The Asian Glance-Over

I’ve been meaning to leave a comment addressing my fellow Conartist(ry), Diana’s, old posting about the 2 types of Asians in Missouri for a while now. (Which, by the way, kiddo, was quite insightful. ) But I decided to make a posting of it here so that this topic might get out to some of you folks as well.

I’m going to excerpt a little here and there from her posting so that my comments will be more easily contextualized, since I know most of you won’t bother following the link to read her post, you lazy bastards, you. Anyways, here we go.

“Most Asians, when we come across each other in the mall or on campus, we sneak a glance. You can almost see the gears turning as we look each other over.”

I’ve noticed this particularly Asian habit for a loooong, long time now, and you know, it’s something that I guess I should already have addressed on this site, though oddly enough, I haven’t. It’s what I call “The Asian Glance-Over.” Sizing each other up is essentially what I think this is. Deciding in which ways this Asian (me) is better than that Asian. Because really, proportion-wise, we are a small population. So when we see another one, we must size them up, see what they’re all about, what they’re doing here, why they’re invading our territory. “There’s only room for one sheriff in town, sonny.”

I’ll admit, I do this quite often. Especially to girls. But that’s only because I’m male, duh. But to Asian males, it’s different. I’ll be perfectly honest, the only thing that’s going thru my head when I see another Asian male is, “Who the fuck do you think you are?” It’s so strange. There’s this one customer who always comes into the video store, obviously one of those … white-washed Asians (not in a bad way, though it’s gonna sound like I think that), wears buddha bead bracelets, has a crew cut, dates a white girl, and brims with confidence. That right there is the telltale sign of the unconventional Asian male. Confidence. I think in general, the stereotypical Asian male seems meek in comparison to his non-Asian counterparts, both in speech and demeanor/body language.

Honestly, I’m more than glad I broke free of this mold loooong ago when I left high school. Too much hanging around church-going Koreans does no good for the outwardly demeanor, lemme tell ya. There’s so many reasons why I’m glad I broke free of my habit of hanging around only Asians. Well, more particularly, urban Asians, I guess.

Because yeah, Missouri Asians were different. Not too different, mind you. But different. Okay, whoa, went way off topic. Where was I?

The Asian Glance-Over. I somehow always thought it might be an exclusively Asian-American thing. Since we’re used to not seeing many Asians. But when I went to MU, even when I walked past Asians that were clearly exchange students, they’d give me the Glance-Over, too. I was shocked. Shocked! Offended even! Thru my mind, I was saying to myself, “You got the nerve to come to my country and give me the Glance-Over? Aw, heeeell no.”

So for me, it was like this. Back at home, every Asian’s looking for status within our community, so what went thru my head was, is he nerdier than me? Or if he was a gangsta Asian, what can I do to be more popular like them (w/o smoking)? Of course, this was always somewhat beyond my control. Ha.

Back in Missouri, it was, why are you invading my space? Go home, this is my town. Or else, too, it was, is he nerdier than me?

Like it ultimately really even mattered. I’m still not ultra-popular, nor, I predict, will I ever be, I’m still not smooth with the ladies to warrant being “cooler” than other Asians, and most of it is all probably jealousy that all the other Asians I know went on to big name schools and are probaby making shitloads of money either now or in the near future. And they all still have their loyal network of nerdy, overachieving friends.

But that’s just me. I don’t know about everyone else.