hiya!
Answering to your comment from my previous letter, my aunt, uncle and cousin currently live in San Jose, they live in a dreamy environment with several differnt types of animals like racoons, cats , deers and when there was a drought they were told that there were wolves in their neighborhood{looking for water}.
Yesterday was the Victoria Secret Show and the fashion community has been talking about it for the past week. It took place in Shanhai, China and top models from around the world are coming to be on the runway, showing their beautiful yet unrealistic bodies.
One of the most famous model was Gigi Hadid, she wasnt allowed to come to China because a while ago she posted a video mocking "chinese eyes". To me, she probably didnt even know it was such a bad gesture, since it happens in white schools quite often. But what dissapointed me was, her father was a imigrant, she herself like the rest of her family are all muslims, so i thought maybe she would be more understanding towards respecting others' cultures, both looks and religion. Oh well, perhaps she is still learning.
Dear Aubrey,
ReplyDeleteYou watched the Victoria's Secret show from Shanghi?
Have you found a Victoria's Secret store in Taipei yet?
"Chinese eyes"? Really? I haven't heard that one in a very long time. Had someone called her "raghead", which is the American military slang term for a muslim? Naturally, the soldiers have some "stronger" nicknames, but I won't repeat any of those.
There is also the matter that the Chinese are a little overly sensitive to that sort of thing. Do you remember the episode of the Taiwanese girl in the Korean singing group "Twice"? The group made a little promotional video, and the 16 year old singer was holding a Taiwanese flag in the video. All of China went crazy. I'm sure that the girl had no idea what was going to happen. If it wasn't so sad for the young girl, their reaction would have been very funny.
The US is such a mixture of races and cultures, that elementary school kids are insulting each other with "ethnic slurs" all the time. My grandson is in third grade, and he knows most of those names already. I'm sorry, but here in Arizona, most people would probably think that you were Mexican, not Asian. So you would be a "beaner" or a "wetback", not a "gook" or a "slope". I, of course, am an "old gringo" to my Mexican students. So for most Americans, these names are more a matter of "teasing" rather than "insulting". There's a good chance that the model had no idea that the Chinese would react the way they did.
You writing is a good as ever! Keep it up.
Dear Aubrey,
ReplyDeleteGood job on you book trailer!
Tim