madness. madness

It’s hard to come up with ideas for Halloween costumes, especially when it seems like all the good ones are taken. And don’t you hate showing up at a party only to discover that there’s *another* pajama cardinalfish?

I train neural networks, a type of machine learning algorithm, to write humor by giving them datasets that they have to teach themselves to mimic. They can sometimes do a surprisingly good job, coming up with a metal band called Chaosrug, a craft beer called Yamquak and another called The Fine Stranger (which now exists!), and a My Little Pony called Blue Cuss.

So, I wanted to find out if a neural network could help invent Halloween costumes. I couldn’t find a big enough dataset, so I crowdsourced it by asking readers to list awesome Halloween costumes. I got over 4,500 submissions.

The most popular submitted costumes are the classics (42 witches, 32 ghosts, 30 pirates, 22 Batmans, 21 cats (30 incl sexy cats), 19 vampires, and 17 each of pumpkins and sexy nurses). There are about 300 costumes with “sexy” in their names; some of the most eyebrow-raising include sexy anglerfish, sexy Dumbledore, sexy golden pheasant, sexy eyeball, sexy Mothra, Sexy poop emoji, Sexy Darth Vader, Sexy Ben Franklin, Sexy TARDIS, Sexy Cookie Monster, and Sexy DVORAK keyboard. In the “technical challenge” department, we have costumes like Invisible Pink Unicorn, Whale-frog, Glow Cloud, Lake Michigan, Toaster Oven, and Garnet.

All this is to say that humans are very creative, and this task was going to be tricky for a neural network. The sensible approach would be to try to use a neural network that actually knows what the words mean - there are such things, trained by reading, for example, all of Google News and figuring out which words are used in similar ways. There’s a fun demo of this here. It doesn’t have an entry for “Sexy_Gandalf” but for “sexy” it suggests “saucy” and “sassy”, and for “Gandalf” it suggests “Frodo”, “Gollum”, and “Voldemort”, so you could use this approach to go from “Sexy Gandalf” to “Sassy Voldemort”. 

I wanted something a bit weirder. So, I used a neural network that learns words from scratch, letter by letter, with no knowledge of their meaning, an open-source char-rnn neural network written in Torch. I simply dumped the 4500 Halloween costumes on it, and told the neural network to figure it out.

Early in the training process, I decided to check in to see how it was doing.

Sexy sexy Dombie Sexy Cat Sexy A stare Rowan Sexy RoR A the Rog Sexy Cot Sexy Purbie Lampire Poth Rat Sexy Por Man The Wombue Pombie Con A A Cat The Ran Spean Sexy Sexy Pon Sexy Dander Sexy Cat The Gull Wot Sexy Pot Hot

In retrospect, I should have expected this. With a dataset this varied, the words the neural network learns first are the most common ones.

I checked in a little later, and things had improved somewhat. (Omitted: numerous repetitions of “sexy nurse”). Still the only thing that makes sense is the word Sexy.

Sexy The Carding Ging Farbat of the Cower Sexy The Hirler A costume Sexy Menus Sexy Sure Frankenstein’s Denter A cardian of the Pirate Ging butter Sexy the Girl Pirate

By the time I checked on the neural network again, it was not only better, but astoundingly good. I hadn’t expected this. But the neural network had found its niche: costume mashups. These are actually comprehensible, if a bit hard to explain:

Punk Tree Disco Monster Spartan Gandalf Starfleet Shark A masked box Martian Devil Panda Clam Potato man Shark Cow Space Batman The shark knight Snape Scarecrow Gandalf the Good Witch Professor Panda Strawberry shark Vampire big bird Samurai Angel lady Garbage Pirate firefighter Fairy Batman

Other costumes were still a bit more random.

Aldonald the Goddess of the Chicken Celery Blue Frankenstein Dancing Bellyfish Dragon of Liberty A shark princess Statue of Witch Cupcake pants Bird Scientist Giant Two butter The Twin Spider Mermaid The Game of Nightmare Lightbare Share Bat The Rocky Monster Mario lander Spork Sand Statue of pizza The Spiding hood A card Convention Sailor Potter Shower Witch The Little Pond Spice of pokeman Bill of Liberty A spock Count Drunk Doll of Princess Petty fairy Pumpkin picard Statue of the Spice of the underworker

It still was fond of using made-up words, though. You’d be the only one at the party dressed as whatever these are.

Sparra A masked scorby-babbersy Scormboor Magic an of the foand tood-computer A barban The Gumbkin Scorbs Monster A cat loory Duck The Barboon Flatue doctor Sparrow Plapper Grankenstein The Spongebog Minional marty clown Count Vorror Rairol Mencoon A neaving hold Sexy Avical Ster of a balana Aly Huntle starber pirate

And it ended up producing a few like this.

Sports costume Sexy scare costume General Scare construct

The reason? Apparently someone decided to help out by entering an entire costume store’s inventory. (”What are you supposed to be?” “Oh, I’m Mens Deluxe IT Costume - Size Standard.”) 

There were also some like this:

Rink Rater Ginsburg A winged boxer Ginsburg Bed ridingh in a box Buther Ginsburg Skeleton Ginsburg Zombie Fire Cith Bader Ginsburg

Because someone had entered about 50 variations on Ruth Bader Ginsberg puns (Ruth Tater Ginsberg, Sleuth Bader Ginsber, Rock Paper Ginsberg).

It invented some awesome new superheroes/supervillains.

Glow Wonder Woman The Bunnizer Ladybog Light man Bearley Quinn Glad woman robot Werewolf super Pun Super of a bog Space Pants Barfer buster pirate Skull Skywolk lady Skynation the Goddess Fred of Lizard

And oh, the sexy costumes. Hundreds of sexy costumes, yet it never quite got the hang of it.

Sexy Scare Sexy the Pumpkin Saxy Pumpkins Sexy the Pirate Sexy Pumpkin Pirate Sexy Gumb Man Sexy barber Sexy Gargles Sexy humblebee Sexy The Gate Sexy Lamp Sexy Ducty monster Sexy conchpaper Sexy the Bumble Sexy the Super bass Pretty zombie Space Suit sexy Drangers Sexy the Spock

You bet there are bonus names - and oh please go read them because they are so good and it was so hard to decide which ones to fit into the main article. Includes the poop jokes. You’re welcome.

I’ve posted the entire dataset as open-source on GitHub.

I don’t like to butt in on people’s posts, lord knows I don’t like starting shit but lemme take a second to tell y'all about getting ur lady bits put out of comission.

I, at the age of 12 years, was diagnosed with PCOS. For you that don’t know what that is, PCOS, or Poly-Cystic Ovarian Syndrome, is a LIFELONG medical condition where groups of cysts grow on your ovaries causing the production of female hormones in your body to go batshit nuts and cause a whole sideshow of different symptoms such as but not limited to:

Irregular cardiac function (it’s a scary time)

severe weight gain and trouble losing weight (i may eat healthy and work out daily but until I was down to 1-2 meals a day of spinach i wasn’t losing weight)

severe adolescent acne, and adult acne

extra hair on the face, chest, arms, legs, thumbs, belly and back (I shave my face everyday before class and usually before I go to bed)

thinning hair on the scalp due to an excess of male hormones

irregular or no periods 

HEAVY periods

EXTREME PERIOD PAIN

depression and anxiety

pelvic pain

increased risk for type 2 diabetes

Increased for all female reproductive cancers due to infrequency of periods

Now, TMI, but I recently had my first period in 6 FUCKING YEARS. Due to the nature of PCOS generally when you have a period it’s because one of the cysts on your ovaries has burst releasing a flood of hormones into your system as well as built up toxins. Basically, when I had mine my body went into full on panic mode, nausea and vomiting, extreme fatigue, mood swings like you wouldn’t believe, my body went from being relatively alright to the cliffs of fucking Gallipoli in an hour flat. The kicker was on top of all that I had cramping so bad I actually blacked out.  Given that I know this is likely to happen again before I reach menopause, I decided to book an appointment with my local Planned Parenthood (applaud those lovely people and what they do) to see what my options were to make sure it never happens again. After telling me about various hormonal treatments they could prescribe me (not pills but IUDs shots and various other things) I asked them if it was possible for me to get a partial hysterectomy. A partial hysterectomy removes the uterus but keeps the ovaries so that they still are able to produce estrogen. The lady I had the appointment with looked at me with a look of the utmost pity and told me that unfortunately due to my age there would be likely no chance for any doctor to do it. When I pressed her on the topic she said that the most common excuse doctors will give you for it is that you’re too young, you might change your mind and want to have children later in life.  Now I dunno if y’all reading this are currently seeing anything wrong with this scenario here but I was told that I, someone who can’t have kids, doesn’t want kids, has never wanted kids, and would be put at severe risk of life threatening complications, have to have had children before anyone would consider giving me a surgery that not only would undoubtedly improve the quality of my life but also remove

Well, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to get a referral from her during the appointment, I went home and decided to research this bullshit. Turns out that there is something commonly evoked when women want to have any part of their reproductive system put out of commission called the three child rule. Basically if you are young, doctors usually wont let you get either a hysterectomy or a partial hysterectomy UNLESS you have already had three children. 

HOLD THE MOTHERFUCKING PHONE FOR A WHOLE SECOND AND THINK ABOUT THIS

By most doctors standards, YOU are REQUIRED as a woman to PHYSICALLY GIVE BIRTH to at least 3 CHILDREN before you are able to have any of your reproductive system removed or decommissioned. 

And that isn’t even the worst part of it all, these standards DO NOT change when the patient is at high risk for reproductive cancers!

How fucking miserable is it that to take control of your own fucking health in a first world country a woman has to have submitted to the gender roles of having children or actually have contracted cancer or some other immediately life threatening condition.

COPS: We all know how bad you want to imagine that you’re in a combat zone. We see daily how quick you are to draw down on an unarmed black person. We watch as you dress yourself in military gear, military weapons and shield yourself in a military mentality. 

I have news for you:

You’re cops. Not rangers. 

The gear I see you wearing is the same gear i saw my best friends die wearing… In iraq. In combat. The weapons you carry and point at peaceful protesters, I used in combat. And let me tell you something: If i EVER pointed my weapon at an innocent civilian or someone i did not intend to kill, my ass would get chewed the fuck up. And yet, i see groups of you pointing your rifles at AMERICANS with your fingers on the trigger, safety off, ready to kill someone. 

Every time i see a group of you walking down the street or buzzing down the road in a squad car i see an occupying force. I see presence patrols. I imagine that the Iraqi people saw me the same way America sees you.

You occupy our streets and live outside of normal American society. You isolate yourselves. You stand secluded from the rest of us so you can more easily see us as someone to shoot at. I know your mentality. I lived it. 

Your toxic masculinity and inflamed bravado can be smelled from miles away. You love your gear. You love wearing your tactical vests because you think it’s cool. 

You’re supposed to be our protectors, part of the community. You’re supposed to be walking the beat and interacting with families and small business owners. Instead you intimidate the people around you. The people of this country don’t trust you to do the right thing anymore. You’re dogs with the taste of blood. 

Remember, you’re cops, not rangers.

change the color used to highlight text on your laptop

move the pictures on your wall

stack whatever clutter is in your room into piles even if you don’t have time to clean it all

slightly vary your commute, even just by one street

change where you sit and scroll aimlessly on your phone even if it’s only to the chair in your room instead of your bed

drink water or juice out of a wine glass in the morning because nothing is real

shower with the lights off, without music

buy $3 flowers at trader joe’s—they look bad next to the more expensive ones but they look so good in your room

start typing things you don’t post into your notes. your thoughts can be worth documenting even if you don’t deem them worth sharing

wake up super early just once. you don’t have to make it a habit it’s just extra satisfying to go to bed that night

The other day I was feeling miserable, so I hopped on a bus and rode it all the way back to where I’d started, and my brain, which had finally had some proper stimulation via new environments, was suddenly ready to go again!

Undead Muslim Character

I would like you to think about the repercussions of a story line like this with a Muslim character for just a moment. Think about the fact that this is a Muslim character, who believes in Islam, a religion where it is encouraged you bury a dead body as soon as possible - often within a few hours to a day - so that they can rest. You’re not even supposed to delay keeping the body above ground, such as for a wake. You have the janazah (the funeral prayer) and that’s it. You pray for the person to be forgiven for any sins they might have committed. Death is not the end. We do believe in an afterlife and we believe that the trials a Muslim faces in their grave are just the gateway to something more.Think about all this - which I’ve pared down to the most basic aspects of a dense, weighty subject - and then look at the idea of a Muslim, who has already presumably died in a traumatic way, who is being brought back by a supposed friend in spite of being a Muslim…and just, apparently, goes in the face of all of this FLOUTING of her faith, “Oh, well. I’ll live with it.”No. No. No.The idea of being a Muslim cannot be entirely divorced from the fact that a Muslim practices, comes from a background and believes in the tenets of Islam. If you are writing a Muslim character, you are acknowledging this. It is not merely a blanket term that you plaster across a character’s back and then proceed to flout exactly what this will mean to them, and how it affects their world and their experiences.This is definitely not Muslims and magic (which, by the way, we’ve made clear multiple times is a topic we are no longer discussing). It is worse. It is a step down further into not respecting us, not really caring about our representation beyond our being an exotic spice - those strange, often hated people who can easily translate over into strange, often hated creatures. I’ve written a full post, in response to an ask about Muslim vampires, on why these stories featuring Muslim monsters, right now as Muslim children are preparing to face retribution for countering THEIR bullies, when Donald Trump wants to shuffle the lot of us into camps and none of us can step outside or even take a breath without feeling the brunt of someone’s ignorant, uneducated hatred, is utterly and entirely inappropriate. I’d suggest you read that post, in its entirety, and some of the comments from other Muslim followers of the blog in the notes. Think about what we are feeling, what we are already facing.

My mom is from Mazandaran (a province in northern Iran) and my dad is swiss; we are living in Switzerland.

I was born here, I grew up here, I’ve never known another home and growing up I had always thought of myself as swiss (well, that changed a bit lately, but anyway). The only difference between me and my white friends was the way I looked and my ~foreign~ name.

So naturally it bothered me that it always had to be me who was asked where I was from, or what language I spoke and where my parents were from. It confused me. Could I not be as swiss as my friends, just because I’m overall darker? I already was more of a shy kid, but always being singled out for being ~different~ made me really self conscious. When I started Elementary School, I had already stopped speaking persian and over the years I almost completely unlearned it.

Beauty Standards 

Though by now I am kinda pale-ish (but still not white passing lol), I tan quickly and as a child I spent a lot of time outside, so I had pretty dark skin. Which I didn’t like back then. My other concerns were mostly how hairy I was compared to others. Having very thick hair with a tendency to fluff out, I liked to wear it short during summer so I didn’t get to hot. But combine that with thick eyebrows and my older brother’s clothes I wore (what, they were spacey!), and I often got asked wether I was a girl or a boy, which made me even more insecure, because all my friends just naturally looked ‘girly’ with their long hair and thin eyebrows and light skin.

I still sometimes feel bad because of my ‘middle-eastern’ nose, although it’s actually kinda small? It’s just the hook that throws me off. But I’ve made my peace with it, on good days I even love this hook.

Racism/Microagressions

Being asked multiple times in stores if I work here; from age 14 onwards.

Butchered spellings/pronouncing of my name with people not even trying to get it right, like, it’s not that hard. My name already is spelled as phonetically as possible.

‘O.M.G. you don’t even have an accent!!!!1!’

‘Say smth in your language!!!’

‘Oh so you speak arabic?’ please don’t

'Doesn’t your religion say (insert idiotic thing)??’ Um, my religion? I’m (technically) christian?

Culture and Identity

Growing up in Switzerland, I am well acquainted with our customs here. But since most of my maternal relatives live in Iran and my mom and I aren’t really close, I’ve been distanced from her culture.  I’m still in the process of finding my identity but I’m pretty sure I won’t identify as swiss anymore, or at least only as half-swiss. I’m relearning persian and I’m informing myself about my mother’s culture -my culture- and I’m also hoping to go to Iran one day soon. I never really was accepted as swiss, I guess I was kind of the only one who thought of myself as swiss, because everyone else, including my own parents (my mom hoping I’d show more interest in her culture and my dad often being asked where I was from or even if I was his child) had always seen me as  a foreigner to some degree. But that doesn’t really bother me anymore. Maybe I’ve really never been swiss, but being persian is more than okay with me now.

I am however very grateful that the fact that I’m not straight (at least I don’t think I am? I’m kinda undecided) is not and will probably never be a problem, as many of my friends aren’t either and my parents are pretty accepting.

Family Issues

My mom and I not getting along all too well sometimes makes reconnecting to persian (and mazandarani) culture hard. I learned the arabic/persian script by myself and I’m doing most of my research alone too. The few times my mother’s relatives come to visit were fun, but the communication was kinda hard with my very limited persian skills. I do enjoy family get-togethers though; my relatives are mostly nice and fun, the food is amazing and i love hearing persian spoken around me; it reminds me of my early childhood, when my brother, my cousins and I used to all sleep together in my room on the floor when they visited.

But I don’t want to deny my swiss family either; which is the main reasons I’m not sure whether I still kinda want to identify as swiss or not. I spent a lot of time with my paternal grandparents, and though I think they weren’t all too happy at first when their son (my dad) married a foreigner (my mom), they do love having me and my brother around. They also helped me feel better about myself through my childhood, with my grandma always telling me how pretty my dark eyes were, and how lucky I was to have naturally curly hair and stuff. But at the same time, I can’t help but feel sad that I never really got to meet my maternal grandparents.

Food

Persian food definitively beats swiss food. I literally can’t live without rice and ghormeh sabzi. Also the sweets, oh my god. Every time my mom’s relatives come to visit I go up one clothing size and it’s so worth it.

What I’d like to see more of:

Real, diverse  and most importantly, positive representation of ME people!

ME LGBT+ people! Yes, we exist!

ME representation in children’s media!! This is so important!!!

What I’d like to never ever ever see again:

Terrorist jokes.

Fantasy-Villains that are very obviously inspired by Middle Eastern cultures, or rather, by stereotypes about those cultures.

Exotifying us.

Using ME people as barbaric idiots who all die at the hands of the ’“’”“heroic”“’”’ whites in movies.

Illegal immigrant jokes

White people making fun of the misogyny in ME countries when it’s literally just as bad in their own.

ME people being racist towards other POC. Like… why. Esp all this anti-blackness is so sad. Can’t we just collectively decide to dislike the west, instead of each other?

I was born in China and emigrated to Canada when I was 7, at a time when there weren’t very many Chinese people from the mainland in Canada - most are from Hong Kong and Taiwan, and people from there often had prejudices against people from mainland. Because of this, even though there were other Chinese people at my elementary school, my first friends were all white, the people who showed me the most patience with my lack of English were all white. To be honest, as a child, I encountered more hurtful micro-aggressions from Taiwanese and Hong Kong people than from white people, who were ignorant but not prejudiced. 

Beauty standards: I frequently notice that the standard of beauty for Chinese people is very different from the perspective of white people. Chinese people prefers large eyes and pale, clear skin. Westerners tend to prefer monolid eyes, or assume that Asian people all have this kind of eyes. I have large eyes with double-eyelids, so I have not encountered fetizhization or micro-aggressions in this manner, but I have had friends with obvious epicanthic folds being told “could you open your eyes bigger? Looks better on camera.”

Religion: I am raised an atheist but with Buddhist roots, since my hometown (Wuxi), is an important Buddhist cultural centre in China and that my grandparents often read scriptures from it. We go to the temples on lunar new year’s eve to pray for good health for the coming year, that is it. The most recent visits are for my grandfather, who passed away, because we believe that by offering our prayers to the gods, they will help him reincarnate into a good family.

Because of this significance, I am often disturbed by the usage of Buddhist heads in “spiritual prayer beads” and tattoos and mala beads and decor I often see being sold around the web. The body is considered sacred in Chinese and Buddhist culture (in ancient times, we don’t even cut our hair because it would be disrespectful to our parents, who gave us our flesh and blood). Buddhist heads are both an offence to this and a blatant disrespect to the plundering of China by Western forces in the early 19th century, where a lot of Buddhist statues had their heads sawed off and auctioned to foreign buyers. It is still happening today. The market won’t stop if people in the west keeps buying it. Please stop using Buddhist heads as some kind of sick decor or yoga meditation tool. 

Dating and Relationships: I experienced pre-school and two years of elementary school in China, and due to my lack of English in the beginning, my reading consisted almost entirely of Chinese literature. As a result, I am “more Chinese” than people born in Canada, but “less Chinese” than my cousins who grew up in China. This made dating and friendships a bit difficult. Two of my closest friends were Canadian-born families from Hong Kong, while another was from the Canton region. We get a long well for the most part, until it comes to the specifics of certain interests. For example, I never could get into the children’s books like Harry Potter and the pop singers from my elementary school days like my peers could. And my peers, of course, would never actually know about the Chinese philosophers and novelists I used to read about. At the same time however, I could not fully integrate with peers newly emigrated from China, because in comparison, my mannerisms and tastes have become much more Canadian. It is a bit difficult to explain, but I would tend to put it as a way of speaking and certain values. I tend to be much more direct that what is common amongst traditional Chinese people, who instead tend to talk in circles around the subject and expect you to get their implicit meanings. 

When it comes to dating, this could become an issue as well. My current relationship works really well because he, like I, came to Canada when he was 7, so he is at the same stage as I am, even though he is Korean. He is in the situation where he is “not Korean enough” and “not Canadian enough" 

Holidays: My family places more emphasis on Chinese holidays than Canadian ones. Mid-autumn festival, Lunar new year, are very important and must-get-togethers for the entire family. Christmas and Thanksgiving are more seen as a night out for dinner than an actual holiday. We do enjoy the days off however, though I am often sad that university exams are during the Lunar new year celebrations. 

Misconceptions: The assumption that every Chinese person is the same is the biggest and most annoying one for me. China is almost the entire size of Europe. Each region, even each city has different customs, languages etc than the other. People in the West often assume that we are either “mandarin” or “cantonese.” It is not that simple. “Cantonese” is spoken in only the Canton (Guangdong) Province, which is just one out of 34 provincial-level administrative areas in China. This is disregarding the variation in Cantonese in the province compared to the one in Hong Kong that is commonly heard here.

My mom comes from the Jiangsu province, encompasses hundreds of dialects of the “Wu” language. My dad comes from the Jianxi province, which also has many dialects of the “Gan” language. Even the dialects within the same language might be completely unintelligible to one another.  My parents communicate in Mandarin, the official language, which is why I only speak Mandarin, and I call myself “mandarin” when asked that question. Specifically, “mandarin” refers to the people of Northern China, the area including Beijing, the last imperial capital and the reason why “mandarin” is the official language. 

These languages are slowly disappearing as Mandarin is officially taught in schools and the transportation systems become more and more advanced to allow easy cross country travel.

A comparison can be drawn to immigrants in Canada. The first generation will retain most of the customs and languages, but how many of the Canadian-born children would still know their parents culture to the same extent?

Other notes: I am lucky to be living in Vancouver, where there are large populations of immigrants from all over the world. I am not really aware of my immigrant identity until I visited one of the smaller towns in East Canada. I get stared at in the streets (not rudely), and when they speak to me they seem to talk slower. They had good intentions (Canadian niceties), but at the same time it made me feel like I don’t belong here, that I had to look like them to be fully treated as a full Canadian. And then there’s the dreaded “Where are you really from?”

Things I’d like to see less of: Emotionless assassin girls with chopsticks in their hair for weapons. (Chopsticks are never used for hair, btw), delicate damsels needing to be rescued, nerdy math whizzes who ace everything and get depressed when they lose half a mark. We are as diverse as any group of people, and as individuals. Write us as people. Don’t typecast us for specific role. It’s kind of sad how excited I am for Batman vs Superman simply because of an Asian Mercy Graves.

Things I’d like to see more of: more girls not named Mei Lin and instead properly named with a Chinese name that has been researched. Two-syllable last names do exist: Sima, Dugu, Nangong, Duanmu, etc. There are 81 double character last names and hundreds more single character ones. Don’t default to the most common Li and Wang.

More girls who are a minority ethnicity: Here is a list of all the officially recorded ethnicities that exist in China.

This is getting pretty long so I’ll stop here. I will be happy to answer any further questions. 

Hello! I’m Kore, I’m Korean, Thai, and Chinese, and live in LA. I’m going to be sending some other things in, in a seperate POC Profile, but this was getting long. But if anyone ever is writing about Asians in LA(since there are… you know… a lot of Asians in LA), or just LA in generally and want to have their character visit one of parts of the city where more Asian people live, here is a small guide to most of them. 

Westside

Asian-Americans in LA have a shit ton of places you can go. To begin with is the Westside. This is the area near the Ocean, but isn’t directly on it generally. It’s called the Westside, because it’s almost the western most part of LA. On the Westside there’s Little Persia, with a lot of Persian food, and UCLA. This is specifically called Westwood, but we also call it the Westside. So hah. But because of UCLA there ends up being more East Asians around here because of UCLA, because of this, there’s a super strong East Asian presence around here with a lot of restaurants and stuff. In Mar Vista around here, there’s also a Chinese School that’s super big and popular.

Little Osaka

Then there’s Little Osaka, technically still part of the Westside, also technically called Sawtelle because it’s like three, maybe four, blocks of Sawtelle Blvd. But Little Osaka deserves a special mention of it’s own. This is the first of two Japanese areas in LA, however, Little Osaka also has a lot of Korean things, with many Korean people running Japanese stores. Little Osaka, is super popular to just mostly get food. There’s nothing actually to do here? But hey, food.

Koreatown

Next is Koreatown. So this place is almost in the heart of LA, it’s about 30 min to an hour from the Westside in terms of driving. This is half residential and half not. It’s 100% lit at night. In the heart of Koreatown we’ve got a lot of night clubs, and places to drink. On the peripherals, it’s dead at night. But there’s good food, and a lot of supermarkets. Around 60k Koreans live here alone. There are a lot more than that in LA. Around here is also Little Bangledesh. I’ve never actually been, but that’s also mostly made up of Korean people. Recently Little Bangledesh tried to take over half of Koreatown and make it into little Bangledesh, but was defeated in a vote, as Korean people really didn’t appreciate that. 

Right outside of here is Wilshire Korean School, which is a bilingual private school that has Korean School on Saturdays. This is one of maybe… three? Proper Korean schools in LA, most people just home teach their kids Korean. There are two supermarkets here. Galleria and HMart, both of them in Plaza sort of places. Galleria’s has better food, and probably better shopping. But HMart is the OG Asian supermarket and is near two really awesome desert places. One of them you can get a sweet bread, shaped like a fish, filled with ice cream and either red bean, custard, or nutella, and the other one you can get patbingsoo at, or Korean shaved ice.

Little Tokyo

There’s also Little Tokyo. Which I don’t think I’ve ever been to, odd, since I’ve lived in LA my whole life. But I mostly keep to Koreatown and the Westside too.

Chinatown(s)

Okay now for the Chinatowns. So there’s technically one, and that’s in the middle of LA. But let me tell you, that’s not Chinatown. It was, once upon a time, however, a lot of Chinese people moved out of there and to either Alhambra, or Montery Park. So we’ve got Old Chinatown, New Chinatown, and Chinatown. Now I can’t remember whether Montery Park or Alhambra is Old or New, but these are both out a bit a ways from the Chinatown in the middle of LA. 

In that Chinatown, all the festivals are thrown. It’s also tiny. Alhambra is a lot more laid out than Montery, which is super laid out. But Montery Park, and Alhambra, have got great food. Also no social lives, but great great food. There’s a supermarket here, when you leave the heart of Chinatown, and walk for maybe 10 minutes, that’s probably the biggest Thai supermarket I’ve ever seen. I mean… You can buy so much coconut sugar here. It's insane.

Thaitown

There’s also Thaitown!! Which is closer to Koreatown than both Old and New Chinatown. This is where you can get a lot of Thai Food, and products. There’s not a lot to do here, and it’s mostly disappearing. But food. Really though, this place is super duper duper boring.

Little India

There’s Little India as well. It’s maybe three streets at most.

Little Saigon

Little Saigon is the heart and soul of the Vietnamese diaspora in LA. It’s beautiful, and actually really awesome. Unlike Thaitown though, you can get good Vietnamese food outside of it. They’ve got streetfood (illegal in LA technically), and a super duper ginourmous market that’s bigger than the biggest HMart that I’ve ever see. It’s so… big.

Everything else isn’t of much note, I’m not going to lie. I hope you’ve enjoyed this guide! I enjoyed writing it for sure.

Hey there! I’m Indian and I’ve seen a few books with my ethnic representation but always Anglicized. Obviously, I’m talking about 1st gen, but even the diaspora of Indians in America have a culture which you need to know, even if you’re talking about lots of generations down the line. If you’re considering adding an Indian character, or a South Asian character, or heck, even an Asian character (we can draw parallels if you’d like), you might find my profile a worthwhile read. Los geht’s! This got pretty long, sorry ‘bout that.

Beauty Standards

Very prevalent and mostly even throughout the amalgam of various cultures and languages that is India. In general, fair skin, thin, and well-endowed are the basic beauty standards. Oh, and straight hair, preferably black. We’re actually very careful with our hair in general, oiling and washing quite often. Everyone has their own preferences: coconut, sesame, almond, etc. And natural remedies are actually more common than you’d think. Everyone’s grandma has a remedy for some or the other skin problem, hair problem or heck, even illnesses. If you’re lucky, they might even work. If you’re wondering, no, they don’t work for me. 

Clothing

We have various types of ethnic clothing, that we display most fantastically during our festivals. Generally, shorts and frocks are acceptable until maybe, 14 or 15 years of age, after which less-revealing clothes are preferred, like jeans, t-shirts, or salwar-kameez (everyone wears it, regardless of religion). In more conservative families, standards are vastly different. And ofc I’m talking about girls. Boys are boys. 

Culture

You get the gist already. Protect the girls, let the boys go wild. Or maybe not even keep the girls. If you’re wanting to dive deep into it, you’ll find a lot about it. Pretty depressing actually. It seeps into the minds of even the ‘modern’ families, makes them favour their boys over their girls, and so on. My mother was strongly impacted, and even I felt the after-effects. The most modern of my relatives (…relatively) pride having boys and no girls. One word: disgusting. 

And then the beauty standards for the girls, don’t get me started. Fair skin or the lack of it, it affects everything negatively. Your pride, your opportunities, your work life, your choice of suitors. It’s a crippling standard that some celebrities even actively endorse. And with the inherently misogynistic, cliched, not true to life (at all) Bollywood film culture, it’s a miracle that Indians are as sane as they are. 

Conservative families are usually more religious and more superstitious, along the lines of don’t wash your hair on this day, don’t trim your nails on this day, etc etc because it’ll be unholy. Of course, blasphemy.

We also have a hierarchy based on biological age, and we never call people older than us by their names, unless we have their explicit permission. It’s seen as extremely rude or demeaning. We call them aunty, uncle, big sis, big bro (the actual words depend on the language) even if we have no blood relations, because that’s just the way it is.

Dating and Relationships

More proactive than you’d think! Even though arranged marriages are the expected norm, you’ll find that dating culture is quite developed, especially if you’re just a normal teenager from a not very conservative family. Not that families like it. But it’s pretty normal, you’ll just have the cultural influences, but the inherent feelings are the same. But opposition, yes. That’ll make it a lot dramatic than it is.

Language

We all have lots of languages, each coming with its own culture and its own preconceived notions. Tensions are usually thicker when it’s brought into politics, because there’s a long history of colonisation and English over Hindi (a major national language) or Hindi over the others is a pretty tricky debate. There’s even one going on at the present about a new educational policy draft. Do tread very lightly if you want to bring it in, if ever. 

Of course, English is preferred, but personally, most of the English taught here is not enough. But most value it over their own language, not because they want to, but because they should. My mom doesn’t know English and it’s her worst, most crippling vice, or so she thinks. When I see half the drama in America, or predominantly English speaking countries, I am not very glad I know English. It is true English can open up opportunities, but I am adamantly against it encroaching my identity, though I might have not minded it too much at first. I wish the rest of India had even an inkling of such.

Daily struggles

Most students here go for coaching, a fancy way to say cram school if you’re a little in touch with Asian culture. It’s no surprise education is at its most oppressive here, with intense competition amongst lots of people. And hence, it’s also no surprise to see failure related suicides or deaths.

But this doesn’t mean we’re all smart. Maybe a few are book-smart, but you’ll find lots have sporty hobbies, even if they’re not given the proper platform. Academics are not the best thing in the world, but you can’t change centuries of ingrained notions in a few years. 

For 2nd gen or 3rd gen, they’ll still have the pressure. That kind of pressure weighs on them, an effect that you cannot ignore. But they’re not always book-smart. Some of the people I’ve known of my own ethnicity go from plain simpletons to downright manipulative. You have all kind of people, don’t force us into a stereotype. 

Tropes/Stereotypes I’m tired of seeing.

Exotic Indian features (what?!)

Spicy food (you’re missing out on a whole plethora of other dishes that are not spicy!) 

Smart, the problem-solver sidekick (a well-developed backstory might make it fine but it’s very imposing and you’re doing it wrong most of the time)

White girl/guy in a relationship with a poc being the dominant one, or even vice versa. 

Writing Research & Google 

Google is your friend when it comes to writing research. You can become even better friends when you use these tips to focus your search results!

See chart above (source: ultralinx) or the transcribe below: 

Quotation Marks - Use quotes to search for an exact word or set of words. 

Example: “To be or not to be”

Dashes - Put a dash before a word that you want to exclude in your search

Example: jaguar -animal 

Tilde - Use a tilde before a term to include results with its synonyms

Example: Christmas ~desserts

Site:Query - Search within a specific web page 

Example: site:nytimes.com 

Link:Query - Search for sites that link to a specified site url 

Example: link:creattica.com 

Two Periods - Use two periods between two numbers to express range of things like dates, measurements, and prices

Example: movies 1950..1970

Related:Query - Use to find sites that are related to the specified site. 

Dog artist.

A Rose of Jericho three hours after being watered having nearly returned to is previous, alive, state!