As someone from India I had to read this several times to realise you were making a hypothetical, haha. We have many restaurants like that here.
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Asian ERA |OT| We don't AGE
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As someone from India I had to read this several times to realise you were making a hypothetical, haha. We have many restaurants like that here.
It's weird how having a small person drain away all your energy changes your perspective, eh?
My conclusion with that thread is that in addition to the general weirdness that comes with being on a board with a buncha weeaboos we also have far too few people that actually appreciate quality food. And I'm pretty shitty when it comes to taste, but people legit defending restaurants that just serve whatever they can pretend to make well makes me think I'm legit some kinda super-snob.
Speaking of small people, even though I don't have one yet:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/07/opinion/helicopter-parents-economy.html
*memorizes every word
Miletius - you and meph should be friends. He's the snobbiest mcsnob about food I've ever met.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/07/opinion/helicopter-parents-economy.html
*memorizes every word
Miletius - you and meph should be friends. He's the snobbiest mcsnob about food I've ever met.
One of the arguments I see for "no bubble" is that it toughens you up mentally and gets you ready for the "real world." Which, I guess, can be construed as a positive? Maybe? I mean sure, I've developed a very low tolerance for racism and I snap back pretty quickly at any perceived slight, but that's me. Everyone reacts to it differently growing up, and we all know and seen the varied results of that. The world is already pretty shitty as it is, and the last thing I want my kids to go through is blatant racism on top of that. I felt the effects of that, and it was laborious to wade through. I'll allow my kids to be a little naive in a bubble if it means they'll be unshakable in their identity.
This 100%. Only thing about living in an enclave is it could make you ignorant or naive about certain issues. I grew up in an enclave and it made me very ignorant towards concepts like internalized racism, self hatred, white worshipping etc. I didn't even know these things existed nor do I think I knew anyone male or female who displayed any of these behaviors. It wasn't until I started to read shit online or branched out of my bubble that I started to see and become aware of these things. But I'd take being naive over developing some inferiority complexes due to race any day .
Just caught up with that thread and what an exhausting ride.
Back from the 626 visiting my mom and got leftovers from my childhood fast food chinese place that I'm gonna heat up, eat, and forget about the shitheads on this forum.
Back from the 626 visiting my mom and got leftovers from my childhood fast food chinese place that I'm gonna heat up, eat, and forget about the shitheads on this forum.
I stopped reading that thread and went back to trying to beat Resident Evil 2 Remake on Hardcore. Hardcore sucks and I can't get beat it in less than 2 hours and 30 minutes to get my goodies, lol.
Which place in the 626? I just tried Dan in Pasadena over the weekend.
You know...the non offended Asians for Asia chiming in bother me more so than "people are so easily offended" whiners.
That article doesn't really say anything though. But yeah, I think it's important to be cognizant of how competitive the current and future markets are/will be and to plan accordingly. Helicoptering takes a ton of time and energy (and maybe money if one parent chooses to put career on hold for a while) though.
Been meaning to try that place, worth it?
Just a small place called 'Chinese Deli' in El Monte. Real greasy stuff that I grew up eating during elementary through high school so it's got that nostalgia factor lol
Yeah Asians actually living in Asia live in their own ethnically homogeneous societies that allow them to ignore the realities of being a minority in a Western country. We're so marginalized here we define ourselves as much as by our loosely interconnected (and often incredibly contentious) heritages as we do by the fact that it's convenient for white people to lump us into a subgroup.
Speaking of which, I'm heading up to Santa Rosa/Petaluma this weekend and will have all of Saturday to myself. Not sure what I'm going to do yet, but I might grab some stuff for next week.
Oh my god I just stepped into the whitewashed Marina thread and I need to walk away before I break down.
Threads on cultural appropriation, legitimate or otherwise, can't go anywhere until white people pipe down tbh.
It's worth trying, I think. It's comparable to DTF in terms of quality but just more annoying to get to.
I don't know if I've had Chinese Deli before.
Y'all know what. I just realized the majority of the posters in that Gordon thread have never and will never ever eat actual east Asian cuisine that isn't some fried cream cheese wontons and chowmein out of a box or styrofoam container so...whatever. Places like Lucky Cat (lolol) will literally be the closest they ever have to flavors, tastes, and dishes of "Asia."
So it makes sense they don't understand. They don't know the difference between being familiar with the different cuisines in Asia and this kind of stuff. If you're literally ignorant, and you refuse or are unable to learn, you'll never know.
I mean these are the same people that would consider Taco Bell to be authentic Mexican food if we didn't directly border Mexico. At that point they can't be helped.
I think their attitudes are really ??? until you realize they're arguing from a perspective of "lacking." I remember being similarly frustrated in the "100k is rich" thread...the thread was mostly people who would never understand what it means to live in an extremely high COL place and what it means to be upper middle class. It's just something they aren't familiar with and will most likely never personally experience.
Outside of Asian enclaves, it is honestly very difficult to get good food. And even the white people living inside these enclaves don't participate. I mean, hell, I work in a city that is 50% Chinese/Korean and most of my white coworkers have never tried boba. That should tell you just how much they actually are willing to go in terms of risk and "Asian" food.
So it makes sense they don't understand. They don't know the difference between being familiar with the different cuisines in Asia and this kind of stuff. If you're literally ignorant, and you refuse or are unable to learn, you'll never know.
I mean these are the same people that would consider Taco Bell to be authentic Mexican food if we didn't directly border Mexico. At that point they can't be helped.
I think their attitudes are really ??? until you realize they're arguing from a perspective of "lacking." I remember being similarly frustrated in the "100k is rich" thread...the thread was mostly people who would never understand what it means to live in an extremely high COL place and what it means to be upper middle class. It's just something they aren't familiar with and will most likely never personally experience.
Outside of Asian enclaves, it is honestly very difficult to get good food. And even the white people living inside these enclaves don't participate. I mean, hell, I work in a city that is 50% Chinese/Korean and most of my white coworkers have never tried boba. That should tell you just how much they actually are willing to go in terms of risk and "Asian" food.
Almost every Chinese restaurant I've ordered from here in Chicago has them. My colleague was complaining about how bad tofu was...and I couldn't set him straight b/c in his mind he just imagined tofurkey and tofu dogs.
*raises hand
I actually like them a lot. I also just love cream cheese. My bagels are like 50% cream cheese 50% bagel.
Yeah exactly. That goes back to my whole thing about how it's about ignorance- they literally have no way to imagine the things they are missing out on because they have no exposure. So, you can't help them. Just smile and nod and let them be the silly little bubbas they are.
I have to say this is the most I have ever been disappointed in ERA. As an aside, is AsianERA discord still a thing? Can I get an invite? I left it in a channel purge a while back.
That's funny. I was also thinking of that dumb 100k is rich thread.
But yes, I think most people cannot see from the perspective of others.
But yes, I think most people cannot see from the perspective of others.
I'm not really sure living outside an enclave is gonna make you more perceptive to certain issues. When you grow up in an environment that's predominantly white, my experience at least was that I shrugged off moments of racism initially as harmless because it felt so commonplace and normal to me in a sense that I wasn't even consciously aware of how messed up it was upon later reflection. It just...was and it's very easy to accept it without thinking "why?". This might be an extreme case since my school was literally 95% + White but once I moved out and read online did I start to become aware of these things.
Nowadays I don't go a day wondering what it'd be like to grow up more in a different environment that might have been predominantly Asian.
Some elements of white supremacy always leak through. As a kid, I definitely heard from a cousin that she'd never date an Asian man because they reminded her too much of us, and we all went to schools over 50% Asian. People made fun of my food anyway. And I really brushed it all off until I got to college, where the Asian population was like 33%, and the reality of my situation really hit home. I wish I'd known sooner.
Moreover, I really think it's best for the children of minorities to interact with other minorities, to foster camaraderie in what unites us and empathy in what differs between our shared experiences. In same ways I think we're really privileged, and think it's really sad that I only learned about the more difficult parts of the black experience from this forum.
Moreover, I really think it's best for the children of minorities to interact with other minorities, to foster camaraderie in what unites us and empathy in what differs between our shared experiences. In same ways I think we're really privileged, and think it's really sad that I only learned about the more difficult parts of the black experience from this forum.
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AsianERA discord is like... a desert wasteland lol. But I'll toss you an invite when I get home.
TBH no one I knew made fun of my food, but that's because the group I hung out with was 100% Asian (with one token weeaboo). We all ate the same thing :p. & the only two Asian family members that refused to date Asian men were Asians that grew up in an area that was mostly white. The rest of us, and all my girl friends, had no issues dating whatever color we wanted.
I do wonder if growing up with black people would have taught me about the black experience, because like you, most of my education about the black experience was through these forums. It changed the way I understood what it meant to be black, and just how prevalent anti-black racism is (things that I wouldn't have noticed on reddit ten years ago are like WTF now).
Unfortunately in my area, minorities fight with each. In schools that are more diverse, we end up with Asians beefin with Mexicans, etc. It's pretty lame. There's lot of stereotypes and whatnot. But then again, so cal is extremely racially segregated so maybe it's just a function of living here?
I find that a lot of times Asians from Asia side with white people over the diaspora. Because they don't know what it's like to not be the dominant culture either.
We have a Discord?
Part of it, and why I'm personally very much for affirmative action, is that we as humans fail to empathize with people we have few interactions with. I think that by virtue of being born to someone with a college degree, my future kids will have a decent enough shot at getting a good education and having someone guide them through the process. What's just as important to me as having a smart kid is having a good kid: someone who knows the difference between right and wrong, someone who is inclusionary, and someone who is willing to listen and empathize.
Racists that voted for Trump not because of welfare, but thought of someone who doesn't look like them getting welfare. We're just as human as those racists are, and heaven knows us Asians are not above that sort of discrimination ourselves. I hope that one day society will rise above that, so I think experiencing diversity should be part of raising a child in our times.
Racists that voted for Trump not because of welfare, but thought of someone who doesn't look like them getting welfare. We're just as human as those racists are, and heaven knows us Asians are not above that sort of discrimination ourselves. I hope that one day society will rise above that, so I think experiencing diversity should be part of raising a child in our times.
is chinese american culture so... bubbled? Even with regards to chinese food? You can get mind-blowing chinese/indo/thai/viet etc food like anywhere in the Sydney CBD and I dare to say it seems a cut above orange chicken or the tales I hear about american-chinese food...
Well, the proximity of Australia to China makes it a little unfair...
The American Chinese cuisine (orange chicken, general tsao, etc) has interesting history because of how it developed. It really started in SF, when workers were brought here or came here to pan for gold and eventually build raid roads. The food evolved to try and fit into "American" preferences - everything very fried, greasy, and sweet... with a shit load of carbs. Of course, the American Chinese community developed their own kind of dishes, based upon the recipes from China, but sourced with local ingredients as a lot of things used in Chinese cooking across all regions were unavailable here. So, it kind of forked in two, but I think that the local American Chinese food unique to SF is best in SF and sadly not as readily available outside of that area (even in SoCal, because by the time SoCal became heavily populated with Asians there was already the means to bring over people and food from Asia so there was no need to modify recipes quite as much.)
You can get amazing Asian food now in the US, in a style must more reminiscent of the meals in Asia, with ingredients that used to be found exclusively in Asian countries, but those places tend only to survive/thrive in places that have a heavy Asian American concentration. Otherwise, yeah in bumfuck Idaho, good luck trying to find anything but orange chicken lol.
Asian foods are ever evolving in the US, though. Korean fried chicken/Japanese fried chicken is a staple in LA, and it's definitely not "traditional," though how can you call it non authentic?
You can get amazing Asian food in the cities. Queens, New York may have the most varied collection foods in world. Its the most ethnically diverse area in the world so you have blocks it feels like they are different countries.
Also American Chinese food isn't bad just different. Sadly from my experience travelling to Australia and Europe. American Chinese food seem to have a broader reach in western countries than real Chinese food. Canada is really the only Western country I've visited where real Chinese food is more previlent than American Chinese.
I swear I had about five different muhfuckers calling me a gatekeeper in that thread, when I damn near bolded that it ain't about a white person cooking "Asian" food.
I'mma need to hop in that Discord too yall
I'm all for the Afro-Asian Alliance. Wu Tang Clan, Afro Samurai, Nujabes, Samurai Champloo, Naomi Osaka, look at all that cool shit our combined powers created.
I'mma need to hop in that Discord too yall
I heard it actually started in NY.
As for SF Chinese food, I would say having that style of food here for so long makes it worse than what's available in SoCal, as the SF palette got used to it. So whereas SoCal's cuisine evolved to include more (ugh) authentic food from Asia, SF kind of kept a lot of that Americanized hybrid style.
Example of regionalist Asian-America cuisine: West Coast, PNW, Mountain West have it. I grew up eating this, and it is Japanese-American donburi, for simplification's sake. It doesn't exist at all out here in the Midwest.
Huh, I wasn't sure, so I checked and it looks like the Chinese arrived around the same time? late 1800s. I'm not familiar with NYC though. I always heard American Chinese food really came from SF, but I could be wrong. I also checked and it looks like a lot of the immigrants to SF, at least, came from the southern provinces, which would explain why food just isn't as spicy up there, haha.
& yeah, I agree with you about SF's Chinese food. There's lot of delicious places, and the dim sum there is actually, imho, the best in Cali, yet a lot of other kinds of Asian food still retain the American fusion. Thank goodness I live so close to the 626 :p.
(But I dream about the egg yolk buns I got from this one place in SF that my friend took me to and I have no idea what the name was but oh my god it was so perfect and delicious and <333)
One thing to add is American Chinese food isn't even universal in America. Chinese food in NY is different than SF which is different than LA.
I think the SF thing makes sense, spread westward with the railroads. If I recall, there is a population of very white looking folks with Chinese surnames, along the Mississippi River in the South because that's where railroads joined up and the Chinese laborers just stuck around.
I used to live in the 626. Now I don't even know what the area code is for Mountain View because landlines aren't really a thing anymore.
Yo that AJ documentary on the Mississippi Delta Chinese blew my fucking mind. What struck me the most was that they didn't use chopsticks during their dinner. I was a little sad seeing that.
Having lived here all my life, while there are definitely some good places, I've always felt SoCal had a much wider range and selection of good Chinese food by comparison. So I'm envious of your access =)