this is orientalism.

what is orientalism?

as soon as my last ask got published I had someone ask anonymously my opinions about another middle eastern country our country is typically racist towards (I dont support, ftr, Im a decent human being) as some sort of "hah gotcha youre also racist bc youre turkish you cant speak against racism against you"

i'm Chinese and take voice lessons and my (white) teacher asked me what languages i speak. i told her that i'm learning Mandarin and French and she asked me if i would want to do a song in French. i said that i would be open to it and asked about doing songs in Mandarin. she said i couldn't because they used tones in the melody and also because of the style of singing (she said it was very nasal or something). even though that's definitely not the only style of singing in Mandarin, right??

really obvious one but growing up, my mom didn't let me eat at any asian restaraunts because she thought they "used dog meat as filler". i don't really talk to her anymore, but it only hit me around my teen years how screwed up she was.

people either

People who think they can be "transracial". The primary target of these are Asians, but I've seen people trying to transition into African Americans and Hispanic.

Am half Khmer. I look up khmer to see if there’s anyone else like me.

are silly asks permitted?

Is it orientalism (this was years ago) to be talking to someone about culture in relation to gender and mention the current issues and positives going on in a country (in this case the Philippines) (I’m not actually from the philippines but my Lola is) and the historic gender fluidity and such that existed before Spanish colonization and get the response of: “ok well we’re not in the ‘Philippeenys’” (mispronounced like that idk if it was intentional though) and then get like mocked with the typical stereotype-y language jokes and such even though Tagalog/Filipino isn’t even similar to mandarin?????? (Idk this was a rant and idk if it’s my place to speak considering I’m Asian American I look mostly white. But still it’s just?? This was years ago and I jst thought abt it again and I hear stuff like this all the time.)

there's something need to be said about certain white transfems that grow up in 4chan basing their entire identity of wanting to look like anime girls and believing it would make them pass, hiding behind cutesy anime girl pfp telling Asian transfems they'll pass better

the assumption that if asians are hanging out with each other or talking etc etc in a mostly nonasian space we’re related or family friends or smth like nah i met her five minutes ago pls why would we be cousins we’re not even from the same part of the continent im crine we look SO different but no all they see is hair color eye shape skin color and literally nothing else cmon we’re not pixels we don’t all look the same and we aren’t all the same..

So I was scrolling my feed, as one does, and then I randomly saw someone who was using a bunch of different kpop idols and listing them as “transition goalsss” and then saying “well, I’m not Asian, but a lot of my friends tell me I look like it” which just… uh… I feel like that’s a choice?

one of my classmates was talking about how he’s been mistaken for lots of ethnicities and I chimed in saying that lots of ppl have thought I’m latinx, and he was like “wait you aren’t???” and I was like “no I’m actually Japanese” and the second I said that he and the guy next to him pulled the sides of their eyes and one did the thing where they make fun of mandarin (“ching chong ding dong” and stuff) and the other said “so how many dogs have you eaten”

any time i see a video made by a chinese person on instagram/tiktok/whatever the comments are always filled with jokes about 'social credit' and that shit (often depicting orientalist caricatures of ancient chinese people) and if it already pisses me off as someoen who is not chinese, i can't imagine what it must feel like for actual chinese people. i see it specially on videos of people speaking or singing in chinese. western people are so allergic to bring normal about asians

my mom referring to a Baptist church near us as “the weird Asian Baptist church”??

I think white people should shut up sometimes because I noticed the casual racism when it comes to like people criticizing anime and manga in a way that feels like that one xcdc comic strip "wow women are awful at math". Like sure anime and manga has problem with sexualizing minors but the more you look deeper that is also a problem with western mediam it just that so normalized you dont even notice like remember the weird ass scenes in Totally Spices. It should be criticized sure but I'm not trusting white people, or anyone that isn't from Japan talk about it without outing themselves as racists I swear

Not an experience, but I wanted to recommend the youtube channel Yousef AbdulHusain which makes videos about orientalism and representation of Arabs in media. I wanted to shout him out in case you or your followers might be interested, plus he's a smaller channel that frankly deserves more views.