Kpop Universe

there is nothing wrong with consuming asian media but if you simply reduce us to only surface level things and then get mad at US for telling YOU certain things that should not be happening because somehow you think you know more than the actual asian person then stop. there is nothing wrong with finding us cute, sexy, attractive, beautiful, smart, or whatever other admiration you have but there is something wrong when you forget that we’re humans and force a whole imagined narrative onto us and then get mad at us when we don’t fit it. there is something wrong when you write us off as one-dimensional characters. there is nothing wrong with asian people who are sexual or sexy or confident but there is something wrong when ( especially when they’re women ) you have written or see her off as simply a seductress, some forbidden or foreign fruit that somehow becomes submissive and servile when she’s with her partner ( especially a man ) and she suddenly has no autonomy, no control of herself; or putting blame on us for your horniness when we have done literally nothing but breathe. there is nothing wrong with asian people who are sweet, innocent, and naïve but there is something wrong when they again have no autonomy, when you write them off always being coddled, always needing a savior ( especially by a white man ), and treating 30-40 year olds like children and thinking they know nothing just because they have cute characteristics or you think they’re cute. there is nothing wrong with the asian person who is smart but there is something wrong when you think every asian person is smart and then make cruel, microaggressive jokes when we fail in the thing you think asians are supposed to be smart in and constantly say things that are not for you too say if you’re non-asian; or deny creative asians the opportunity to be artists because you don’t think asians can be creative. there is nothing wrong with rich asians but there is something wrong when you ignore that wealth gaps exist and that many asians live in poverty, and that we all do not live glamorous lifestyles. 

as a writer, i do not expect nor want non-asian people writing asian experiences into their asian characters because you will not know or understand my experiences as an southeast asian women ( this is literally just a general thing, if you’re not part of a community you don’t have to try so hard to write experiences ). we just want you to write us as more than one personality trait that you got from a drama. i don’t expect you to know every nuance of every single asian culture but i want you to know that there are differences in each culture, and that we take pride in each one, and that we are not the same. asians have shared experiences but it doesn’t mean we are all the same. WE ARE NOT ALL THE SAME. i don’t want to read cultures being mixed together because well “all asians are essentially the same anyways” and then seeing people take a korean person and having them play a japanese person ( the fact that so many people forget lana condor is not korean, and that she’s vietnamese bothers me so much ) because again we are not a monolith. our languages are different. our hierarchies and the way we talk to each other are different. the way we see and face things are different ( southeast asians face things much differently than east asians and south asians face things much differently than west asians; asians in their homeland face things differently from asian-americans ). we may share traditions and holidays but we have many different ones from each other because WE ARE DIVERSE AND NOT A MONOLITH. i don’t expect you to know every asian countries’ history ( hell i’m still learning because there’s a lot to learn ) but when an asian person tells you something about their history or how that history has carried over the years and the consequences from that history, and you choose to ignore that because it doesn’t fit your fantastical view of what asia is then stop. 

you should be caring about our lives simply because we are human. that is it. not because we’re just entertaining but because we’re just humans. we are just humans.