Banchan

Before I begin to read Counseling The Culturally Diverse, I'd like to mention a few disparate interesting things about Asian American identity. Please comment or email if you know anything about these topics.

1. Is there a theme of feeling displaced in Asian American literature? I haven't read enough of it to know, but I have noticed this phenomenon in the Asian American people I know. When you are being treated as a foreigner in your own country, when your parents speak a different language, when the place your parents have come from has changed so much in the past 50 years, it is hard not to feel somewhat out of place. How does this manifest itself in the way Asian Americans think of themselves and of the world?

2. I feel that Asian food, specifically Korean food has some magic powers that most of the food that I ate while growing up doesn't have. Korean food seems to communicate some kind of deep messages between generations. It has subtle flavors that add balance to a meal. The banchan add variety and set the slow pace. When meat is cooked at the table, it demands complete attention from all of the people at the table. I like my mom's meatloaf, but it just can't compare. When this food is commercialized and marketed towards non-Asian consumers, all of the messages contained within it are lost.

3. Is there any such thing as a pan-Asian-American culture? What similarities exist between Asian American groups within the US? Historically, where do these similarities come from? Why does Sue's mother remind me of the Thai women that I used to work with at my last job? Is it my own innate tendency to find commonalities within similar experiences, or is it because of China's influence on both Thailand and Korea?

4. White people like Asians, but at the same time, we think they are different. The blog-turned-book, Stuff White People Like has an ironic chapter on this. I read this and I hate how we can take this kind of difference and use it to separate people from one another. This kind of humor actually encourages white people to stick to dating their own race. If you date an Asian woman, you are doing so because you are 'that kind of white person who dates Asian women,' not because you like her.

People have a right to be seen as individuals. I'm just as guilty of making fun of the concept of Asian/White couples as the authors of Stuff White People Like, but I really think it should stop. I'm curious as to how long white people have exoticized Asians. Where did this start? Why does it continue?

Okay, time to start reading Counseling The Culturally Diverse. Stay tuned to see what the book has to teach us.