This blog has finally devolved into being the place I rant. I'd change that if I had the energy or inclination. Anyway, strap yourselves in for another rant.
I started watching the show Fresh off the Boat. Terrible title notwithstanding, I found it...... exceptionally non-offensive. It's immigration lite. The parents speak fluent English (albeit with a TERRIBLE accent), the kid isn't even an immigrant being born in DC. It's less of a "fish out of water" story as it's just "my family was little kooky growing up." Bland and mostly inoffensive. Until last week when it annoyed me so much I almost punched my computer screen.
The premise of the episode "Phillip Goldstein" is Eddie comes across as another Chinese kid in his school named Phillip. However, this kid was adopted and raised by a Jewish family in a fairly strict manner and like all good Jewish kids, excelled at school, music, religion, etc. Eddie's mom becomes enchanted with Phillip for being a great Chinese kid, everything she wishes her son to be. Long story short, Phillip shows his less than great side, which causes Eddie's mom to become disenchanted and yell at him for being a "bad Chinese kid." While the intended moral of this episode is that Eddie's mom had to learn to appreciate the kid she had, all it did was drive home for me how much I would be a "bad Korean kid."
Phillip wasn't being raised as a Chinese kid, he was being raised as a Jewish-American kid. Also, the "bad" thing he did? Had nothing to do with being Chinese, Jewish, American, etc. It had to do with being a kid. Here's a kid that got snatched away from his country of origin and being raised in a totally different environment. I wanted to yell at the mom for judging this kid on her standards, standards that this kid had never been measured. Because this happens ALL THE DAMN TIME.
Ways that I'm a bad Korean:
Don't speak Korean fluently
Hate chilies
Haven't finished college yet
Don't take care of my skin/hair/nails
Didn't marry a Korean
Don't know every obscure/archaic custom
The reason why? Because I got sold off as a child to an American family. I was deemed expendable by Korean society and isolated from the culture that I would have learned these things. If a Korean had told me when I was a child that I was a "bad Korean" I would have FLIPPED OUT. I got it bad enough from idiot Americans telling me I'm a "bad American" because I had such a different upbringing. Moral of the story? I belong nowhere. But no one gets to judge me on that.
