely trying to achieve as much as she could for herself in a patriarchal system designed to punish her

Plus the implication of writing the sequence of the witch sacrificing herself for Mulan is that Mulan is inherently more worthy of protection because she’s more “noble”, which, again, we call bullshit. Mulan achieved (impossible) success and validation in a patriarchal system because she played by their rules of what it means to be a masculine “warrior” and excelled, while the witch is scorned and punished within the story and also in a narrative sense because she doesn’t. Is that really what it means to be noble and good???? Does that really make Mulan superior to the witch?? (Honestly this plot point might have worked if there was more complexity written into the script, but unfortunately there wasn't)

Can’t believe they just threw away what could have been a perfectly complex and compelling relationship between Mulan and the witch because of shitty writing

The way Mulan lets her hair down and dumps her armour as an indication of her female identity (which is irritating to us on so many levels, as explained by various tumblr users)

On Production

Plot and character arcs have no emotional tension; they’re super rushed and super shallow; emotional beats are not hit properly (e.g. Mulan’s loyalty and friendship towards the soldiers, built up with one line from Honghui “you can turn your back on me...but please don’t turn your back on them” kind of bullshit)

The screenwriters would not know character depth or development even if it were shoved in their face

Blatant symbolism and metaphors (e.g. the fucking phoenix, and thank fuck it doesn’t look like a western phoenix) that make the film feel very… low.

Cinematography and editing: some very beautiful and compositionally interesting shots, but the battle scenes lack tension. The jump cuts disrupt the rhythm and intensity of the fighting; in combination with the overuse of slow motion, they drag the pace of the choreography and further slow down the rhythm of the scene. Exaggerated colour toning make certain scenes more fantastical than others, resulting in a mix of realistic landscapes in some scenes and highly saturated unnatural colours in others, which draws the audience in and out of the film’s universe. This is a shame because they actually took the effort to film in real landscapes.

fig. 10 Scene in film

Special effects: lack of blood in battle scenes (which, fine, they want it to be family-friendly) and Mulan’s suddenly clean face after she returns to her female identity visually puts off the audience (and links back to the issues surrounding the visual representation of her femininity)

And here’s the extremely short list of Things That We Liked:

That first fight scene between the witch and mulan when the witch brushes mulan’s hair away from her face with her claw while restraining her because that was gay as fuck and I am but a weak bisexual!!!

Donnie Yen’s action sequences lmao (they’re not even among the better ones he’s done so everyone go watch Ip Man for actually good action sequences and choreography)

Just listening to the soundtrack itself was great, loved the Reflection variations but I was simply too distracted by the other shitty things in the film

All-asian cast (thank fuck) with impressive actors and actresses (who should not be blamed for a shitty script)

TL;DR: This film is not worth your time or money. Inferior to the animated film (which already has a few questionable aspects). If you’re somehow really interested in seeing how badly Disney butchered Chinese culture (and to a certain extent the animated film), then just pirate this film. If you want to know what happened but can’t be bothered to waste your time watching the film, read this amazing and hilarious twitter thread by @XiranJayZhao, which we found right before we posted this review, and pretty much sums up our viewing experience as well.

Disclaimer: At the end of the day we're two girls from a predominantly Chinese society who are used to Chinese period films and dramas, watching Mulan (2020), a film primarily meant for Chinese diaspora and audiences in the West, with the Chinese market in Asia being just a secondary economic opportunity for Disney. We do realise that we aren't this film's target audience, and that we're not at all experts in everything we've discussed in this review. A lot of this is just us nitpicking, and all of it is just our personal (and very emotive) opinions from watching this film. Mostly we're just disappointed that the film was advertised to be relatively realistic and culturally accurate, but… wasn't.

Sigh.

Btw please feel free to ask us for recs of actually good, actually Chinese films and shows lmao.

Finally, all the love to our beta @keekry​, for her many suggestions and hilarious comments!!!

[vocalfriespod]

Bilingualism is. It just is. Transcript

Megan Figueroa: Hi, and welcome to the Vocal Fries podcast, a podcast about linguistic discrimination.

Carrie Gillon: I’m Carrie Gillon.

Megan Figueroa: I’m Megan Figueroa. How you doing there, Carrie?

Carrie Gillon: Better today. Yesterday was rough. I mean, I’m pretty convinced that I have COVID, even though I have not been tested because I’m not sick enough to get tested. I don’t wanna walk around and infect other people unless I absolutely have to go to the hospital.

Megan Figueroa: Right.

Carrie Gillon: It’s been pretty mild. Then, yesterday, you and I had this awesome conversation with two guests – it’s gonna be in six weeks, probably – and it was an amazing conversation. But then afterwards I had lunch and then I just crashed, and I got much sicker, and I’m like, “Ugh!”

Megan Figueroa: You exert yourself and then there you go and get it.

Carrie Gillon: And exerting myself was just conversation. It’s just – oh, man. It just depressed me.

Megan Figueroa: I know. I have heard that a lot of people, they describe not being able to do any sort of task because it’s just too much. I’m like, “Oof.” I mean, that kind of sounds like the flu but in the way that people are describing it, it sounds like nothing I’ve ever experienced.

Carrie Gillon: For me, whatever this is, it is not the flu because all it did at first was just attack my lungs. I felt like they were on fire. Then, it was just more tight and I had some fatigue but not like flu fatigue. It’s just – I dunno. It’s very different.

Megan Figueroa: Yeah.

Carrie Gillon: Anyway, in better news, we have an email from, let’s see, I think it’s /silʌm/. So, “Hi. Big fan of the podcast. I was actually planning to send a message just last week to ask if you had any plans to do an episode about names, so I was really excited when I saw the title of the newest episode.” By the way, we got this email a while ago, and I meant to read it on the last episode and just plum forgot. That’s why it’s a little bit delayed.

“They’re something I’ve always been interested in and I wanted to share some things about my name(s) in case you found it interesting. I’m Chinese Canadian, Cantonese and Hakka specifically, and like many others, I grew up with a ‘Western name’ that I used in everyday life and Chinese ones that I use with my family. My name is pronounced super differently in Mandarin, Cantonese, and Hakka.” I’m not even gonna try because it involves tones and I really suck at tones. Anyway, there’s three different pronunciations.

“I’d been thinking about ditching the Western name for a while, especially since coming out as agender, since it’s very gendered and my Chinese name is gender neutral. I was hesitant because I didn’t know which Chinese name to use and I wasn’t really used to hearing non-Chinese speakers pronounce any of them. It’s a bit silly but seeing Hasan Minhaj correct everyone’s pronunciation of his name and seeing people reacting” – I think – “positively to that gave me a confidence boost and I’ve been using my Cantonese name full time for most of the last year. People have been pretty good about pronouncing it, although it took me a while to get used to hearing it without the tones.” Exactly! We’re not good at tones most of us who –

Megan Figueroa: Who didn’t grow up with it.

Carrie Gillon: Yeah, especially each tonal language is different too, right, so even if you speak a tonal language, you’re still gonna have to learn a whole new system. However, if you don’t grow up with it at all, it’s just really hard. “I went back and forth on the spelling between S-E-E and S-I for the first syllable and L-A-M and L-U-M for the second, but I think I’ve ultimately settled on S-I-L-U-M, although I’ve only been using this spelling for a couple months so I’ll let you know if I change it.” It’s fun. I love it.

Megan Figueroa: Oh, my gosh. I feel so happy that someone would share that with us. Thank you so much.

Carrie Gillon: There’s a lot more, but I think that’s the gist of it. That’s really great! We need to talk to people who are speakers of any of the Chinese languages. Silum mentions, for example, that people often haven’t heard of Hakka before, which is true. Most people haven’t. I only have because I’m a linguist.

Megan Figueroa: Right. And I haven’t at all and I’m a linguist.

Carrie Gillon: I’m also from an area with a lot more – I don’t know if this person is from Vancouver area, but there’s a lot of people from China in the Vancouver area. You do encounter more things. But they mention a language that I have never heard of before – Teochew? I’m not even sure how to pronounce it. There’s lot of Chinese languages and we’d love to talk with them.

Megan Figueroa: Yes. We wanna talk to everyone.

Carrie Gillon: There’s too many things.

Megan Figueroa: Consider this your invitation if people wanna reach out because there’re so many areas that we have not yet touched at all. Again, another reason why I feel so happy that they would share that with us because, yeah, learned a few things and then I get to hear something very personal about a listener. Awesome. That name episode was fun. It’s good to think back onto to it.

Carrie Gillon: Yes.

Megan Figueroa: Speaking of names –

Carrie Gillon: Ugh! Oh, god.

Megan Figueroa: I know. I mean, I hate to say it out loud to give it any sort of –

Carrie Gillon: I know, but you have to say it out loud to address it, sadly.

Megan Figueroa: So, “Chinese Virus” – [sighs] words matter.

Carrie Gillon: My favorite thing is that he’s like, “Well, we call it ‘Lyme Disease’” – how many people know that Lyme is a place?

Megan Figueroa: Yeah, I didn’t know that. Although, I knew “Lyme” wasn’t spelled like limes that you eat, but I’ve never really looked into why it’s L-Y-M-E.

Carrie Gillon: I’m certain about a decade ago I found out that there was a town called “Lyme,” and then I promptly forgot because that’s how little that matters. “Ebola” also is named after a location. But, note, it’s not an entire country in either of these cases. It’s not “US Disease.” It’s not – I dunno which part of Africa; I don’t remember – “Sierra Leone Disease” or something. It’s not an entire country, it’s just one location, which is maybe still problematic. I don’t know. But we don’t have the same racial associations at least. So, no, Trump, you’re wrong.

Megan Figueroa: And any person that wasn’t just a raging racist would see what was happening. There are literal hate crimes – physical hate crimes, verbal – all of these hate crimes that are being committed against people that others perceive to be Chinese. I’m sure they’re not even very discriminatory on this at all.

Carrie Gillon: No. Basically any East Asian or someone of East Asian descent. That’s all. They don’t know what a Chinese person looks like versus a Japanese person versus Korean.

Megan Figueroa: Any person that actually cared would step it back, but we all know he doesn’t.

Carrie Gillon: He has stopped – shockingly, he did stop call –

Megan Figueroa: Did he?

Carrie Gillon: Yes. He has stopped calling it the “Chinese Virus.” I don’t know why. I think maybe – he said something like, “Oh, it’s not okay to hurt Asian people” or something like that. Ever since then, he hasn’t used it. I’m pretty sure – unless he’s reintroduced it. But he definitely stopped.

Megan Figueroa: Well, who knows why, but the damage has been done because all of his little minions – supporters – are calling it the “Chinese Virus.” That’s not okay. I don’t know why anyone would feel like that’s okay.

Carrie Gillon: Because they’re racist. I mean, it’s not even a question!

Megan Figueroa: I know.

Carrie Gillon: I mean, as bad as that is, there’s actually something that’s even worse, in my opinion. Some people are calling it the “Kung Flu.”

Megan Figueroa: Oh, god.

Carrie Gillon: Yeah. It’s so gross, it makes my skin crawl.

Megan Figueroa: I haven’t heard that.

Carrie Gillon: Well, I haven’t actually heard it. I’ve only read it. But it’s definitely on Twitter, although less so recently. Around the time Trump was saying “Chinese Virus” all the time that was coming up a lot.

Megan Figueroa: Oh, my god.

Carrie Gillon: People are gross.

Megan Figueroa: People are gross. Words matter. That’s racist.

Carrie Gillon: We already have a name for it – COVID-19 or SARS-CoV-2, which is such a mouthful. “COVID” is better, in my opinion. Don’t, obviously – who among our listeners are gonna be calling it the “Chinese Virus”? Nobody. I don’t know what we’re –

Megan Figueroa: We’re just rage venting. Make sure to call people out if you do see it. It’s fucking racist. It’s gross. It implies that somehow some people are more susceptible or – there’s so many implications in calling it the “Chinese Virus” that are so –

Carrie Gillon: Blaming. It’s basically blaming all of Chinese people for a virus that comes from bats. Nobody got it on purpose. No one spread it on purpose. It’s just a thing that happens because we live in proximity to animals and sometimes animal viruses jump to humans. Sometimes, they mutate and then go human to human. It’s nobody’s fault.

Megan Figueroa: It’s definitely a blaming thing.

Carrie Gillon: Anyway, please – [Laughter]

Megan Figueroa: Let’s take a break from COVID-19 for a minute. Got a very special episode today. I talk with Drs. Jonathan Rosa and Nelson Flores. It was an amazing chat.

Carrie Gillon: It was pretty fun. And I wasn’t in this conversation because you guys were gonna talk about Latinx, and then you didn’t talk about it!

Megan Figueroa: I know.

Carrie Gillon: I could’ve been part of this conversation.

Megan Figueroa: I know. I’m so sorry! [Laughter] I thought we were gonna get – yeah. But, yes, you would’ve enjoyed being there, I’m sure. So, I’m sorry about that.

Carrie Gillon: It’s all right. It was very long, so I ended up cutting out a significant portion, which we are going to put in our bonus episode this month.

Megan Figueroa: Yes!

Carrie Gillon: If you wanna get access to that, and you don’t already have access, then you can join us at patreon.com/vocalfriespod at the $5.00 level.

Megan Figueroa: We forgot to say it at the end, so don’t be an asshole.

Carrie Gillon: Oh, yeah! That is true. Definitely. Definitely do not be an asshole.

[Music]

Megan Figueroa: We have Dr. Nelson Flores, who is an associate professor of educational linguistics, and we got a title change over here. We have Dr. Jonathan Rosa, who is now an associate professor because you were an assistant last time we chatted. That’s exciting.

Jonathan Rosa: Yes. I was recently promoted. I mean, now, technically, as to whether the promotion takes place in a couple of months – you know but maybe by the time the episode airs. But, yeah, it’s more or less a for sure –

Megan Figueroa: Okay. Nelson’s at Penn and Jonathan is over at Stanford. But you’re on sabbatical in Chicago right now, right?

Jonathan Rosa: I was in Chicago. Now, I am traveling for conferences and other things, so I’m actually here in the multilingual bastion of Miami – the fraught, let’s say, multilingual space of Miami.

Megan Figueroa: The theme of this almost could be misconceptions because both ya’ll are talking, that means there’s two of you. I think a lot of people didn’t know there were two of you. I feel like a lot of people think that either you’re one person, which is what I’ve seen on the internet, confusing ya’ll. And you said “married” or also “related” you’ve gotten too?

Nelson Flores: Yeah. I don’t think people know what to make of us. I think part of it is that we both have flower last names, and so people get the “Flores” and the “Rosa” confused. I’ve gotten “Nelson Rosa.” I know that Jonathan has gotten “Jonathan Flores.” I don’t think people know what to make of us sometimes because, of course, we’ve very close. We clearly have a lot of love for each other. But we’re also queer, and so I think people are kind of like, “There must be some type of marriage or something.” Just to clarify, we’re not married.

Megan Figueroa: Could it just be a marriage of ideas and love?

Nelson Flores: I mean, we’re academically married, I suppose, but not married in the heteronormative ways that people oftentimes mean it.

Jonathan Rosa: Let me say one thing about Nelson’s and my presumed inter-changeability, or perhaps a couple of things about it. In one sense, I think this is a very common phenomenon that happens with marginalized populations where people who are marked in particular ways based on race, gender, and sexuality, especially, there’s this sense that you’re all the same and you all could be a spokesperson for whatever set of ideas.

I guess, if I’m being generous, then I would say, “Oh, well, maybe because there are so few of us or because we’ve been positioned as the spokespeople for particular kinds of stances or ideas that we get equated with one another.” My much less generous take on this is that it demonstrates the ways that we get recruited to enact or inhabit these tokenized positions where, essentially, the kinds of contributions that we could make are already predetermined and the question is which of us is needed to make that contribution on which day at which time – this sort of thing.

I think it’s a very troublesome situation. It happens with a whole range of colleagues where we get equated with one another and the sense is just that we could all be one another – any distinctive contributions we might make. That has concrete kinds of consequences in one’s professional life but also in terms of broader political struggles. Professionally, when so much of what we’re up to – or the assessment of what we’re up to – is based on whether you’ve made a unique contribution and you’re equated with someone else constantly, then that can be tricky.

But on a much – I don’t wanna frame academics as the most marginalized or something like that or I don’t wanna say that the goal, then, is to secure the individuality of our contributions. It’s more politically that I’m interested in the ways that our contributions to the world or the kinds of struggles in which we could engage are really narrowly defined and constrained and that this equation of us or interchangeability is a reflection of that.

Megan Figueroa: I’m not even in ya’ll’s field and – because I’ve kind of gotten a little bit of a platform now speaking about these things, but I’m speaking about them personally, so I don’t study it in the way that you do – that I’m often included now when people @ you on Twitter. They’ll put me now, too. I love to talk about these things when it’s right for it, and if I’m emotionally available for it, but I noticed that ya’ll might not always be emotionally available for that and you get dragged into it a lot – “dragged.” I say “dragged.” But a lot of times it might feel like that, right?

Nelson Flores: I mean, I think Twitter in particular is an interesting platform. I mean, clearly, I love Twitter. I mean, it’s connected me to people like you, Megan, who I didn’t know before I was on Twitter. It’s connected me to a lot of interesting people, and I’ve learned a lot off of Twitter. At the same time, I think sometimes people take Twitter way more serious than maybe it’s intended to be. There’s this – like, I just write a tweet that’s kind of like an off the cuff tweet, and then people are like, “Send me 10 references to what you just said so that I can read up on it.”

And it’s like, “Well, you know, I’m not in class right now. I’m just writing some tweets.” If you wanna learn more about it, you can certainly google and do some of that work for yourself, but I don’t know if – almost coming from a sense of entitlement in terms of like, “You need to teach me this because your tweet made me uncomfortable. So, you need to further clarify what you mean so that maybe I can feel a little less uncomfortable with what you just said.”

I don’t think that that’s always coming from a bad place. I think people sometimes feel uncomfortable and they wanna know more. I just don’t know if Twitter is actually the best venue for doing that. Maybe they need to do some of the work for themselves rather than expecting people on Twitter to do extra labor and getting them to really understand things that maybe they really need to do the work for on their own.

Megan Figueroa: How does that play out for you in your job as a professor or as an academic that travels to conferences? Are you asked to do a lot of that emotional labor for people when it comes to Latinx issues?

Jonathan Rosa: Well, it’s interesting. I mean, I think that it requires us to do a lot of careful, strategic engagement where you say – yeah, there are invitations that ask you to represent a certain perspective or recruit you to represent a certain perspective. There’re also efforts to invite you to participate in mentoring activities that are based on a presumed shared experience. There’re some of these efforts that feel really substantive and meaningful where you say, “Okay, wait. There’s something that I have to say here that I think contributes to this dialogue or contributes to this bigger project.”

There’re other moments when you say, “Oh, they just want someone else to read the script. They just need another person to read the same script. Am I just gonna be that person today?” I’ll never forget when one of my mentors, Melissa Harris-Perry, who used to have her show on MSNBC, when she was leaving MSNBC based on some fraught relationships there, I’ll never forget when she was very public about saying that she was not going to be anyone’s little brown bobblehead. She was not going to be this ornamental piece and really an object.

I think that that’s the part that’s deeply concerning in some situations where you become an object, and you don’t have anything to say. The on-demand part of it is also tricky because I think we want to make meaningful contributions and we want to engage with publics, but there’s an accessibility issue that could be complex to navigate as well where you’re on the clock or on call or you’re expected to be the go-to person on such and such issue.

I found that has happened to me in certain situations as well where the expectation is that anything related to any language and identity issue I should just speak to casually. I worry. In some situations, some of my ideas about these topics – and this is why I appreciate Nelson’s comments about Twitter. Sometimes, I just wanna be irreverent. Sometimes, I just wanna make a joke about language.

I mean, I said it after the Joe Biden landslide victory on Super Tuesday that one of the things that’s most interesting to me about his success there is it demonstrates how irrelevant language is in some situations because, from many people’s perspectives, he’s been more or less incoherent in a range of situations. Yet, his incoherence has not prevented his political ascendance.

In some cases, I just wanna be flippant about language. And other moments, I’ve done a tremendous amount of research, and I wanna be careful, and I wanna weigh in on a debate in a nuanced way. But I think that the on-call part of things invites people to offer their opinion constantly as though they had carefully developed a serious perspective. In many situations, people haven’t developed that kind of a careful perspective and yet are asked to be the expert on something.

Megan Figueroa: Do you feel like there’s different work going into it when you’re being flippant? Because I feel like, sometimes, I’ll say something on Twitter or even around colleagues and I feel like it takes less emotional toll on me than if I really wanted to get into something. That’s why I feel like I really appreciate Twitter because, when I put something out there, I feel like I’m not actually having to do as much emotional work. I feel like I can get something quick out of there and then maybe someone will learn something.

But it always becomes more emotional. I had a tweet the other day that said – so this gets into the idea of semilingualism, which I wanna talk to ya’ll about. I said that that’s not a thing. You can’t have kids that end up in school and have low skill in both languages. That’s the idea of semilingualism. I wanna get into it with you. And someone retweeted me and was like, “I’d like to know what my language acquisition colleagues think.” And I’m like, “I’m a fucking language acquisition expert.”

I really sometimes wonder, “Oh, are they seeing my last name and all of a sudden I’m not taken as seriously because I’m too emotional about this?” I really, honestly, feel that sometimes. Do you have that happen as well?

Nelson Flores: I have been accused of being a bully.

Megan Figueroa: Which is so funny to me. You’re so kind. But, yes. [Laughs]

Nelson Flores: I think a lot of that stems from precisely my resistance to feel like I need to do the emotional labor of making people feel comfortable about what I’m saying. In particular, as a Latino scholar doing work in bilingual education, I’m particularly resistant to the idea that I need to make white people feel comfortable doing work in bilingual education. I put my work out there. I let it speak for itself. I certainly have never targeted anyone individually and personally insulted them, which is what bullying actually is, right? “Bullying” actually has an actual meaning.

As a gay person, I’ve experienced it personally as a gay person. I know what bullying is and I know that what I’m doing, which is working to dismantle white supremacy in how we think about issues in bilingualism, is not bullying anybody. I do think that there are these strong emotional reactions that people have to my work in both ways. I’ve also had people tell me that it’s given them a vocabulary for making sense of things that they kind of always knew didn’t make any sense and had visceral reactions against but really didn’t have a vocabulary for thinking about.

I mean, in the end, I think what it boils down to is that all researchers have emotional investment in the work that we do. It’s that people who are coming from marginalized positions, oftentimes, that emotional investment is marked in ways that it’s not marked for white researchers, but they also have an emotional investment, oftentimes, in whiteness and the objectivity that oftentimes ascribed to whiteness.

When that’s called into question, and the ways that Jonathan and I have called into question in our work, that oftentimes leads to strong visceral reactions. Oftentimes, people feel personally attacked when it’s really not a personal attack at all.

Megan Figueroa: Let’s ignore my sloppy definition. Will you tell me, Nelson, what semilingualism is?

Nelson Flores: Well, we can trace the discourses of semilingualism back to the origins of European colonialism. That’s something that Jonathan and I wrote about in our 2017 piece, which is essentially one of the primary mechanisms for dehumanizing indigenous populations, African populations, by calling into question their language practices and suggesting that their language practices were somehow illegitimate or subhuman.

Now, the concept of semilingualism itself emerges within the context of the Bilingual Education Act in the United States. It actually emerged originally in Scandinavia, but I’ll focus on the work in the United States. The term itself emerges in Scandinavia. Within the context of the Bilingual Education Act, which was passed in 1968, they were accountability metrics that had to be used to show that these programs were being successful. One of the things that they had to do was assess students to see if they were Spanish dominant or not because if they were not Spanish dominant, then they wouldn’t be eligible for most of these programs.

Some of these students were assessed and their assessment suggested that they were not proficient in either English or Spanish. The discourse that was developed by scholars at the time to make sense of that was to say that they were semilingual, that they didn’t have full competency in any language. That was quickly critiqued by other scholars who said you really can’t describe people that way. That’s not really a thing.

Then, the discourse shifted to the discussion of basic interpersonal communication skills, or social language, and cognitive academic language proficiency, or academic language. The discourse shifted towards they have BICS, or social language, but they don’t have CALP, or academic language. You can trace directly that discourse. I’m not making a leap there. Scholars who originally used the term “semilingualism” shifted towards a discussion of social and academic language.

Whenever we talk about social and academic language today, that’s really the legacy that we’ve inherited – a legacy of semilingualism, of suggesting that there’s something illegitimate about the language practices of racialized bilingual students.

Megan Figueroa: I just had a friend tell me that the latest TESOL conference, a major theme was semilingualism.

Nelson Flores: As a good thing or as a bad thing?

Megan Figueroa: I asked him. I said, “Were they debunking it?” although – even though we still have to debunk it in 2020. But he said, “No. I don’t think so.” He said that his friend was not happy.

Jonathan Rosa: Semilingualism. I think actually my experience with this conversation ties together the previous dialogue that we were just having about the ways that we’re positioned as ideological or overly emotionally invested in certain topics which then is presumed to distort our opinions on these topics. I was writing an article a few years ago that Nelson and I have been in conversation with about ideas related to semilingualism. I was writing about what I called, “ideologies of languagelessness,” that just framed certain populations as deficient in any language that they use. It’s not just certain populations. It’s racialized populations.

I think, for example, Nelson invoked the ways that the discourse of semilingualism emerged in Scandinavia. Part of what’s distinctive about how it gets enacted in the European context versus in the Americas and elsewhere is that it’s framed in the Americas as a highly racialized concept that maps onto a population across generations and is presumed to be somehow inherent to particular populations in ways that really articulate alongside race or in concert in with race.

This notion, for me, of an ideology of languagelessness is reflected in the ways that semilingualism is taken up in the United States, reflected in the ways that particular populations are framed as “non-nons” in the United States, or non-verbal in English and their so-called native language. “Linguistic isolation” is a category that was used by the census for about 30 years to designate certain households as lacking language altogether.

Megan Figueroa: That happens to real populations, too. That’s really offense. There’re deaf children that are actually experiencing language isolation, and yet this is where they’re using that.

Jonathan Rosa: It’s problematic in every direction. There’re people who are really being denied access to language learning and meaningful cultural opportunities that are mislabeled because of these sorts of stereotypes about isolation but also isolation in terms of the ways that it articulates in relation to policy. It’s messed up because it’s intended to serve as a tool for ensuring compliance with the voting rights act – to make sure that you have resources in languages other than English. You need to designate the number of households within a community that require those resources.

In order to access those resources in languages other than English, you have to be designated as “isolated” rather than designated as “using languages in addition to English.” I’ve found that these sorts of stereotypes map across a whole range of institutional contexts. In everyday discourse you hear people say, “So-and-So doesn’t speak English well. They don’t speak Spanish well.” In a school where I was working, the principal, who had a doctorate in education and was a Puerto Rican woman, one teacher said, “She speaks English like one of our ninth graders. From what I understand, her Spanish isn’t that good either.”

When I was writing about this, I said, “These are these ideologies of languagelessness that map onto people regardless of their credentials, regardless of what might seem to be their empirical linguistic practices.” The initial response to that article, when I tried to publish it, from reviewers was that I was ideological, that I was imposing an analysis onto these situations and imposing this idea, this attribution of deficiency that wasn’t really there. But for me, I was observing connections across all of these spaces.

I think that for scholars who are attentive to particular patterns of marginalization – that we’re drawing connections that aren’t observable from other perspectives and so we look like conspiracy theorists, or we look as though we’re over-generalizing, or over-applying, or over-reaching in our analyses when, in fact, I think part of what is so troublesome about normative social-scientific and scientific research more generally is that the kind of empiricism that it embraces recruits you to accept the world as it is and to naturalize that world and then to observe things in such a way that allows us to reproduce that world at the same time that we proport to just be noticing things that are happening within it.

For me, drawing connections across these patterns is essential to my critique of the way that this world has come to be structured. I’ve found that a lot of reviewers are unwilling or not inclined to engage in that kind of a critique.

Megan Figueroa: I had a moment of realization here too that that’s happening to me because I spent a lot of time in psychology because I did study psycholinguistics and do language development. It is fraught with really disgusting views of communities that they’ve marginalized. These are marginalized speakers and they’re always looking for disorder in some way.

I have a background, too, in speech and hearing so there are legitimate concerns to be had about children that do have language disorders, right, but that’s not what’s happening here. These are neurotypical hearing children that people are looking for a disorder at every turn and they’re finding it because it’s easy to find it when you’re looking – you’ll find evidence for anything that you’re looking for.

Every time I say something about this, I do feel like some people think I’m a conspiracy theorist and they’re saying – like, when I say, “Talk to your children however you want and however you feel comfortable with,” people think that that’s – they’re like, “We have all this evidence that suggest that some input is just not as good.” They really want that to live on.

Nelson Flores: Well, I think that connects back to the emotional investment in whiteness’s objectivity. I think that that really throws people off when we refuse to allow whiteness to be framed as objective. If your position is that these ways are better input because they’re more normative and they’re more aligned with whiteness, then say that. I would be okay with you. We would disagree, but at least you’re being honest with what your perspective is, what your ideological position is.

I always say – I own my ideological position. I own where I’m coming from, and I own my locus of annunciation. I just push other scholars to do the same thing. If you’re using discourses that come from the specter of semilingualism, then just own that ideological position and say what you’re essentially saying is that everyone should speak like a normative white person. That’s not progressive and that’s not liberal, so don’t pretend that you’re progressive or liberal if you’re actually promoting an agenda that supports white supremacy. At least don’t be disingenuous and try to proport that what you’re saying is some type of objective representation rather than an ideological one.

Megan Figueroa: Right. Exactly what they’re saying when they say, “No, there is a right way to speak to children,” is there is a white way to speak to children because that’s what we know of all of these studies on language development. I mean, I don’t know the exact number, but it’s in the 90% of – it’s been done on white, middle-class, suburban babies. Yeah. That’s one way of talking to children, but it’s not the only way. We are continually investing in speaking like white, middle-class parents when we say that these studies are basically how it should be for everyone. People don’t really like to hear that. You’re right. I’m realizing this now.

Sometimes, I still feel very naïve because I’m like, “Oh, well, they’ll just hear it once and then that’ll be enough,” like people will stop and reflect. That’s not what’s happening. I’m always a little bit surprised because I’m hoping that it just takes one moment of reflection and then you can start dismantling. We’re really invested in these things, in these ideas.

Nelson Flores: The challenge is that we continue to frame things as empirical questions that are really ideological questions. You can keep trying to disprove an ideology, but if it’s an ideology, it’s kind of, by definition, something that you can’t really disprove because people have really deeply ingrained investment in those beliefs. At this point, we’re not really having an empirical question.

I think, empirically, we have the data that shows that all communities have complex, rich language practices that they engage in, but people don’t believe it because they don’t wanna believe it because they have deep investment in these ideas that certain communities have more rich language practices than other communities. At that point, you can’t disprove white supremacy. If people are invested in white supremacy, then they’re gonna be invested in white supremacy. That’s the challenge that I think we’re trying to highlight in our work is what do we do in that context. How do we intervene in that context?

Jonathan Rosa: Part of, I think, what’s particularly challenging about this ideology is the way that it is associated with a liberal benevolence where the people who are perpetuating it are deeply invested in staking a claim to helping. They see themselves as really participating in projects that are progressive or even projects that are aimed toward social justice, this kind of thing. They really want to understand themselves as addressing the marginalized.

I think when Nelson was talking about having been called a bully in the past or this kind of thing, I think part of why some people are so off put is that even the remote suggestion that linguists – sociolinguists, linguistic anthropologists, applied linguists, psycholinguists – that we have, in fact, contributed to the problem. Many scholars want to understand themselves as the people who are solving problems, but I think one of the things Nelson and I – that brings us together in our work is our deep suspicion that many of the scholarly labels and categories and approaches have in fact emerged from the very systems of power that we’re trying to critique here.

I think we have a long way to go in terms of trying to unsettle some of these assumptions. I encounter this constantly, the sense – Ana Celia Zentella always says – a mentor of mine – always says, “The helping hand strikes again.” In so many of these situations, when we’re talking about bilingualism and multilingualism and standard language and academic language, just educational language learning, it’s the helping hand strikes again. It’s we wanna help the kids. We wanna help their families use more quality language with them. We wanna help them to become proficient users of such and such language.

I think when we keep pushing – and we always push – “What’s your theory of change? What is it that changes?” These families use language in this way, so this school institutionalizes language in this way to change these behaviors. Then, what happens? Then, people have access to a different world? Then, the structure of the economy transforms? Then, stable housing and living wages and political representation – then that emerges from language use? Or are we facing a fundamentally different kind of challenge? Should our critique, should our efforts towards promoting language learning and our engagement with language, be oriented towards those bigger challenges? Or should they be narrowly focused on changing people’s language practices in their homes, in classrooms – really changing the behaviors of the marginalized?

I think this so much of what Nelson and I have been trying to call into question – just fundamentally rethinking the project of educational language learning.

Megan Figueroa: We’re in the epicenter of funding for things like Closing the Word Gap. I’m like, if we spent that money towards universal housing or some sort of universal basic income, it would go way further than spending money on fucking trying to close the so-called word gap. But that’s where people wanna spend the money. That’s where funding agencies are funneling the money because, you’re right, they feel like they’re the helping hand that’s gonna fix the marginalized.

Another buzzword term that I wanted to bring up – “bilingual brain.” Jonathan, what is a bilingual brain?

Jonathan Rosa: It’s interesting. I was mentioning to both of you that I sometimes make flippant comments about these sorts of catchphrases. This notion of the bilingual brain, like the language gap or word gap, I’ve often had a knee-jerk reaction to it where I felt as though it were locating language within a cognitive system rather than within a historical and cultural system. To be clear, I’m really interested in the cognitive dimensions of language, but that’s not the primary focus of my research. It’s something that I’ve certainly studied and something that I respect research in this area.

However, sometimes, when I talk about it, I’m more concerned with the slogans, with the ways that it’s turned into this commodified project. As soon as it becomes a slogan, then very quickly we see which populations will benefit from that kind of a project of turning something into a commodity that you could achieve somehow. If this is a justice project, if part of what we’re up to is trying to address marginalization, then these notions of a bilingual brain, I don’t know how far that will get us.

Now, I was saying to you all that a colleague recently was pushing me on this to say, look, there’re different ways that that kind of notion has been developed within, say, psycholinguistics or within psychology of language versus, say, within neurolinguistics – neurolinguists who understand themselves to be more attuned to some of these cultural and historical issues and are not trying to promote the narrow view of what bilingualism is.

I will say I continue to be concerned, regardless of the meaningful work that people might be doing in these areas. I continue to be concerned abut the ways that “bilingualism” is defined and the ways that languages are separated from one another in order to reproduce this notion of bilingualism. I wonder what languages even count as legitimate in this research. When you’re staking claims to a bilingual brain, which languages are involved? Are they languages like Chatino that my close colleague Emiliana Cruz studies in Oaxaca in Guatemala? Which languages are we staking these claims to cognitive advancement based on?

That’s one piece of – yeah, just this notion of who is a legitimate bilingual such that we could study their brain. It frankly reminds me in my most – perhaps not my most critical take on it – but it reminds me of some of these genetic ancestry tests which proport to find race in your genes but, in fact, have to presume that race already lives in your genes in order to then find it there. If you understand race to be something historically constructed, then it doesn’t live in your genes.

Similarly, you have to presume that bilingualism lives primarily in the brain in order to then measure it – measure what it’s doing there. I think bilingualism lives between people not within people. My neurolinguistics colleagues were saying – the colleague who was pushing me on this – was sort of saying, “No, I understand brains to be across people not just within an individual” and that from the perspective of psychology, often, it's on that individual basis. So, I think that there are interesting debates to have. I continue to be concerned about the slogan though.

Nelson Flores: Of course, I agree with everything Jonathan is saying. This whole idea of a bilingual brain is still, from my opinion, coming from a monolingual perspective in the sense that most of the world is bi- or multilingual. Why are we exceptionalizing the, quote, “bilingual” brain instead of the quote, “monolingual” brain to begin with? Why aren’t we saying, “What are the unique cognitive traits of monolingual people who are the minority of the population?”

Maybe a bilingual brain is just a brain and it’s the monolingual brain that’s actually this weird thing that we need to study. Of course, I don’t actually believe that, but I feel like some of the discourse exceptionalizing bilingualism, when we reverse it and really think about, well, if we describe monolingualism in that way, that would be really strange. Yet, “bilingual” describes more of the world’s population than “monolingual.” What exactly are we doing there?

Of course, connecting to something Jonathan was saying before, the bilingual brain discourse, I would trace its origins to the classic Peal & Lambert study that found cognitive advantages to bilingualism. In that study, they threw out more than half of the sample because they weren’t appropriately monolingual or bilingual. From there on, we already inherited this idea of bilingualism that’s coming from a very normative idea of what bilingualism even is to begin with.

Then, I would add to that whenever we ask the question about whether bilingualism has cognitive advantages, it always opens up the question of whether there are disadvantages. It’s a slippery slope. If we’re willing to ask the question if there are advantages, then it opens up the question of whether there are disadvantages. I think that we shouldn’t do that. We should just say, “bilingualism is,” it just is. Most of the world is bilingual, multilingual, it’s just what human societies are. There are no advantages or disadvantages. It just is. We start from that perspective, and I think that would allow us to ask different questions about cognitive processes of language learning and whatnot.

Megan Figueroa: This is where we got ourselves into trouble because all of a sudden Pete, in all of these polls, people are saying that they think he’s the smartest and I really believe it’s tied to his so-called multilingualism. Then, you’re right that it’s so ideological because Spanish in Pete’s brain is beautiful and amazing, but in my father is somehow a deficit and they beat it out of him when he started school.

It was really frustrating to see that play out on the national stage. I’m like, “That’s what we’re doing” – a lot of academics are doing. We’re perpetuating this by asking these bilingual brain questions or what are the cognitive advantages. It always just seems to steer toward, okay, there’re cognitive advantages for people like Pete but, all of a sudden, it’s a disorder or deficit when it’s someone like my dad.

Nelson Flores: This is why, whenever people ask me to speak on my analysis of multilingualism and politicians, the first question that they wanna ask me is how good their Spanish is. I always say, “That’s actually not the question I’m interested in” because how good someone’s Spanish is is connected to the social status of that person. Whenever we begin to sort people into good Spanish speakers versus bad Spanish speakers, it’s always the most marginalized that are going to be most victimized and receive remediation for it.

I actually never – even though people insist that I do this all the time – I 1.) never evaluate the Spanish of white politicians and 2.) never say that they should never speak Spanish because 1.) I don’t have the power to tell them that they can’t. They can do whatever they want. They’re white. That’s kind of the definition of whiteness in the US. But I don’t think that that type of language policing is productive anyway. I’m more interested in how bilingualism is talked about differently depending on the race and social status position of people. That’s my primary focus in analyzing these things.

Yeah, Mayor Pete, people are like, “Wow! He speaks like a gazillion languages. Isn’t he so smart?” And I’m like, “Well, actually, you could go to many places in the world where people speak those gazillion languages, right, and they’re not positioned as smart in the same way.”

Jonathan Rosa: Part of what’s so striking to me about some of these popular discussions of language – whether we’re talking about Mayor Pete or if you’re talking about Donald Trump – if you’re talking about someone whose speech is seen as more sophisticated or more cognitively advanced and multilingual or you’re talking about someone whose language use from a liberal perspective is often derided as somehow non-grammatical or unintelligent, this kind of thing, that in each of those cases it seems to me again, as Nelson was saying – the discussions of language seem to miss the point in many situations. It’s less about language and more about a whole range of other issues that we’re not paying attention to.

These discussions about a particular politician – non-Latinx politician’s – use of Spanish in the United States often have nothing to do with what they’re actually saying in Spanish or communicating in Spanish. It’s more about the idea of Spanish that positions them somehow as a particular kind of person. As Nelson was saying, we get roped into playing the game when we start assessing how good their Spanish is and suggesting that, no, they should improve their Spanish. That’s not the point. The point is to ask why it is that, based on their position, this ends up being advantageous for them or seems to become framed as a benefit.

Similarly, with Donald Trump, I think a lot of the discussions about his language use miss the point fundamentally when people are saying, “Ugh! We need a more respectable, intelligent person in office.” Well, you’re totally missing the point. Donald Trump is a television show host and a celebrity and he’s very effective at those roles. His performance of being a buffoon in some situations or being a clown in some situations is very politically strategic just like George W. Bush was very politically strategic in his dissimulation in certain ways. He comes from –

Megan Figueroa: In his folksiness, right?

Jonathan Rosa: In his folksiness. He comes from an incredibly wealthy family with access to a range of educational opportunities and then plays off of this persona – an imagined folksy persona. I think we miss the point sometimes when we critique or celebrate language use. We’re not paying attention to the performance that’s happening. We should be thinking about what makes those performances possible, what makes them valuable, and what makes them strategically useful. Perhaps, we should be attacking that system rather than just focusing narrowly on language use.

Nelson Flores: I think that’s something that you were talking about. The idea of Spanish in liberal politicians is an interesting one because, oftentimes, I think Pete did this, and Joe Kennedy and Tim Kaine, where they use Spanish to directly speak to Dreamers, which is interesting because of course the whole narrative around Dreamers is that they grew up in this country and so their English is just fine. Of course, not all dreamers are Latinx and wouldn’t be expected to be Spanish-speaking anyway.

They’re not actually directly addressing Dreamers there. They’re directly addressing white liberals who feel good about themselves because a politician is bilingual. It’s not actually serving what would seem to be the explicit – what they’re saying explicitly is not actually what they’re communicating because they actually don’t need to communicate in Spanish with Dreamers. It actually doesn’t make sense because a lot of Dreamers wouldn’t understand what they were saying anyway. It’s just to show – look at me! I speak Spanish.

That’s where I say, “Well, you don’t get a cookie.” People took my “You don’t get a cookie” as to be like “White people shouldn’t speak Spanish.” It’s like, well, no. If they’re speaking to the Spanish language media and are trying to actually engage a Spanish-speaking audience, that’s great! But to randomly do it in a speech of people who are not Spanish-speaking, to an audience that you’re imaging is an audience of Spanish speakers who most of them probably – or many of them – are probably not Spanish speakers, then that’s disingenuous. That’s more you want the props for being bilingual rather than you’re using your bilingualism to actually communicate with a marginalized community who may actually benefit from knowing more about your policy positions.

Megan Figueroa: Well, I really appreciate both of you being here. I mean, I know it’s hard for you to see each other, I’m sure. I heard that you’ve never skyped together.

Nelson Flores: Yeah! We never skyped together. We text a lot, and I said – on occasion, we’ll talk on the phone if we set it up in advance. We put it on our calendars. But we do audio. I said we’re old millennials. We don’t do the FaceTime stuff. Oh, last thing. Something else that people confuse us. People think I’m an anthropologist because Jonathan is an anthropologist. Just to clear the record, I am not an anthropologist and I don’t really have any particular investment in contributing to the field of anthropology, though I find some of the frameworks helpful.

Megan Figueroa: Okay. Yes. [Laughter]

Nelson Flores: I mean, I get interpolated as an anthropologist a lot now. That’s only because of the collaboration with Jonathan.

Megan Figueroa: Or the fact that they just think you are Jonathan.

Nelson Flores: Right. I think that that’s – I mean, I’m not hating on anthropology. It’s just not my training, it’s not my discipline, and I don’t have any particular vested interest in that disciplinary perspective and its contributions.

Jonathan Rosa: We see you, Nelson. Welcome. [Laughter]

Nelson Flores: I haven’t gone to the dark side of linguistic anthropology.

Jonathan Rosa: We see you Nelson!

Megan Figueroa: Next time we chat in a year from now, you’re gonna be like –

Nelson Flores: I’m gonna be like Boas. Yes, Boas is my godfather.

Megan Figueroa: [Laughter] Well, thank you, again.

[Music]

Carrie Gillon: The Vocal Fries podcast is produced by me, Carrie Gillon, for Halftone Audio, theme music by Nick Granum. You can find us on Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram @vocalfriespod. You can email us at vocalfriespod@gmail.com and our website is vocalfriespod.com.

[thecorteztwins]

Ok so @shattered-catalyst since you asked here’s some stuff on the OCs that I’m developing >.> Under a cut cuz long eta: oh and @sammysdewysensitiveeyes since you asked for more too!

ASHTI YILMAZ 20something, Yazidi Kurd from Germany, receptionist at a ritzy spa Tender, wistful, melancholy, manipulative, explosive. Far more emotional than logical, and quick to let her bleeding heart and overpowering passion take her reins, whether in sympathy or anger. Easy to hurt, tease, and rile. Prone to sulking, pouting, and brooding, but can shout too when pushed far enough. Has strong feelings, but these make it hard for her to take a strong stance on complicated matters, since her emotions get pulled both ways. Always feels a little out of place. Beats herself up over little things. Fancies herself the mom friend but actually needs a mom friend. Moody, immature, unconditionally supportive. Will say awful things she doesn’t mean in anger and prone to emotional blackmail when upset. Fatalistic, often just accepts that powers that be must have a plan, but that doesn’t mean she has to like it. Warm but wary; always friendly to new people externally, but inside she's on the lookout for any sign they dislike her or are making fun of her, which sometimes leads her to read too much into innocent remarks or innocuous expressions. Feels more experienced than people from more privileged lives and groups, but also like they’re smarter and more accomplished. Tendency toward tortured bad boys and getting her heart trod on. Ashti definitely has very normative ideas about gender. Nothing exceptional, just common generalizations like women are more emotional, little boys like the physical play, men can be total brutes whereas women attack with cattiness, etc. Ashti prone to romantization of bad relationships, like that jealousy means passion, control means protection, and sticking together through all your fights proves how strong your love is instead of calling it quits This not only means she is likely to get into and stay in toxic relationships herself, but give her friends dangerous advice to do the same when they come to her with romantic troubles One of her biggest flaws is she doesn't know her flaws. She thinks her flaws are being insecure, emotional, and loving too much. And these aren't untrue. But she's missing a whole lot of the less flattering, less endearing aspects of her personality. She’s always on the side of the common masses against those in power, but it’d be a lie to say she didn’t watch Sofia Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette “ on wistful repeat or secretly fantasize about somehow being the lost Princess Anastasia Romanov. MARAT ALIBEK 32, businessman from the city of Taraz in the Jambyl region of Kazakhstan - Seems confident and self-assured but also very businesslike at first meeting, playful and silly when with people he considers friends (while still being daring and upbeat) - Very sociable and sophisticated - Wants to be a heroic type of person but has never had occasion to put this into action - Has a fiery, go-getter personality, he charges forward and seldom stops Strength: Organizing and multitasking at work, gutsy and takes chances (can also be a weakness), loves a challenge (but only if he wins in the end), always knows what time it is Weaknesses: Impatient, competitive, doesn't want to look weak or lose face, sore loser, Raising your voice and being argumentative is common in business negotiations in Kazakh, even expected, but it does not go over as well in the US. He knows this, he tries to make sure he doesn't do it, but he might still do it and fuck up a meeting big-time. Has a small stutter, about every 7th word or so. It's not because he's shy or stressed, it's just how he speaks. Always has been. He was in speech therapy from ages 4 to 10, and this is as good as it's getting, and he learned to get over worrying at the tender age of 13, so everyone else can just chill too. He's the one who has to live with it, ok? The way he learned to be okay with it because when he was 13 was when kids really got MEAN about it, and weirdly, that galvanized him to be defensive and accept himself proudly in defiance, when previously he had been embarrassed. That tells you a lot about him right there. Since childhood, he's always had an imaginary  alter ego of himself as a traditional warrior on horseback, flanked by a pet eagle and snow leopard. TENZIN ALTING 38, art dealer/curator at a gallery, British-born with a Dutch father and Tibetan mother - Aloof, alluring, witty, smug and self-assured, and her confidence makes her fearless, adventurous, and optimistic, always ready to take risks, meet people, and try new things. This also means that she's prone to biting off more than she can chew, and having no idea how to cope when she's in over her head---though she can fake it quite gracefully! - Likes changes, challenges, rolling with the punches, and coming out on top flawlessly every time as she's become accustomed to - She really hates it when very intelligent people spout very ignorant views. They’re harder to argue with because they’ve got the brains to make their idiocy almost seem to make sense so there’s the peril of coming off looking like the dumb one herself if she isn’t just as keen and quick with her rebuttal…and if she’s not, then she feels not just like they’ve won, but that their viewpoint has scored a point. - She is independent to a fault. The fault being, she hates having to check with anyone about a decision she makes, or consider their input, or how her actions will affect them. Thus, she avoids these situations, but when she can't, and has to consider these things...she often just doesn't. Sometimes she genuinely forgets because she's so used to being a free agent, but sometimes she just deliberately disregards these things and expects the other person to just deal with it. But her independence also means that Tenzin owns her mistakes, her being the only one making her decisions means she’s the only one accountable for the blame INDRANI “RANI” YUAN 37, from Mauritius with a Tamil Indian mother and Hakka Chinese father Rani majored in environmental science and is an environmental engineer for a land development firm - A bright and driven go-getter - Persistent, practical, touchy, determined, responsible, all-business, no-nonsense - Hard time showing affection even to those she loves, she tries to express it through material means such as tickets to something they like - She is stingy and shrewd, and is not generous at all for the most part. The exception is people she's close to and genuinely cares about; she might spend downright extravagantly on her loved ones. Similarly, she's not charitable UNLESS it's for a tax write-off or it's to a cause she's truly invested in, usually something environmental. So she's not a total Scrooge, she just prioritizes. This does, unfortunately, often make her quite cold to those in need who don't make her cut. - Low-key sassy and assertive, glad to let fools fuck up and then not say "told you so" afterwards but DEMONSTRATE it - Uses bad humor in tough situations - Responsible, dependable, reliable - Craves stability and routine, and it's hard to find jobs in ecology conducive to that, which is why she worked for a company rather than something like a Fish and Wildlife Department - She is outspoken, argumentative, and has a hard time letting go of her positions even when she's internally realized they're flawed or wrong. It's a pride thing. She doesn't want to admit she was in error, especially if she has to admit it TO someone else. For instance, if she's having an argument with someone, and they bring up points that she's never considered, and she realizes "oh shit, they're right about this", her reaction is to feel threatened and thus dig her heels in even deeper in defense of her stance, even though she knows that's asinine. - She also has an easier time forgiving someone for being wrong than she does for being right, mainly if they proved her wrong in the process. - Rani tends to assume the worst, especially about people, especially about their responsibility and capabilities. She just doesn’t trust anyone but herself to do anything right. - She might be pessimistic about people, but she's positive and passionate about her work. She loves the environment and believes she can make a difference. Rani majored in environmental science and is an environmental engineer for a land development firm. It's extremely difficult for her to make her case to her superiors whenever it comes to making ecologically ethical decisions with their activities, but that's why she stays with the job; she doesn't believe anyone else could do it - Plays snooker. Takes more skill than billiards. KWANG 22, college student I guess? Recent grad? Born in Thailand in the Korat province but parents moved as soon as they could afford it, felt she’d have better opportunities and accomodations in the US, as she was born without legs * Kwang is a common Thai nickname for girls meaning "deer". In Thai culture, children are given very long formal names but then also a much shorter, usually-unrelated nickname which they are almost always called by instead. Her full FORMAL name is Khakkhanang Kannokkorn. Understandably, she typically introduces herself as Kwang Kan. It might seem a bit cruel to call a legless baby after an animal known for its graceful running and leaping, but to her parents it was a symbol of hope for her. * Very active, strong likes and dislikes, is social and outgoing and loves being liked by people. Gregariously informal, laidback attitude she's developed that helps put people at ease, since folks tend to get uncomfy when they meet her since they don't know how to act with someone with an obvious disability, how to be polite, how to avoid offending her, etc. So she presents herself as someone who isn't going to be easily offended. Which, she's not. Kwang is a chill, chill girl. However, she's also assertive, and not easily pushed around. She doesn't make a big deal of it unless pushed, though. That said, she never says things “Yes ma’am” more like “okay, since I have time” and “oh, alright, I kinda felt like doing that anyway” when told to do something. Just to make it clear she's doing this because she wants to, not because someone said so. She's got clear boundaries. She's also very confident in herself, and seldom feels the need to justify her tastes, opinions, or decisions to others. She's the girl who would like Twilight and One Direction without shame or the need to say she was only enjoying it "ironically". Likewise, she extends the same courtesy to others; you don't need to convince her that it's fine for you to like something. She won't lie if she doesn't like it, but she's also not making a judgement call on you for it. You read that bad fanfic, girl, if that's what you like, and don't let anyone make you feel bad for it. Snobbery of any sort sucks, even the counterculture kind, and she rolls her eyes at people who proudly complain how "weird" they are compared to "boring normal people" like what are you thirteen? If all you've got to define yourself is being unlike the norm, then that's still letting the norm define you. * Kwang ditches negative people, including those who treat others badly(even if they treat her well) but also those she couldn’t support through a bad time. * Strengths: Great sense of direction/good navigator, you know how when you’re having problems with someone but they’re really close to you, like your best friend, so you don’t know how to bring it up because you’re afraid of what will result? She’ll do it for you, she'll walk up to them and tell them what the issue is, but she still thinks you should do it yourself. Very open romantically and tends to make the first move with no nerves or hesitation * Likes: Fruit salad, phone charms, beach/swimming toys (especially huge ones you can ride), old-school polaroid cameras/photos, big colorful ear-covering headphones, stickers on her stuff, obstacle course shows (ex: American Ninja Warrior) *Dislikes: Long discussions, people trying to make something "all philosophical" when it doesn't need to be or are using big words in an attempt to sound smarter than everyone else (brevity is the soul of wit, dude), when people think she watches extreme sports out of some sad wistful longing for legs like what she can't just like seeing people kick ass snowboarding?, most dairy (ice cream and frozen yogurt being the exceptions), butt chins (she feels bad about this because she knows better than anyone you don't get to choose stuff like that but THEY JUST BOTHER HER) Kwang doesn’t have patience for people who clearly just enjoy being sad or who she feels are trying to manipulate others into “bringing them out of their shells” for attention. Like, you say you don’t wanna go to Prom? Okay then, she isn’t going to try to convince you, she’s just gonna go have a good time herself. What, why are you sulking? Is that what you WANTED? Yeah, she’s got no time for that DIONNE GOLD Black trans woman, 28, Customer Service Rep for a luxury goods boutique , comes from Trinidadian-American family in Naranja, Florida * *Named self after the Ancient Greek word for a goddess (dion), Gold for the connotations of beauty and glamour and VALUE. * Fastidious, fussy, perfectionist, uptight, a Virgo in Leo's clothing * She puts on a bold, confident front, all glamor and poise, but it's not the real her, she's so much softer and unsure than she tries to seem * Her real flaw is fear, specifically fear of rejection and vulnerability to being rejected; she was afraid at the prospect of being rejected by her family, so she ran away. She wants to reconnect with them but is too afraid to, for the same reason. She puts on a false personality, because she's scared of the real her being rejected. It goes on and on. And she’s got good reason for it. But she still managed to embrace who she is and go through with everything she needed to feel like she was finally herself. * Strengths: Great memory, great poker face, hard worker, incredible patience, very reliable * Weaknesses: Over-critical and judgey, pouty and passive-agressive when she has a problem with something or someone instead of addressing it head-on, uptight and easily bothered by small things, needs everything just-so. - Poor spender; after four years of denying herself even the smallest of non-essential purchases in order to save for HRT and SRS, she's now splurging to make up for her years of asceticism. She especially can't resist things like dresses, shoes, and jewelry; after not ever getting to be a little girl, she's going through her long-overdue princess phase now, and can't seem to stop. - Really wants to comfort her friends and will always try, but she's bad at giving advice to friends, her reaction is mostly to just go "there there" and agree with everything they say when they talk about their problems. - She is also bad at keeping secrets if they’re something that causes her guilt, such as concealing something she feels is immoral or that the other person should own up to, but good at it if it's a secret that could put them in danger if others knew (since she's used to keeping THAT kind of secret about herself) This one didn’t make it on to the sketch, but here’s another: AVERY RUE UNDERWOOD White American trans girl, early 20s, goth She can recite "Cassilda's Song" by heart, and talk for hours about the racism and insanity of Lovecraft, and how both these things are misunderstood and misconstrued equally by his devotees and detractors alike. Her icon is Mommy Fortuna from The Last Unicorn, who chose her death and kept it close to her, caged and hers til the end when it tore her to pieces--welcomed by her with open arms, still hers, hers forever. Collects antique silver plated hair brushes. She thinks a lot about how everyone has a life and internal thoughts and we just don’t know we can never really know another person. She likes to go to lonely personal blogs and Twitter accounts and the like and just follow. She rarely “likes” and even more rarely comments, she just wants to watch this little window into a random life that doesn’t have an audience to be performing for like the big accounts. Maybe it’s creepy and voyeuristic but she feels such a strange tenderness for these screen names that she never speaks too. They’re human souls, every one of them. And maybe there’s no God to hear them, but she does. Studies existentialist, nihilist, and absurdist philosophy. She learns less towards the middle, more towards the other two. Morbid and macabre she might be, but she's an idealist at her core. Some of her other interests include obscure mental disorders (Cotatd’s delusion, Capgras syndrome) , photos of the decomposition process, and the historical use of plants as both cures and poisons. She feels kinship with carrion-eaters like buzzards and hyenas, society sees them as disgusting and evil but they play an integral part in the ecosystem She believes that existence precedes essence. So she doesn't believe she was born with a female soul or anything like that. She just doesn't believe she was born with a male one either. Her family is best described as "neutral" in terms of acceptance. They're not at all hateful, and barely questioned her decision, but they're not involved closely enough with her to be really called "supportive" at all. Everyone in her clan, including herself, are too wrapped up in their own lives to really care one way or the other about each other's, and she's good with that. She prefers it. She'd rather not be interviewed, even from people trying to be helpful; this is deeply personal to her and she finds it invasive. She is pretty good at “being the bigger person “ and not escalating things in a conflict, if only because she just doesn’t give enough of a shit to. She tolerates getting yelled at, even undeservedly, really well. She’d be brilliant in retail, she can cope with Karens all day long and not snap or get worn down. Apathy is a hell of a shield. She doesn’t hold on to people, this is good and bad. On the one hand, it means she escapes jealousy and co-dependency and needing anybody. On the other hand, some people feel it makes her disloyal or uncaring. But she's an island, and she accepts the transience of life. She doesn’t seek outside validation or feel the need to be seen as right even when she knows she is. This has allowed her to avoid a lot of arguments and stress. She might not fear violence from a philosophical viewpoint, but she sure does in her natural animal instincts. This makes her edgy around certain demographics. Straight men, religious people, right-wingers, those sorts of groups. You could argue that she's unfairly stereotyping them, much as others have unfairly stereotyped her and people like her. Sure, fair enough, but she'd still rather avoid getting her head bashed in as much as she can. It's not that everyone in these groups is a violent bigot, it's just if there's going to be a violent bigot, they're statistically more likely to be in these groups. Like when was the last time you heard of a transgender woman being murdered by a liberal lesbian atheist, right? So yeah, she's stereotyping. But she'd rather be alive and a "reverse bigot" than fair-minded and dead. She's not THAT much of nihilist. Avery’s self esteem is best defined as contrarian, taking pride in herself more based on what she’s not rather than what she is, and playing Devil’s Advocate to her own ego. She’s the first to admit that not being something bad is not the same as being something good, and in fact tends to disdain those who do the same as she does and praise themselves simply for not being fascists or bigots or abusers, but it seems like the best she can successfully argue to herself. LIKES: * Urban legends, occultism, cryptids, preserved oddities, the unknown * Deep seas, the night sky, vast storms, huge caves, eternal forests * The crowded isolation of the city at night * Abandoned buildings * The sigh and feel of old velvet and raw silk * Deep sea creatures and weird starfish and giant squids * Hozier, The Sisters of Mercy, Cocteau Twins, Black Tape For A Blue Girl, lo-fi, dreampop, shoegaze, every Lumineers song that has a girl's name as the title, and obscure local alternative bands that the art college radio stations only play late at night * Djarum Black clove cigarettes * Symbolist paintings (especially "Salome" and "Sisyphus" and "The Sin" by Franz Stuck) * Angela Carter, Caitlin R. Kiernan, T.K. Kingfisher, and Nabokov's lesser-known novels like Pnin and Pale Fire DISLIKES * Pettiness * The smell of smoking meat, it makes her nauseous, and she's never been able to stomach a steak * Trimmed lawns and pruned gardens * The hypocritical pretentiousness so commonly found in any “alternative “ scene * So-called "horror movies" that are really just gross-out torture porn * Creepypastas that over-explain or don't know when to end * People who pride themselves on "sticking to their guns no matter what" as that seems to her to just be another way of saying they never listen to other opinions or new information because they're so sure in their own rightness * People who forget that everyone else has as much depth and life as themselves, you’re not the protagonist and these aren’t NPCs in a game * Avery is an Aquarius and even though she doesn’t believe in astrology, she still likes reading about it, and it bugs her that her sign is classed as “positive “ and “masculine" * Misuse of the term "social construct" WEAKNESSES * Gives up easily; her transition is really the only difficult thing she's ever stuck with * Navel gazing, over-thinking, gets lost in her own head * Can't make a hard decision quickly * Insomniac * Loses track of time easily * Messy slob, her apartment is DISGUSTING, don't ever be roomies with this girl * She doesn't own a car, but she can drive. She just can't park. She's terrible at parking. She goes in crooked, she goes over the line, she has to pull out and go in again a million times to get it right. STRENGTHS * Comfort with solitude, doesn't get lonely * Equally at ease with both existentialism and nihilism * A veritable whiz with subway routes and schedules * Doesn't sweat the small stuff * Hopeful at her core

[fairlywonderful]

GOT7 Fan-fic. Rec.

 So, since I’ve read like 80% of fics in the Got7 fandom, I though I’d do a fic rec, to help you (potential reader) and so that I finally can have a list of my favorite fics. These are not all the fics I’ve read, just the first ones that came to my mind. Also most of it consist of JJP, but I will add more pairings as I go! This list is not yet complete, I’m working on completing it, it just takes a lot of time to search for these fics. None of these fics are mine, all credits go to the amazing authors! The only things that are mine, are the little reviews after each fic! Good read! :)

M = Mature / Explicit W = Trigger Warning ♡ = fave

                                           !still under editing!

Jaebum / Jinyoung

* M - Anteroom by minhyukie

Summary: How do you act around your ex with your child in the other room? It’s been almost a year and a half, and Jinyoung has yet to figure it out.

Review: soooo goood!! It’s extremely angsty but its so worth it! The growth of the character is portrayed really well, the side characters are awesome and such an important part of everything, I loved it so much! Also kid!yugyeom is always a plus! ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

*M - Jaebum’s Color Theory by pepijr

Summary: Jinyoung is a film studies professor trying to get promoted and Jaebum does his best to help.

Review: Alright, in this one Jaebum is the cutest but dumbest human being. Like he’s really dense but it’s so on point and it’s so lovable it’s unreal. Everything is perfect about this one.♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡ 

*M - Meet The Parents by pepijr

Summary: Jinyoung loves Jaebum, and Jaebum loves him back, but a single note makes him question everything.

Review: It’s a continuation of Jaebum’s Color Theory, thank god the author has decided to bless us with more of this universe! It’s still ongoing but it’s just as good as the first one if not better! ♡♡♡♡♡♡

*M - The Park Family Recipe by pepijr

Summary: Jaebum and Jinyoung meet after six years with a lot more baggage than they remember.

Review: Another single dad!Jinyoung au (well kinda, Hyunjin is his little brother but he takes care of him). Jinyoung has a lot of problems but orphan!Jaebum is ready to fight for the family he choose. 

*M - bdsm quiz by okjb

Summary: jjp take a bdsm quiz and come to some interesting self-discoveries

Review: this one is pure smut lol

*M - Nora’s Dairies by pepijr

Summary: In which Nora makes sure that Jinyoung and Jaebum meet in every life.

Review: ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

*M - Take All Of Me by fishcake

Summary: It has bothered Jaebum since the day he could comprehend it.

Review: We need more omega!Jaebum in our life. ♡♡

* M - bloom by subsequence

Summary: Jaebum may have learned to accept his role as future king, but accepting this new role — the thought makes him sick to his stomach.If he could have, Jaebum would have chosen any other way to present as an omega.(Or: Omegaverse Arranged Marriage AU featuring Princes!JJP and a cast of loudmouth extras.)

Review: So good???? Like this one is right up my ally, I just fucking love everything about this one. Seriously, do yourself a favor and read it. ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

* M - Playboy by comingbacktoyou

Summary: Jaebum's intentions are obvious. Jinyoung doesn't get the hint.

Review: HOLY HOLY OH MY. Jaebum is a producer who's desperate for dick, Jinyoung is a new artist acting all prude bUT JUST WAIT FOR IT. Cute Markson in the bg. ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

* M - The Tiger and the Duke by foxxing

Summary: Im Jaebum is the richest man in the country under forty, content to mess around and skirt the headlines as a cutthroat businessman and casual playboy. Park Jinyoung is a graduated English Literature major, content with (in Jackson's words) his boring life working at a restaurant and writing poetry. When their worlds collide over a spilled cup of coffee, Jinyoung learns there's a lot more to life than the secrets of his past and the safety of library books.

Review: This one is literally a JJP classic. Long af but sooo worth the read. The characters really just grow on you, even if they are dumb af sometimes :( also GREAT SMUT

* M - Wilder by Sugarbowl

Summary: Newly graduated, Jinyoung is determined to try new things. New parties, new boys, and when Mark asks for a favor, even volunteering as a counselor at summer camp. But new experiences can get complicated, and he quickly finds himself a little out of his depth.

Review: Another classic. I live for the sex scene in at the end. Jaebum is confused and doesn't know how to stand up for himself and Jinyoung is jealous af but also kind of insecure. But they make a great pair together :'). ALSO great smut (!), awesome Markson and cute af Yugbam plus a bunch of great Kpop cross overs (!!).

* M - Charade by Sugarbowl

Summary: Jaebum and Jinyoung walk parallel paths in many ways, but Jaebum isn't interested in their intersection. Jaebum struggles to support his young son on his own, while everything seems to come easy for wealthy, charming Jinyoung. But when they're forced to partner for a project, Jaebum finds himself a bit more willing, and much more in need.

Review: Another great fic by Sugarbowl. It's still ongoing but this fic is so beautiful. Both Jaebum's and Jinyoung's feelings are portrayed extremely well and the way they come together is beautiful. Plus kid!Yugyeom is adorable. ♡♡

* M - Citation by KingJackson

Summary: When the one book he needs for an important term paper has to remain in the campus library, Jinyoung catches the eye of Jaebum, a library assistant.

Review: Another classic. Jinyoung is dumb af in this fic, I literally was on the verge of screaming while reading this. But luckily Jaebum is soft af, so everything works out in the end :DD Great smut is always a plus! ♡

* M - Flux by foxxing

Summary: Jinyoung doesn't love him back.

an AU where jaebum and jinyoung have been best friends for their entire lives, and where jaebum has always been irrevocably in love with him but somehow, jinyoung just doesn't seem to get it.

Review: Another fic that makes me scream. LIKE SERIOUSlY WTF. My heart ached so much during this fic :( But as always everything works out but man, this was an emotional ride for me. ♡

* M - Compas Calling by Sugarbowl

Summary: Prince Jinyoung is destined for a lifetime of luxury, until he's shoved in a trunk and accidentally abducted. Im Jaebum clawed his way out of poverty to captain a pirate ship and... not much else, actually. Jinyoung could be his first real treasure, if Jaebum could just figure out how holding someone for ransom actually works.

Review: BEST FUCKING FIC OF THE CENTURY DO YOU HEAR ME I'VE RE-READ THIS ONE SO MANY TIMES IT'S THE BEST OMG ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

* M - A certain Romance by foxxing

Summary: By day, he's a top-rated babysitter. By weekends he's an x-rated escort. These things are generally kept separate, until the day his weekend regular gets his phone number by recommendation and calls for an emergency babysitter. The problem is that Jaebum doesn't know that Junior the escort is also Jinyoung the babysitter.

In which Jaebum and Jinyoung know each other in the biblical sense but maybe want to get to know each other, too.

Review: okay this fic is like really hot and kid!yugyeom is back at it with being adorable :')♡♡

* Unless by gotchick

Summary: jaebum had always been mark's best friend, while jinyoung was mark's kid brother. (high school au)

Review: Really cute au, the progress of growing up is portrayed well and realistically. (Spoiler! Honestly I live for the scene where JB throws a pillow on Jinyoung's surprise boner to save him :'DD )

* M - Wildcat by foxxing

Summary: No one really talks about it, but it's a well known secret that Jaebum’s real vice is racing cars. Dangerous and incredibly illegal, street racing is the one thing Jaebum is good at (besides being the nation’s first pain in the ass) and has never been caught for. How he does it, nobody knows: Jaebum's been caught for drugs, for stealing, for fighting, but it seems like the one thing the police can never pin him down for is the one thing he loves the most.

He represents everything that Jinyoung can't stand, and Jinyoung hates him.

Review: this is some A+++++ smut right here. ♡

* W - the grandfather paradox by symmetrophobic

Summary: Jaebum locks himself in a cyclic normalcy of work, home, life, and the two people he now loves most in the world- his husband Jinyoung and six-year-old son Yugyeom. So when a mysterious teenager shows up in his life and messes all that up, to say that he's just a little displeased by the change would be an understatement. But Jaebum soon discovers there's more to this quiet, truthful boy than meets the eye, and knows that he has just about four days to find out why.

Review: Amazing fic, but my heart hurts so bad :(((((((((

* M - Prove it by Got7hearts

Summary: For as long as he can remember Jaebum has always been there, protecting him and taking care of him like the big brother he never had so what happens when Jaebum is pronounced an alpha and Jinyoung an omega and the air between the two suddenly shifts.

Review: Great A/B/O fic and hot af smut!

* Of duchebags and pretty boys by schoetheisrealaf

Summary:  "Dear Dog Biscuit, Since you seem unable to understand the sign that clearly indicates that this parking space is to be exclusively used by the staff of this facility, I’ll kindly explain it to you again: Until you’re an employee of the state who works his ass off for society only to get shit wages and the worst working hours you CAN’T USE THIS PARKING LOT, SO FUCK OFF! Apart from that, have a nice day. PS.: I hope you don’t have sex for a year. :)"

OR

You steal my parking spot all the time and I was just heading out to leave a strongly worded note under your windshield wiper but oh no you're hot AU Starring Jinyoung the kindergarten teacher and Jaebum the (arrogant yet dorky) business man

Review: I JUST LOVE THIS FIC IT'S SO CUTE OK?!?♡♡♡♡♡♡

* M - lagoon by gotchick

Summary: in elegant terms, jaebum is jinyoung's sponsor. in inelegant terms, he's jinyoung's sugar daddy.

* M - Walls of Glass by hakka is_shadow, katamari

Summary: The city's social structure is firm and unyielding--Alphas at the top, Betas in the middle, and Omegas as pliant, broken servants to the Alphas. When Im Jaebum, the heir of an old Alpha family suddenly finds his social position flipped, he's thrown into a world of intrigue, deceit, and as the very unwilling servant to an even more unwilling Park Jinyoung.

Review: OK SO THIS IS LIKE ONE OF THE BEST WRITTEN FIC IN THIS FANDOM. LIKE THE UNIVERSE IS SO WELL MADE AND THE PROGRESS OF JJP RELATIONSHIP MAKES MY HEART SWELL UP WITH LOVE ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

* Come Soflty (to Me)  by Sugarbowl

Summary: Jinyoung is new in town, and Jaebum is trouble. 50's AU

* M - Spoor by maledict

Summary: It wasn’t odd, to present so late, but that wasn’t the problem.

Review: I don't like to read canon fics, but this one was a great one.

* an apple a day by moonlikeyou

Summary: Doctor Park Jinyoung, star of Seoul Medical Centre's paediatric department, is used to being treated by nothing less than starry-eyed adoration and respect. So, its no surprise that when Im Jaebum, a surgeon with maddeningly pretty twin moles, kicks him out of "his" operating room, Jinyoung gets a little mad.

Okay, maybe more than a little mad. But it's all Im Jaebum's fault anyway.

Review: DOCTOR!AU. CUTE CUTE CUTE CUTE ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

* M - Taint Me by Got7hearts

Summary: Jinyoung is seventeen when he falls in love with Jaebum, who is eight years older than him.

Review: Jaebum with piercing. That's it. ♡♡

*M - This Christmas (I'll give you my heart) by schoetheisrealaf

Summary: Jaebum and Jinyoung have a fight at the supermarket in the morning. Jaebum and Jinyoung find out they're arranged to be married in the evening. Jaebum and Jinyoung fall in love, but only in time.

OR

Shouting match over the last Christmas goose at the grocery store AU

Review: This is super cute. Best while listening to Confession. :'3

* M - Smoke and Mirrors by hakkais_shadow

Summary: This was not the birthday present that Im Jaebum was expecting...

Review: Mafia au and hot af smut... ♡♡

* M - I Don't Fucking Care (At All) by wonwoozi

Summary: “Your boyfriend’s hot when he plays.” Jackson mumbles to him as he slips an arm behind Jinyoung, hand finding purchase on the edge of the wooden bartop, his fingers gripping the ribbed edge.

“He’s not my boyfriend.” Jinyoung replies instinctively and gives Jackson a routine jab to the ribs. “And that’s my line, by the way.” He adds as his eyes trail over to Mark, sat behind the drumkit with his face trained into a concentrated smirk, smashing every beat perfectly, hair positively dripping with sweat.

“Not my boyfriend either.”

* M - keep me warm by subsequence

Summary: The problem is that Jaebum...isn't a cat. At least, not entirely. God, sometimes Jinyoung wishes it were that easy, wishes he could just leave out a bowl of food and water and maybe get his laptop keyboard used as a napping spot when he was supposed to be working and have a simple owner-pet relationship.Instead, Jinyoung has a romantic entanglement bordering on codependency and the worst case of blue balls he’s ever had.And Mark had said that getting a cat hybrid would be good for his blood pressure. What a joke.

Review: Another amazing work from subsequence. Every time I read the part where Jaebum swats at Jinyoung’s dick, I just can't stop laughing. :’DD♡♡♡♡

*M - Human Nature by cutiepiemarkeu

Summary: Jaebum accidentally summons an incubus and his boyfriend Jinyoung walks in on the two of them almost getting their freak on. Arguments ensue and JJProject are stuck with an incubus they can’t get rid of - but how do they deal with his attractiveness and the overwhelming urge to have sex with him?

Review: This is a 3-some featuring Mark. But the smut is so good, honestly. Really worth the read. ♡♡♡♡♡

Mark / Jackson

* The Prince Who Never Laughed by seitsemannen

Summary: Once upon a time, in a kingdom far, far away, lived a beautiful and kind prince named Mark, who after his mother's loss never laughed again. That was until he met the brightly smiling apprentice of a glassblower, Jackson Wang.

Review: Such a great and quality fic! Honestly, this was such a good read I can only recommend it! ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

* Twist by KingJackson

Summary: Mark knows Jinyoung. Jinyoung knows Jackson. Jackson hooks up with Jinyoung who also hooks up with Mark. Mark goes to hook up with Jinyoung and ends up also sleeping with Jackson. Jackson sometimes hooks up with Jaebum, but that isn’t important right now.

And they say romance is dead.

Review: All right so this fic is one hell of a mess, but a mess sent straight from heaven! The main pairing is Markson and Markjin (it's complicated) but there's end game Markson and JJP, plus Jackson is an angel sent from heaven in this one! Don't let the pairing discourage from reading this gem! ♡

* Private Show by Got7hearts

Summary: Mark likes to put on a show and Jackson loves to watch until he's been caught.

Review: A+ smut.

* M - lapis lazuli by gotchick

Summary: in which mark is a businessman and jackson is a fencer.

Review: great fic with rich kinda arrogant but kinda insecure mark plus lots of smut!

* M - Playhouse by seitsemannen

Summary: All sorts of rumours surround the handsome Wang heir and the good-looking servants of his household, but no one seemed to know for sure, as no matter the price, the members were not willing to give the secrets of their Master up.

Mark doesn't care for celebrities or rumours, except the one that says the Wang household pays several times more than the usual servant's salary, so when there's a job opening at the House, he goes for it. In the days and weeks spent at the House, Mark gets to know the members and finds out what of the ludicrous rumours were true and what weren’t. What he did not know to expect, however, is how good friends he would become with the other members of the House, and what’s worse, that he would fall in love with Jackson Wang.

Review: THE BEST. Multiple pairing but mostly Markson. Still ongoing but sooooo worth the read. also, long af. ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

* never felt clean, your timing was perfect by jflawless

Summary: i. jackson is five years old when he’s convinced he’s discovered the secret to love. it’s not much of a secret, he thinks, watching his parents exchange blatant “i love you”s only to quietly prove it later in subtle actions.

you like someone. you’re nice to them. they like you too. it’s the simplest thing he’ll ever do, he thinks, falling in love. a lot easier than tying his shoes or adding double digits or reading without his mom there to pronounce the really long words.

Jaebum / Jackson

* Just Smile Again by riots

Summary: Jackson's been lowkey nursing this crush for years, but he never meant for Jaebum to ever find out. Mark and Jinyoung have other ideas. Also, they're terrible friends.

* Face by jibootyjimin

Summary: @defsoul has started following @jiaerwang

--

(or an Instagram au in which famous Chinese rapper Jackson Wang acts like a complete fanboy over idol singer Im Jaebum)

Review: ♡♡

*Secret Little Rendezvous by seikou

Summary: "It's all fun and games until your favorite idol notices you."

(or: Im Jaebum is an Idol and Jackson Wang is a Fanboy.)

Review: ♡♡

* Fluffy Tales by wildandsexy

Summary: Jackson Wang’s Definitive List of Things Im Jaebum, Roommate, Cat Hybrid and Grump Extraordinaire Does and Does Not Like:

DOES LIKE: • Hoodies • The one table on the library’s second floor by the big window (direct sunlight all morning) (it’s basically heaven on Earth) • Nap time (usually at 11am) (and 12pm) (and 1pm) (and 2pm) (and 3pm)…

DOES NOT LIKE: • Waking up • Being awake in general • Not being asleep • Jackson Wang

Jackson Wang's new roommate doesn't even hate him. He 'nothings' him. And that's just something that Jackson can't live with.

Review: SO GOOD SO CUTE JAEBOM IS ADORABLE BUT GRUMPY AND JACKSON IS TRYING HIS BEST ♡♡♡♡♡♡

[16-233]

On whether Only “Chinese/Chinese-American” actors should play “Chinese” characters

I see this discussion come up very often in the casting stage for shows, such as the debate of the father role in ABC's Fresh Off the Boat being played by a Korean American Randall Park, and how Jamie Chung wanted to audition for Crazy Rich Asians but was turned down because she wasn’t Chinese. 

So first of all, unless a segment in the show/movie requires the actor to speak Mandarin/Canto to his family, and the actor utterly fucking failed at the task and broke immersion for the viewers who speak Mandarin/Canto, the fact that he "looks not Chinese" would not fucking even matter. 

I’m only speaking for the Chinese “ethnicity/identity” here so don’t take this as me justifying Chinese actors taking Japanese roles if Japanese people have a problem with it. (Even though usually it’s because Japanese ppl looks down on Chinese and think we are unworthy of playing a Japanese person, but let’s not touch that for now)

It is possible to be ethnically “Korean” or a myriad of other things (such as Russian) and be Chinese. 

In the instance of the father in Fresh off the Boat, 朝鲜族 (Korean Ethnicity) is one of the 56 ethnicities officially recognized by the Chinese government, and there's almost 2 million of them in China (mostly in the northeast, but people migrate to Tier1/2 cities all the time).  

They've been living in China since the fucking Qing dynasty (and possibly earlier) and identify as "Chinese". 

“But the family in the show is Taiwanese not Mainland Chinese!!” you say?

Well, guess what, there's been this thing in the 40s called the Chinese Civil War. Like a bunch of people escaped to Taiwan with the KMT because the commies won and pretty much it's the entire fucking reason Taiwan and China are separate entities. People of all ethnicities were in the KMT army dudes. Do you know Qi Yu and her brother Qi Qin? If you are Taiwanese, ask your parents who they are, they probably know. They are both ethnic Manchus. If there are Manchu people in Taiwan (who may or may not have--but most likely have--immigrated there with the KMT because the ancestral land for the Manchu people are way up north... in fact, there’s a border dispute between South Korea and China because the Korean “holy mountain” and the Manchu “holy mountain” is the same thing) then there's no reason why the father in the show couldn't be ethnic Korean. (Even if during the war, most ethnic Koreans sided with the Communists... according to the Communists. lol.)

Plus, it is completely possible for a Taiwanese person of Northern Chinese descent to have Korean blood in them and still be unaware of it and identify as Han or Man.  

由于地缘和中国与朝鲜半岛历史上的紧密关系，朝鲜族长期在中国东北地区或聚居或与其他民族杂居。早期到来的朝鲜人多汉化或者旗化，归化为汉族或满族。中国现代朝鲜族大多是19世纪后迁入中国的朝鲜族人的后裔。

Due to proximity in geography and the close history between China and the Korean Peninsula, Korean people has been living in the Chinese Northeast in self-segregated and integrated communities for a long time. The earliest arrivals had mostly assimilated with the Han or Manchu, and identify as ethnic Han or Manchu. The contemporary "Ethnic Koreans" are often descendants of the immigrants that came after the 19th century.  

(x) 

This is not a case of "all Asians are interchangeable", that's equivalent to, like, casting a Han Chinese person to play an Indian person (or a Malaysian or Filipino, but that gets messy because there are actually people of Han Chinese descent living in those countries) or casting a Korean person to play a Thai character (also can get messy because there are a good number of pale Thai people... but you get the gist). A korean person playing a Chinese character is no different from a British person being cast to play a German, or a Swede being cast to play French--or some other generic "white" nationality.

It's different than casting an Indian actor to play Han/Han-resembling Chinese... which would be like casting a fucking ginger to play someone from the Mediterranean.

Let's not pretend Koreans aren't already playing people of Han Chinese descent in CHINESE dramas. There's 蔡琳, who actually changed her name from 朴蔡琳 (Park Chae-rim) so that her name would sound more "Chinese" to get her career to take off in China. And I really dunno why she chose to do that because Park Hae-jin did plenty well (he was in a couple of Chinese dramas in 2011, before he did My Love From The Star) without changing his name. Then there's Choo Ja-hyun and many more lesser-known Koreans working in the Chinese entertainment industry. 

On the reverse, there are also tons of ethnic Han Chinese actors working in Korea, like Song Xi and Han Geng. 

So the precedent has already been set and it wasn't set by white people.

Chinese people don't all look like what the Han ethnic look like. China is a civilization-state made up of 56, again, 56 different ethnicities. Someone can appear middle-eastern and be Chinese. Someone can appear Persian and be Chinese. Someone can appear white and be Chinese. 

See this person? 

She doesn't look "Chinese" does she? Well she is. She is a Tajik living in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and before you say "Xinjing is not part of China"... if she doesn't identify as Chinese, then why the fuck is she working in the Chinese police department (anti-terrorism division)? It's perfectly normal for someone to be Tajik or Uyghur and self-identify as Chinese, just like its normal for someone to be ethnic Han and believe in Uyghur/Tibetan Independence. (Though the Xinjiang situation is WAY messier because there are many more ethnic minorities in that region, not just Uyghurs, and the Uyghurs are laying claims to certain lands inhabited by the Kazakhs and Tajiks, plus some Uyghur identify as Chinese (for example, the capital Ürümqi is divided between two sides, the south side is inhabited mostly of Uyghur with separatist sentiments while the North is inhabited by people who believe in unity with China.))

The tajik people look like this:

More photos from an English source here, and their histories here. 

If you are Han Chinese, they probably look nothing like you, but they are not LESS Chinese than you. Their ancestors have been living in the land that's been under the rule of Tang, Yuan, Ming, Qing, and People's Republic of China.  

In fact, the Tajiks are actually famous for being extremely patriotic since the Tang dynasty. They were autonomous but was akin to a vassal state and kept their sworn oath to the Emperor of "China" during many foreign invasions. 

Speaking of Russians... It's also possible to be ethnic Russian and be Chinese. Guess what, "Russian" is one of the 56 ethnic groups! They live in northern China and mostly Northeastern China, however, there are groups of them in the Xinjiang region.  

(look at dat Haier brothers sticker on their cabinet XD dat is so 90s Chinese...)

The ethnic Russians first came to China in the 18th century, and more of them came in the 19th century due to turmoil in their homeland. Some of them married with Han or Mongol and became more mixed, while some of them still looks... Russian.

The Tartars are also an ethnic group living in Western China. 

So if a show was about a girl from the far north or northwestern China and they hired a Russian girl, if she could speak fluent Chinese (with Dongbei accent =w= ), it’s not AS problematic as, say... Emma Stone playing a white-passing hapa in Hawaii. 

What about South-east Asians playing “Chinese”?

These are the Wa people of southern China. Who looks like this:

(more on google image)

A southeast Asian actor could probably play a Wa Chinese (who would be from southern China), because there are Wa people in Thailand and Vietnam and Myanmar/Burma.  

For certain ethnic groups, sometimes they identify with their ethnicity first. So say a Wa person moves to America, he or she might identify with other Southeast Asians of the same descent and simply say she's "wa" instead of "Chinese", while some will say they are Chinese. I've seen Hakka Chinese from Fujian identify as Hakka first when asked, instead of Chinese, even though the Hakka people are often regarded as the "purest/oldest" Han-Chinese lineage in China (because northerners mixed with the Xianbei people before Tang and Mongol/Manchu people after Song and Ming). 

Using "Chinese" as a racial signifier to mean "Han and Han-passing ethnic groups" when you are Han Chinese is as messed up as a white person saying his "race" is "American". "Chinese" indicates where you come from and it's an indication of culture sphere/assumption of lineage (again, it is the ASSUMPTION of lineage. It's like picking out a dude in a crowd and using "he" pronouns for him because cis people account for like over 90% of the population). It is NOT the end-all be-all of one's outward appearance and ethnicity.

The actual Chinese word for "people of Chinese descent" is 华裔. It comes from the world 中华, which is derived from 华夏. "华" started as Han-exclusive, and it was meant to contrast against all other groups of people who were given derogatory names (such as 蛮夷, 鞑子, etc) because they were considered barbaric and uncivilized. (i.e 服章之美谓之华,有礼节之大故称夏)

This word hasn't been Han-exclusive since Han people started assimilating other ethnic groups (we were doing white people shit before American white people did white people shit) during their expansion or when Han people are conquered. (For example, a group of Xianbei people conquered the Han people but their leader commanded his people to learn the Han language and culture and pretty much assimilated his people with the Han, the same group of people went on to become the Sui and Tang dynasties.) 

“华人”一词最初指汉族，但随着华夏文明扩展到全���各地，“华人”的概念渐由当初单指华夏族，扩展到受中华文明影响的周边少数民族身上。并成为了全体中华民族之人的代称，其下包括了“中国人”以及海外“华侨”。

"Hua ren" at first meant the Han ethnic, but as Chinese (Huaxia) culture spreads, the definition of "Huaren" became inclusive to the minority ethnic groups that were influenced by/assimilated into the culture, it became an identifier for all who identify as Zhong Hua Min Zu (Chinese National or of Chinese National Origins). 

Like literally the meaning of “Chinese” in the Chinese sense is super blurry and made even blurrier in English because there just isn’t the vocabulary for it. In the Spring and Autumn Annals (春秋), the definition of being “Chinese” is literally: ”夷狄用諸夏禮則諸夏之“ (If a barbarian uses the etiquette of the Chinese nation, he is Chinese) So like, according to this definition, if a white person who follows Chinese customs in life can self-identify as Chinese. I know some people must have an aneurysm with this but like, I didn’t make the rules.  

Words like "Chinese American" "Chinese Singaporean" and "Chinese Indonesian" indicate where one's ancestors came from. One can be Miao (note here for Hmong readers) and "Chinese Singaporean", one can be Buyi and "Chinese Indonesian".

If you use "Chinese" to signify something specifically Han, and especially in a context regarding one's appearance, even if you don't mean to be racist (because remember, the original Han-exclusive definition of "hua" automatically assumes superiority over other ethnic groups, and the whole reason Hmong people outside of China would like to be referred to as Hmong instead of "Miao" has to do with this exact issue) and exclusionary, it can be racist and exclusionary. Either you use "Chinese" to mean all people who identify as Chinese and are recognized by the Chinese government as Chinese, or you say "Han Chinese" or "Hakka Chinese" or "Hmong/Miao Chinese" instead of using simply "Chinese" when you mean han + han-passing. 

It's exactly like saying "Asian" when you just mean "just East Asian, not the brown people", like... just don't. 

[deborahaphillips54303]

'Eat Bitter' Is a Zine About the Journey From Hardship to Sweetness

When Lydia Pang, a design director at Nike, decided to make a zine about the foods of her family's Hakka culture, she knew she wanted to call it "Eat Bitter."

To "eat bitter," in Pang's perspective, is to endure hardship before being rewarded by sweetness: a duck dish that takes three days to brine, braise, and roast; rice that must be soaked for five hours. "It's about pushing yourself to be uncomfortable," Pang said, "and I think that's a lesson we're all certainly sitting in right now." To her, the spirit of the Hakka people—the Chinese cultural group whose history has been shaped by displacement—is one born of adaptation.

Growing up in Wales but with Hakka roots on her father's side, Pang's dinner table—filled with dried meats and seafood, sharply scented broths and stews—looked unlike anything her friends were eating. Her grandfather's sticky char siu filled repurposed butter containers; and pork belly, topped with garlic and preserved black beans, simmered on the stove until it turned "wobbly." Meals were served family-style, and "you'd just pick some of these little pungent goodies for the top of your rice," Pang said.

Eat Bitter isn't just a selection of these recipes, depicted in bold images by collaborator photographer Louise Hagger, but also a collection of stories and conversations that have rattled around Pang's family dinner table for years. With her grandparents growing older, and with the sense of responsibility that comes with being the eldest in her generation, Pang also saw the project as a way to record her family's cultural knowledge.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by LYDIA PANG (@lydia_pang_)

Though Pang always knew she was Hakka and spent most summers in Hong Kong, she felt her culture simplified by the lack of diversity in Wales. "I kind of did that to myself, where I was like, oh, I'm half-Chinese. I didn't really consider the nuances of what that meant," she said. While living in more diverse cities like London and New York—where she worked as the creative director of the now-VICE-owned Refinery29—she was surrounded by people proud of their varied cultures, and she became more curious about her own. "I suddenly felt like I really one-dimensionalized my Chinese background; let's dig into that."

The history of the Hakka people can be traced through five forced migrations between the fourth and 19th centuries that eventually pushed the majority of the world's Hakka population to the southern province of Guangdong. In fact, "there would be no Hakka without migration," according to the Hakka Affairs Council of Taiwan, and the word itself translates to "guests." As a result of land conflicts, Pang's ancestors were forced to make homes on new scraps, learning to "adapt, graft, take risks, and be strong enough to survive these obstacles in their path," Pang writes in the zine. Today, the diaspora extends all over the world.

Sample pages from Eat Bitter courtesy Lydia Pang/Photography by Louise Hagger

The need to adapt and make do with limited resources extended to Hakka food. Preserving meats and seafood and then rehydrating them, for example, was another test of resourcefulness. Cookbook author Linda Lau Anusasananan has described Hakka cuisine as a "nomadic type of 'soul food'" that is "earthy, honest, and robust" as a result of hardship and oppression. With Cantonese and Sichuanese cooking dominating the landscape of Chinese food in the United States, Hakka cuisine isn't as immediately recognizable. (It's more widely known abroad: In 2014, the government of Hong Kong listed Hakka cuisine in its "First Intangible Cultural Heritage Inventory.")

"I think [that's] because it's nuanced, it's not as glamorous, and it's harder to get in… It takes time to make, it's not convenient, and it's not pretty," Pang said. "Hakka is about nurturing the flavor; having patience; really, really, really investing yourself and your time into that meal being something that is nutritious, and something that isn't about anyone else. It's not Instagrammable; it's about nourishing you and your family."

As Anusasananan wrote in 2012's The Hakka Cookbook, not only are many non-Hakka people unfamiliar with Hakka food, but the cuisine is also getting lost within Hakka families, for whom assimilation, changing preferences, and busier lifestyles have prevented younger generations from learning ancestral foods. Like Pang, Anusasananan described her cookbook as a way of connecting with her family's history and passing information on to preserve Hakka cuisine.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by LYDIA PANG (@lydia_pang_)

The entire Eat Bitter project took on new meaning for Pang during the events of 2020. What started in August 2019 as a "somewhat self-indulgent exploration" of her own identity through food morphed entirely as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and rising xenophobia. "I suddenly realized that food and this creation could become a meeting place for dialogue around Chinese culture more broadly," Pang said, "and actually, it was my responsibility as someone who is half-Chinese to take on the fact that this is a complex thing to discuss."

In response to the pandemic's effects on the Chinese community, Pang wanted to defend and protect her culture. Now, a portion of Eat Bitter's proceeds will go to Welcome to Chinatown, a grassroots organization that provides resources to hard-hit businesses in Manhattan's Chinatown. (The rest will ensure that anyone who worked on the zine is compensated fairly, a priority given Pang's creative background.) Though Pang was "astounded" by the number of pre-orders she's gotten since sales opened earlier this month, she says she's not trying to make money with the project. Rather, it's given her a way out of the darkness of this year.

Sample pages from Eat Bitter courtesy Lydia Pang/Photography by Louise Hagger

It's not just Pang who's eating bitter now; it's all of us, in the varied and endless hardships that the events of this year have made even more stark. "I already had the name before, and then I looked at it and was like, fuck, if there was ever a year where the whole world is eating bitter and enduring hardship before seeing the light and before tasting sweetness, it was now. I felt like this has grown into a conversation around protecting my culture and celebrating it as well," Pang said.

The zine is an attempt to mark down history in Pang's own way: via her family's story and their foods on moody, black-and-red, punk-inspired pages. "It's about holding space for a culture forgotten—and a cuisine forgotten—and I think that is important."

Photography by Louise Hagger/Food styling by Valerie Berry/Assistant food styling by Song Soo Kim/Chinese calligraphy by Henry Chung/​Set design and prop styling by Alexander Breeze/Graphic and web design by Roo Williams/Retouching by Sam Reeves

Eat Bitter is now available for pre-order at eatbitter.co.

via VICE US - Munchies VICE US - Munchies via Mom's Kitchen Recipe Network Mom's Kitchen Recipe Network

[cyberpoetryballoon]

'Eat Bitter' Is a Zine About the Journey From Hardship to Sweetness

When Lydia Pang, a design director at Nike, decided to make a zine about the foods of her family's Hakka culture, she knew she wanted to call it "Eat Bitter."

To "eat bitter," in Pang's perspective, is to endure hardship before being rewarded by sweetness: a duck dish that takes three days to brine, braise, and roast; rice that must be soaked for five hours. "It's about pushing yourself to be uncomfortable," Pang said, "and I think that's a lesson we're all certainly sitting in right now." To her, the spirit of the Hakka people—the Chinese cultural group whose history has been shaped by displacement—is one born of adaptation.

Growing up in Wales but with Hakka roots on her father's side, Pang's dinner table—filled with dried meats and seafood, sharply scented broths and stews—looked unlike anything her friends were eating. Her grandfather's sticky char siu filled repurposed butter containers; and pork belly, topped with garlic and preserved black beans, simmered on the stove until it turned "wobbly." Meals were served family-style, and "you'd just pick some of these little pungent goodies for the top of your rice," Pang said.

Eat Bitter isn't just a selection of these recipes, depicted in bold images by collaborator photographer Louise Hagger, but also a collection of stories and conversations that have rattled around Pang's family dinner table for years. With her grandparents growing older, and with the sense of responsibility that comes with being the eldest in her generation, Pang also saw the project as a way to record her family's cultural knowledge.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by LYDIA PANG (@lydia_pang_)

Though Pang always knew she was Hakka and spent most summers in Hong Kong, she felt her culture simplified by the lack of diversity in Wales. "I kind of did that to myself, where I was like, oh, I'm half-Chinese. I didn't really consider the nuances of what that meant," she said. While living in more diverse cities like London and New York—where she worked as the creative director of the now-VICE-owned Refinery29—she was surrounded by people proud of their varied cultures, and she became more curious about her own. "I suddenly felt like I really one-dimensionalized my Chinese background; let's dig into that."

The history of the Hakka people can be traced through five forced migrations between the fourth and 19th centuries that eventually pushed the majority of the world's Hakka population to the southern province of Guangdong. In fact, "there would be no Hakka without migration," according to the Hakka Affairs Council of Taiwan, and the word itself translates to "guests." As a result of land conflicts, Pang's ancestors were forced to make homes on new scraps, learning to "adapt, graft, take risks, and be strong enough to survive these obstacles in their path," Pang writes in the zine. Today, the diaspora extends all over the world.

Sample pages from Eat Bitter courtesy Lydia Pang/Photography by Louise Hagger

The need to adapt and make do with limited resources extended to Hakka food. Preserving meats and seafood and then rehydrating them, for example, was another test of resourcefulness. Cookbook author Linda Lau Anusasananan has described Hakka cuisine as a "nomadic type of 'soul food'" that is "earthy, honest, and robust" as a result of hardship and oppression. With Cantonese and Sichuanese cooking dominating the landscape of Chinese food in the United States, Hakka cuisine isn't as immediately recognizable. (It's more widely known abroad: In 2014, the government of Hong Kong listed Hakka cuisine in its "First Intangible Cultural Heritage Inventory.")

"I think [that's] because it's nuanced, it's not as glamorous, and it's harder to get in… It takes time to make, it's not convenient, and it's not pretty," Pang said. "Hakka is about nurturing the flavor; having patience; really, really, really investing yourself and your time into that meal being something that is nutritious, and something that isn't about anyone else. It's not Instagrammable; it's about nourishing you and your family."

As Anusasananan wrote in 2012's The Hakka Cookbook, not only are many non-Hakka people unfamiliar with Hakka food, but the cuisine is also getting lost within Hakka families, for whom assimilation, changing preferences, and busier lifestyles have prevented younger generations from learning ancestral foods. Like Pang, Anusasananan described her cookbook as a way of connecting with her family's history and passing information on to preserve Hakka cuisine.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by LYDIA PANG (@lydia_pang_)

The entire Eat Bitter project took on new meaning for Pang during the events of 2020. What started in August 2019 as a "somewhat self-indulgent exploration" of her own identity through food morphed entirely as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and rising xenophobia. "I suddenly realized that food and this creation could become a meeting place for dialogue around Chinese culture more broadly," Pang said, "and actually, it was my responsibility as someone who is half-Chinese to take on the fact that this is a complex thing to discuss."

In response to the pandemic's effects on the Chinese community, Pang wanted to defend and protect her culture. Now, a portion of Eat Bitter's proceeds will go to Welcome to Chinatown, a grassroots organization that provides resources to hard-hit businesses in Manhattan's Chinatown. (The rest will ensure that anyone who worked on the zine is compensated fairly, a priority given Pang's creative background.) Though Pang was "astounded" by the number of pre-orders she's gotten since sales opened earlier this month, she says she's not trying to make money with the project. Rather, it's given her a way out of the darkness of this year.

Sample pages from Eat Bitter courtesy Lydia Pang/Photography by Louise Hagger

It's not just Pang who's eating bitter now; it's all of us, in the varied and endless hardships that the events of this year have made even more stark. "I already had the name before, and then I looked at it and was like, fuck, if there was ever a year where the whole world is eating bitter and enduring hardship before seeing the light and before tasting sweetness, it was now. I felt like this has grown into a conversation around protecting my culture and celebrating it as well," Pang said.

The zine is an attempt to mark down history in Pang's own way: via her family's story and their foods on moody, black-and-red, punk-inspired pages. "It's about holding space for a culture forgotten—and a cuisine forgotten—and I think that is important."

Photography by Louise Hagger/Food styling by Valerie Berry/Assistant food styling by Song Soo Kim/Chinese calligraphy by Henry Chung/​Set design and prop styling by Alexander Breeze/Graphic and web design by Roo Williams/Retouching by Sam Reeves

Eat Bitter is now available for pre-order at eatbitter.co.

via VICE US - Munchies VICE US - Munchies via Mom's Kitchen Recipe Network Mom's Kitchen Recipe Network

[carolrhackett85282]

'Eat Bitter' Is a Zine About the Journey From Hardship to Sweetness

When Lydia Pang, a design director at Nike, decided to make a zine about the foods of her family's Hakka culture, she knew she wanted to call it "Eat Bitter."

To "eat bitter," in Pang's perspective, is to endure hardship before being rewarded by sweetness: a duck dish that takes three days to brine, braise, and roast; rice that must be soaked for five hours. "It's about pushing yourself to be uncomfortable," Pang said, "and I think that's a lesson we're all certainly sitting in right now." To her, the spirit of the Hakka people—the Chinese cultural group whose history has been shaped by displacement—is one born of adaptation.

Growing up in Wales but with Hakka roots on her father's side, Pang's dinner table—filled with dried meats and seafood, sharply scented broths and stews—looked unlike anything her friends were eating. Her grandfather's sticky char siu filled repurposed butter containers; and pork belly, topped with garlic and preserved black beans, simmered on the stove until it turned "wobbly." Meals were served family-style, and "you'd just pick some of these little pungent goodies for the top of your rice," Pang said.

Eat Bitter isn't just a selection of these recipes, depicted in bold images by collaborator photographer Louise Hagger, but also a collection of stories and conversations that have rattled around Pang's family dinner table for years. With her grandparents growing older, and with the sense of responsibility that comes with being the eldest in her generation, Pang also saw the project as a way to record her family's cultural knowledge.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by LYDIA PANG (@lydia_pang_)

Though Pang always knew she was Hakka and spent most summers in Hong Kong, she felt her culture simplified by the lack of diversity in Wales. "I kind of did that to myself, where I was like, oh, I'm half-Chinese. I didn't really consider the nuances of what that meant," she said. While living in more diverse cities like London and New York—where she worked as the creative director of the now-VICE-owned Refinery29—she was surrounded by people proud of their varied cultures, and she became more curious about her own. "I suddenly felt like I really one-dimensionalized my Chinese background; let's dig into that."

The history of the Hakka people can be traced through five forced migrations between the fourth and 19th centuries that eventually pushed the majority of the world's Hakka population to the southern province of Guangdong. In fact, "there would be no Hakka without migration," according to the Hakka Affairs Council of Taiwan, and the word itself translates to "guests." As a result of land conflicts, Pang's ancestors were forced to make homes on new scraps, learning to "adapt, graft, take risks, and be strong enough to survive these obstacles in their path," Pang writes in the zine. Today, the diaspora extends all over the world.

Sample pages from Eat Bitter courtesy Lydia Pang/Photography by Louise Hagger

The need to adapt and make do with limited resources extended to Hakka food. Preserving meats and seafood and then rehydrating them, for example, was another test of resourcefulness. Cookbook author Linda Lau Anusasananan has described Hakka cuisine as a "nomadic type of 'soul food'" that is "earthy, honest, and robust" as a result of hardship and oppression. With Cantonese and Sichuanese cooking dominating the landscape of Chinese food in the United States, Hakka cuisine isn't as immediately recognizable. (It's more widely known abroad: In 2014, the government of Hong Kong listed Hakka cuisine in its "First Intangible Cultural Heritage Inventory.")

"I think [that's] because it's nuanced, it's not as glamorous, and it's harder to get in… It takes time to make, it's not convenient, and it's not pretty," Pang said. "Hakka is about nurturing the flavor; having patience; really, really, really investing yourself and your time into that meal being something that is nutritious, and something that isn't about anyone else. It's not Instagrammable; it's about nourishing you and your family."

As Anusasananan wrote in 2012's The Hakka Cookbook, not only are many non-Hakka people unfamiliar with Hakka food, but the cuisine is also getting lost within Hakka families, for whom assimilation, changing preferences, and busier lifestyles have prevented younger generations from learning ancestral foods. Like Pang, Anusasananan described her cookbook as a way of connecting with her family's history and passing information on to preserve Hakka cuisine.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by LYDIA PANG (@lydia_pang_)

The entire Eat Bitter project took on new meaning for Pang during the events of 2020. What started in August 2019 as a "somewhat self-indulgent exploration" of her own identity through food morphed entirely as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and rising xenophobia. "I suddenly realized that food and this creation could become a meeting place for dialogue around Chinese culture more broadly," Pang said, "and actually, it was my responsibility as someone who is half-Chinese to take on the fact that this is a complex thing to discuss."

In response to the pandemic's effects on the Chinese community, Pang wanted to defend and protect her culture. Now, a portion of Eat Bitter's proceeds will go to Welcome to Chinatown, a grassroots organization that provides resources to hard-hit businesses in Manhattan's Chinatown. (The rest will ensure that anyone who worked on the zine is compensated fairly, a priority given Pang's creative background.) Though Pang was "astounded" by the number of pre-orders she's gotten since sales opened earlier this month, she says she's not trying to make money with the project. Rather, it's given her a way out of the darkness of this year.

Sample pages from Eat Bitter courtesy Lydia Pang/Photography by Louise Hagger

It's not just Pang who's eating bitter now; it's all of us, in the varied and endless hardships that the events of this year have made even more stark. "I already had the name before, and then I looked at it and was like, fuck, if there was ever a year where the whole world is eating bitter and enduring hardship before seeing the light and before tasting sweetness, it was now. I felt like this has grown into a conversation around protecting my culture and celebrating it as well," Pang said.

The zine is an attempt to mark down history in Pang's own way: via her family's story and their foods on moody, black-and-red, punk-inspired pages. "It's about holding space for a culture forgotten—and a cuisine forgotten—and I think that is important."

Photography by Louise Hagger/Food styling by Valerie Berry/Assistant food styling by Song Soo Kim/Chinese calligraphy by Henry Chung/​Set design and prop styling by Alexander Breeze/Graphic and web design by Roo Williams/Retouching by Sam Reeves

Eat Bitter is now available for pre-order at eatbitter.co.

via VICE US - Munchies VICE US - Munchies via Mom's Kitchen Recipe Network Mom's Kitchen Recipe Network

[melodymgill49801]

'Eat Bitter' Is a Zine About the Journey From Hardship to Sweetness

When Lydia Pang, a design director at Nike, decided to make a zine about the foods of her family's Hakka culture, she knew she wanted to call it "Eat Bitter."

To "eat bitter," in Pang's perspective, is to endure hardship before being rewarded by sweetness: a duck dish that takes three days to brine, braise, and roast; rice that must be soaked for five hours. "It's about pushing yourself to be uncomfortable," Pang said, "and I think that's a lesson we're all certainly sitting in right now." To her, the spirit of the Hakka people—the Chinese cultural group whose history has been shaped by displacement—is one born of adaptation.

Growing up in Wales but with Hakka roots on her father's side, Pang's dinner table—filled with dried meats and seafood, sharply scented broths and stews—looked unlike anything her friends were eating. Her grandfather's sticky char siu filled repurposed butter containers; and pork belly, topped with garlic and preserved black beans, simmered on the stove until it turned "wobbly." Meals were served family-style, and "you'd just pick some of these little pungent goodies for the top of your rice," Pang said.

Eat Bitter isn't just a selection of these recipes, depicted in bold images by collaborator photographer Louise Hagger, but also a collection of stories and conversations that have rattled around Pang's family dinner table for years. With her grandparents growing older, and with the sense of responsibility that comes with being the eldest in her generation, Pang also saw the project as a way to record her family's cultural knowledge.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by LYDIA PANG (@lydia_pang_)

Though Pang always knew she was Hakka and spent most summers in Hong Kong, she felt her culture simplified by the lack of diversity in Wales. "I kind of did that to myself, where I was like, oh, I'm half-Chinese. I didn't really consider the nuances of what that meant," she said. While living in more diverse cities like London and New York—where she worked as the creative director of the now-VICE-owned Refinery29—she was surrounded by people proud of their varied cultures, and she became more curious about her own. "I suddenly felt like I really one-dimensionalized my Chinese background; let's dig into that."

The history of the Hakka people can be traced through five forced migrations between the fourth and 19th centuries that eventually pushed the majority of the world's Hakka population to the southern province of Guangdong. In fact, "there would be no Hakka without migration," according to the Hakka Affairs Council of Taiwan, and the word itself translates to "guests." As a result of land conflicts, Pang's ancestors were forced to make homes on new scraps, learning to "adapt, graft, take risks, and be strong enough to survive these obstacles in their path," Pang writes in the zine. Today, the diaspora extends all over the world.

Sample pages from Eat Bitter courtesy Lydia Pang/Photography by Louise Hagger

The need to adapt and make do with limited resources extended to Hakka food. Preserving meats and seafood and then rehydrating them, for example, was another test of resourcefulness. Cookbook author Linda Lau Anusasananan has described Hakka cuisine as a "nomadic type of 'soul food'" that is "earthy, honest, and robust" as a result of hardship and oppression. With Cantonese and Sichuanese cooking dominating the landscape of Chinese food in the United States, Hakka cuisine isn't as immediately recognizable. (It's more widely known abroad: In 2014, the government of Hong Kong listed Hakka cuisine in its "First Intangible Cultural Heritage Inventory.")

"I think [that's] because it's nuanced, it's not as glamorous, and it's harder to get in… It takes time to make, it's not convenient, and it's not pretty," Pang said. "Hakka is about nurturing the flavor; having patience; really, really, really investing yourself and your time into that meal being something that is nutritious, and something that isn't about anyone else. It's not Instagrammable; it's about nourishing you and your family."

As Anusasananan wrote in 2012's The Hakka Cookbook, not only are many non-Hakka people unfamiliar with Hakka food, but the cuisine is also getting lost within Hakka families, for whom assimilation, changing preferences, and busier lifestyles have prevented younger generations from learning ancestral foods. Like Pang, Anusasananan described her cookbook as a way of connecting with her family's history and passing information on to preserve Hakka cuisine.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by LYDIA PANG (@lydia_pang_)

The entire Eat Bitter project took on new meaning for Pang during the events of 2020. What started in August 2019 as a "somewhat self-indulgent exploration" of her own identity through food morphed entirely as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and rising xenophobia. "I suddenly realized that food and this creation could become a meeting place for dialogue around Chinese culture more broadly," Pang said, "and actually, it was my responsibility as someone who is half-Chinese to take on the fact that this is a complex thing to discuss."

In response to the pandemic's effects on the Chinese community, Pang wanted to defend and protect her culture. Now, a portion of Eat Bitter's proceeds will go to Welcome to Chinatown, a grassroots organization that provides resources to hard-hit businesses in Manhattan's Chinatown. (The rest will ensure that anyone who worked on the zine is compensated fairly, a priority given Pang's creative background.) Though Pang was "astounded" by the number of pre-orders she's gotten since sales opened earlier this month, she says she's not trying to make money with the project. Rather, it's given her a way out of the darkness of this year.

Sample pages from Eat Bitter courtesy Lydia Pang/Photography by Louise Hagger

It's not just Pang who's eating bitter now; it's all of us, in the varied and endless hardships that the events of this year have made even more stark. "I already had the name before, and then I looked at it and was like, fuck, if there was ever a year where the whole world is eating bitter and enduring hardship before seeing the light and before tasting sweetness, it was now. I felt like this has grown into a conversation around protecting my culture and celebrating it as well," Pang said.

The zine is an attempt to mark down history in Pang's own way: via her family's story and their foods on moody, black-and-red, punk-inspired pages. "It's about holding space for a culture forgotten—and a cuisine forgotten—and I think that is important."

Photography by Louise Hagger/Food styling by Valerie Berry/Assistant food styling by Song Soo Kim/Chinese calligraphy by Henry Chung/​Set design and prop styling by Alexander Breeze/Graphic and web design by Roo Williams/Retouching by Sam Reeves

Eat Bitter is now available for pre-order at eatbitter.co.

via VICE US - Munchies VICE US - Munchies via Mom's Kitchen Recipe Network Mom's Kitchen Recipe Network

[carolinechanson97838]

'Eat Bitter' Is a Zine About the Journey From Hardship to Sweetness

When Lydia Pang, a design director at Nike, decided to make a zine about the foods of her family's Hakka culture, she knew she wanted to call it "Eat Bitter."

To "eat bitter," in Pang's perspective, is to endure hardship before being rewarded by sweetness: a duck dish that takes three days to brine, braise, and roast; rice that must be soaked for five hours. "It's about pushing yourself to be uncomfortable," Pang said, "and I think that's a lesson we're all certainly sitting in right now." To her, the spirit of the Hakka people—the Chinese cultural group whose history has been shaped by displacement—is one born of adaptation.

Growing up in Wales but with Hakka roots on her father's side, Pang's dinner table—filled with dried meats and seafood, sharply scented broths and stews—looked unlike anything her friends were eating. Her grandfather's sticky char siu filled repurposed butter containers; and pork belly, topped with garlic and preserved black beans, simmered on the stove until it turned "wobbly." Meals were served family-style, and "you'd just pick some of these little pungent goodies for the top of your rice," Pang said.

Eat Bitter isn't just a selection of these recipes, depicted in bold images by collaborator photographer Louise Hagger, but also a collection of stories and conversations that have rattled around Pang's family dinner table for years. With her grandparents growing older, and with the sense of responsibility that comes with being the eldest in her generation, Pang also saw the project as a way to record her family's cultural knowledge.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by LYDIA PANG (@lydia_pang_)

Though Pang always knew she was Hakka and spent most summers in Hong Kong, she felt her culture simplified by the lack of diversity in Wales. "I kind of did that to myself, where I was like, oh, I'm half-Chinese. I didn't really consider the nuances of what that meant," she said. While living in more diverse cities like London and New York—where she worked as the creative director of the now-VICE-owned Refinery29—she was surrounded by people proud of their varied cultures, and she became more curious about her own. "I suddenly felt like I really one-dimensionalized my Chinese background; let's dig into that."

The history of the Hakka people can be traced through five forced migrations between the fourth and 19th centuries that eventually pushed the majority of the world's Hakka population to the southern province of Guangdong. In fact, "there would be no Hakka without migration," according to the Hakka Affairs Council of Taiwan, and the word itself translates to "guests." As a result of land conflicts, Pang's ancestors were forced to make homes on new scraps, learning to "adapt, graft, take risks, and be strong enough to survive these obstacles in their path," Pang writes in the zine. Today, the diaspora extends all over the world.

Sample pages from Eat Bitter courtesy Lydia Pang/Photography by Louise Hagger

The need to adapt and make do with limited resources extended to Hakka food. Preserving meats and seafood and then rehydrating them, for example, was another test of resourcefulness. Cookbook author Linda Lau Anusasananan has described Hakka cuisine as a "nomadic type of 'soul food'" that is "earthy, honest, and robust" as a result of hardship and oppression. With Cantonese and Sichuanese cooking dominating the landscape of Chinese food in the United States, Hakka cuisine isn't as immediately recognizable. (It's more widely known abroad: In 2014, the government of Hong Kong listed Hakka cuisine in its "First Intangible Cultural Heritage Inventory.")

"I think [that's] because it's nuanced, it's not as glamorous, and it's harder to get in… It takes time to make, it's not convenient, and it's not pretty," Pang said. "Hakka is about nurturing the flavor; having patience; really, really, really investing yourself and your time into that meal being something that is nutritious, and something that isn't about anyone else. It's not Instagrammable; it's about nourishing you and your family."

As Anusasananan wrote in 2012's The Hakka Cookbook, not only are many non-Hakka people unfamiliar with Hakka food, but the cuisine is also getting lost within Hakka families, for whom assimilation, changing preferences, and busier lifestyles have prevented younger generations from learning ancestral foods. Like Pang, Anusasananan described her cookbook as a way of connecting with her family's history and passing information on to preserve Hakka cuisine.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by LYDIA PANG (@lydia_pang_)

The entire Eat Bitter project took on new meaning for Pang during the events of 2020. What started in August 2019 as a "somewhat self-indulgent exploration" of her own identity through food morphed entirely as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and rising xenophobia. "I suddenly realized that food and this creation could become a meeting place for dialogue around Chinese culture more broadly," Pang said, "and actually, it was my responsibility as someone who is half-Chinese to take on the fact that this is a complex thing to discuss."

In response to the pandemic's effects on the Chinese community, Pang wanted to defend and protect her culture. Now, a portion of Eat Bitter's proceeds will go to Welcome to Chinatown, a grassroots organization that provides resources to hard-hit businesses in Manhattan's Chinatown. (The rest will ensure that anyone who worked on the zine is compensated fairly, a priority given Pang's creative background.) Though Pang was "astounded" by the number of pre-orders she's gotten since sales opened earlier this month, she says she's not trying to make money with the project. Rather, it's given her a way out of the darkness of this year.

Sample pages from Eat Bitter courtesy Lydia Pang/Photography by Louise Hagger

It's not just Pang who's eating bitter now; it's all of us, in the varied and endless hardships that the events of this year have made even more stark. "I already had the name before, and then I looked at it and was like, fuck, if there was ever a year where the whole world is eating bitter and enduring hardship before seeing the light and before tasting sweetness, it was now. I felt like this has grown into a conversation around protecting my culture and celebrating it as well," Pang said.

The zine is an attempt to mark down history in Pang's own way: via her family's story and their foods on moody, black-and-red, punk-inspired pages. "It's about holding space for a culture forgotten—and a cuisine forgotten—and I think that is important."

Photography by Louise Hagger/Food styling by Valerie Berry/Assistant food styling by Song Soo Kim/Chinese calligraphy by Henry Chung/​Set design and prop styling by Alexander Breeze/Graphic and web design by Roo Williams/Retouching by Sam Reeves

Eat Bitter is now available for pre-order at eatbitter.co.

via VICE US - Munchies VICE US - Munchies via Mom's Kitchen Recipe Network Mom's Kitchen Recipe Network

[latoyajkelson70506]

'Eat Bitter' Is a Zine About the Journey From Hardship to Sweetness

When Lydia Pang, a design director at Nike, decided to make a zine about the foods of her family's Hakka culture, she knew she wanted to call it "Eat Bitter."

To "eat bitter," in Pang's perspective, is to endure hardship before being rewarded by sweetness: a duck dish that takes three days to brine, braise, and roast; rice that must be soaked for five hours. "It's about pushing yourself to be uncomfortable," Pang said, "and I think that's a lesson we're all certainly sitting in right now." To her, the spirit of the Hakka people—the Chinese cultural group whose history has been shaped by displacement—is one born of adaptation.

Growing up in Wales but with Hakka roots on her father's side, Pang's dinner table—filled with dried meats and seafood, sharply scented broths and stews—looked unlike anything her friends were eating. Her grandfather's sticky char siu filled repurposed butter containers; and pork belly, topped with garlic and preserved black beans, simmered on the stove until it turned "wobbly." Meals were served family-style, and "you'd just pick some of these little pungent goodies for the top of your rice," Pang said.

Eat Bitter isn't just a selection of these recipes, depicted in bold images by collaborator photographer Louise Hagger, but also a collection of stories and conversations that have rattled around Pang's family dinner table for years. With her grandparents growing older, and with the sense of responsibility that comes with being the eldest in her generation, Pang also saw the project as a way to record her family's cultural knowledge.

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A post shared by LYDIA PANG (@lydia_pang_)

Though Pang always knew she was Hakka and spent most summers in Hong Kong, she felt her culture simplified by the lack of diversity in Wales. "I kind of did that to myself, where I was like, oh, I'm half-Chinese. I didn't really consider the nuances of what that meant," she said. While living in more diverse cities like London and New York—where she worked as the creative director of the now-VICE-owned Refinery29—she was surrounded by people proud of their varied cultures, and she became more curious about her own. "I suddenly felt like I really one-dimensionalized my Chinese background; let's dig into that."

The history of the Hakka people can be traced through five forced migrations between the fourth and 19th centuries that eventually pushed the majority of the world's Hakka population to the southern province of Guangdong. In fact, "there would be no Hakka without migration," according to the Hakka Affairs Council of Taiwan, and the word itself translates to "guests." As a result of land conflicts, Pang's ancestors were forced to make homes on new scraps, learning to "adapt, graft, take risks, and be strong enough to survive these obstacles in their path," Pang writes in the zine. Today, the diaspora extends all over the world.

Sample pages from Eat Bitter courtesy Lydia Pang/Photography by Louise Hagger

The need to adapt and make do with limited resources extended to Hakka food. Preserving meats and seafood and then rehydrating them, for example, was another test of resourcefulness. Cookbook author Linda Lau Anusasananan has described Hakka cuisine as a "nomadic type of 'soul food'" that is "earthy, honest, and robust" as a result of hardship and oppression. With Cantonese and Sichuanese cooking dominating the landscape of Chinese food in the United States, Hakka cuisine isn't as immediately recognizable. (It's more widely known abroad: In 2014, the government of Hong Kong listed Hakka cuisine in its "First Intangible Cultural Heritage Inventory.")

"I think [that's] because it's nuanced, it's not as glamorous, and it's harder to get in… It takes time to make, it's not convenient, and it's not pretty," Pang said. "Hakka is about nurturing the flavor; having patience; really, really, really investing yourself and your time into that meal being something that is nutritious, and something that isn't about anyone else. It's not Instagrammable; it's about nourishing you and your family."

As Anusasananan wrote in 2012's The Hakka Cookbook, not only are many non-Hakka people unfamiliar with Hakka food, but the cuisine is also getting lost within Hakka families, for whom assimilation, changing preferences, and busier lifestyles have prevented younger generations from learning ancestral foods. Like Pang, Anusasananan described her cookbook as a way of connecting with her family's history and passing information on to preserve Hakka cuisine.

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A post shared by LYDIA PANG (@lydia_pang_)

The entire Eat Bitter project took on new meaning for Pang during the events of 2020. What started in August 2019 as a "somewhat self-indulgent exploration" of her own identity through food morphed entirely as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and rising xenophobia. "I suddenly realized that food and this creation could become a meeting place for dialogue around Chinese culture more broadly," Pang said, "and actually, it was my responsibility as someone who is half-Chinese to take on the fact that this is a complex thing to discuss."

In response to the pandemic's effects on the Chinese community, Pang wanted to defend and protect her culture. Now, a portion of Eat Bitter's proceeds will go to Welcome to Chinatown, a grassroots organization that provides resources to hard-hit businesses in Manhattan's Chinatown. (The rest will ensure that anyone who worked on the zine is compensated fairly, a priority given Pang's creative background.) Though Pang was "astounded" by the number of pre-orders she's gotten since sales opened earlier this month, she says she's not trying to make money with the project. Rather, it's given her a way out of the darkness of this year.

Sample pages from Eat Bitter courtesy Lydia Pang/Photography by Louise Hagger

It's not just Pang who's eating bitter now; it's all of us, in the varied and endless hardships that the events of this year have made even more stark. "I already had the name before, and then I looked at it and was like, fuck, if there was ever a year where the whole world is eating bitter and enduring hardship before seeing the light and before tasting sweetness, it was now. I felt like this has grown into a conversation around protecting my culture and celebrating it as well," Pang said.

The zine is an attempt to mark down history in Pang's own way: via her family's story and their foods on moody, black-and-red, punk-inspired pages. "It's about holding space for a culture forgotten—and a cuisine forgotten—and I think that is important."

Photography by Louise Hagger/Food styling by Valerie Berry/Assistant food styling by Song Soo Kim/Chinese calligraphy by Henry Chung/​Set design and prop styling by Alexander Breeze/Graphic and web design by Roo Williams/Retouching by Sam Reeves

Eat Bitter is now available for pre-order at eatbitter.co.

via VICE US - Munchies VICE US - Munchies via Mom's Kitchen Recipe Network Mom's Kitchen Recipe Network

[nyashizura]

Tagged by dat @tsubomi-yumemiru-rapsodia

What is a song that defined a moment/event in your life? Why? What was that moment/event?

Oh my god... this is gonna be a long list. I actually have so many so I’ll put as many as I can think of

My parents divorce - Slipknot - Skin Ticket  This was one of my rougher times? I rly just hated everything My foray into “heavy music” - Breaking Benjamin - Topless This is a really big moment in my life cuz I love metal and heavy music in general and this is what started it all :) Probably the origin of my aspirations to git gud at music (which I am not)

Descent into idol hell (you knew this was coming) - Zurui no Magnetic Today So one day my sis just told me to listen to this song and I was like “alright”. The song had a cool as fuck synth over some distorted guitars and I was like WOOAAAH I NEED MORE then i watched all of the love live anime in like 2 days and now Im here so  thanks sis

If you were a Pokemon gym leader/elite four, what type would you specialize in? Imma be a steel type cuz im cold 

What is your favorite reptile? Why? I like snakes cuz they dont need much maintanence and they’re cute

What anime archetype do you think you’d fit the best? I think I’d be that one kid that just fucks around but is actually kinda smart

Do you have a favorite font? What is it? Why do you like it? OH MAN LEMME TELL YOU ABOUT COMIC NEUE its like comic sans but better

Which post you’ve made yourself on your current URL has received the most notes? When did you make that post? Why did you make it? Oh man I made a snow halation ukelele cover and it was lit (insert fire emoji) I got like 40+ notes? Mostly cuz I annoyed everyone and  bugged them to give me notes xD I made it for a secret santa thing with me old network. I actually thought I was p good friends with the person that I made it for but?? apparently not. Imma make a saint snow cover soon so look out m8

European noodle dishes or Asian noodle dishes? I am biased as I am asian. Hakka mee over spaghetti anyday

What is your favorite flavor of juice? Non sugary

Which brand of ballpoint pen is your favorite? Soz I dont use ballpoint xDD G-2 gel pens are my fav

Have you ever traveled outside your home country? If yes, where have you been? If no, why not? Ive been to so many places that I’ve actually kinda lost count... I know I’m privileged but my most memorable ones so far was going to the US to meet my uncle ( a good 2 weeks of solid fucking around in New York), going to Australia to check out unis with my bro and fam and we had a grand ol time in Canberra n stuff, I went to Taiwan on a school trip and it was cold af which was a good change from hot malaysian weather xDD We fucked around a lot it was a lot of fun and OF COURSE JAPAN mmm japan so much lovelive stuff... I’ve been to Japan twice but the first time I didnt know love live so i was like ???? while my sisters freaked out xD but the second time we were all in idol hell together and it was a blast (plus universal studios harry potter mMMM)

Contemporary of Victorian architecture/interior? Why? I’m not particularly a big fan of contemporary victorian interior design cuz I was forced to research it for 3 months for art xDD but in all seriousness I like a mix of modern style interior design with some victorian influences. 10 facts (??? def not gonna finish this xDD) 1. I play guitar (play is a broad term, more like berate my self for not being good enough) 2. Has a weird music taste - From Progressive metal to idol music to reggae to rnb to contemporary rap Im all over the place sorry not sorry 3. I dont think I’m a particularly interesting person 4. I’m in a constant state of anxiety for not having many friends?? Like 30% of my friends are online and I love em (including em heh PUN (said in the history of japan style fusion jazz vocal chordal thingy)) and 69% (heh) is not even like friends?? just acquaintances while that 1% is like that one close friend that I have but we’re not even that close anyway so I feel very alone :))) 5. I love my siblings very much even if they dont love me back 6. I’m passionate about studying music in the future 7. I have.... black hair?? I can’t think of anymore facts lmao

Its 1 am I gotta sleep I got school tmr

I cant think of any questions sorry xD Do this if you wanna