Oriental Angst

[M Izabel]

Self-introspection is the only thing I'm sure I'm good at.  My folks reared me in it early on.  We had our own timeout for kids that might seem abusive in the eyes of most Westerners, but it was really to teach naughty kids how to self-introspect.  In my childhood days, our timeout involved unhusked rice, mongo beans, and dried corn depending on the gravity of our offense and  the number of times we had done it.  We knelt on them as punishment.  Rice grains were itchy.  Mongo beans rolled.  And dried corn hurt the most.  The knee pain forced us to self-introspect immediately so we could confess our faults and narrate the lesson we learned and the kneeling would be over.  Even if I did no wrong, I would still self-introspect and confess whatever came to mind to not prolong the pain.  Once, I said, "I just learned the truth about the existence of God; had I gone to church with Grandma, I could not have hit my brother."  I still self-introspect now, but without kneeling on anything organic except when I'm in a church, where there are pews with foam-padded kneelers.

 

One of the things I do while I'm Online is backreading my old posts in several forums I'm a member of.  For some weird reason, I find it fun and funny.  It's almost like Googling my friends' names and mine.  My posts always force me to self-introspect to the point where I psychoanalyze myself.  Like yesterday, I backread my recent posts in two anthropology websites.  I realized something:  I sounded angry in almost all my posts.  It baffled me since I'm not naturally an angry person with antagonistic and adversarial tendencies.  I don't even consider myself hardheaded and combative.  If other chefs turn down my proposal like mozzarella balloons with trapped truffle scent inside or spaghetti noodles that are half flour-half beef with tomato and basil already incorporated, I usually take it in jest.  I'm good at taking rejections; I'm not at making enemies.  I do, however, confront if I really have to express my pent-up emotions, but I do it with reasons and my way of reasoning that, oftentimes, sounds sarcastic and disappointed.  I feel nothing but relief after saying my piece and move on.

 

I just could not believe that my posts in the said websites bordered between hysteria and paranoia.  I sounded antagonistic and at the same time defensive.  It was like I exist in the virtual space to oppose.  No wonder I've been called a troll.  To compare, I checked my recent posts in Asian websites.  What a revelation!  I sounded sympathetic, supportive, and worse, patronizing.  I could not help but ask myself if I'm suffering from Oriental angst, a postcolonial strategy of the once colonized to assert their new image.  Have I treated the two anthropology websites as Western spaces where I have to be offensive and defensive all the time because of the historical inferiorization of my culture perpetrated by the West and Westerners?  I was convinced that indeed I have.  In both anthropology websites, I used a very telling phrase, "to poke your eyes."  Upon numerous reading, I found it rhetorically violent but loaded with cultural assertion-- the destruction of the Western gaze.               

 

In my psychoanalysis, I went back to my childhood and recalled how American priests always checked on me like I was their brown pet they needed to domesticate, how Belgian nuns watched me recite a perfect "Hail Mary" and made me eat "sili" (hot pepper) for saying "putang ina' (whore mother), how white tourists recorded my every step as I was forced to perform a death ritual dance for their entertainment, and how a white missionary held and moved my jaws left-and-right and made me open my mouth as if he was a dentist all for changing my diction he said I needed to learn [ap-uhl] and "All Things Bright and Beautiful."  There was always a white gaze in my childhood.  Even my American uncle, who has a PhD in Physics, bombarded me with "Physics for Dummies," How The World Works," and other books I did not bother to read.  The stories of the village seer about gods and demons impregnating humans, to me, were far more interesting than the biographies of Edison and Einstein.

 

When I was with these White people, I had the urge to perform and deliver so I would somehow satisfy their expectations.  I always tried not to look and sound inferior.  It was like I wanted to prove something-- a Brown can do what a White can.  Now, the feeling is more of a postcolonial image makeover--I was culturally inferior then; I refuse to be intellectually inferior now.  Yes, it's the opposite of inferiority complex.  I was not contented with my self-psychoanalysis, I checked other forums to find out if I was alone in this diagnosis I made up.  Again, I was surprised.  South Asians and Africans were more offensive and defensive in the forums I considered White spaces. Some were even foul-mouthed.  Is it also because of their colonial histories and cultural inferiorizations?  Not long ago, an OAC member with a South Asian or Middle Eastern-sounding name expressed her ideas about Orientalism like she was ready to kill and the world was against her.  I was glad I'm not alone here.  I wonder if there are professors here who have international students who are, to put it mildly, intellectually combative and adversarial or really mild, assertive.  Maybe the postcolonial Oriental angst does exist.          

 

[M Izabel]

After rereading my post, I realized I have not defined "Oriental angst" clearly.  I used it as an existentialist anxiety, apprehension, or insecurity that predisposes me as an "Oriental" to assert that my image should not be determined by the West and Westerners but should be freely chosen by me.

 

That Filipinos are "little brothers" of Americans is a kind of "colonial" image the former are trying to get rid of.  Filipino activists still burn stars and stripes and cry American imperialism because of such semiotic reality still pervasive in media and literature.  Even America's idea of "benevolent assimilation" in 1900's is still a powerful colonial propaganda because Americanism or to be American is still strong among Filipinos with colonial mentality.  There are even some who dream of the Philippines becoming an American state a la Hawaii.  The funny thing is that the gauge of success in my country is if someone is successful in America like in Hollywood, Broadway, Wall Street, Harvard, etc.  I wonder again if such idea of success is related to the Oriental angst I have described where they have to preform and deliver to assert their new postcolonial image.  Maybe they want to become "best friends" or "twin brothers" with Americans with equality and mutual respect in mind by refusing to remain "little".  

[Keith Hart]

This is a two-way street. Americans and Europeans have views of particular Asian countries. To take the two largest, China has always since Montesquieu been granted more respect than India. This could be in recognition of China's equality to Europe in civilization, economy, technology etc as late as the 18th century (Adam Smith thought in some respects it was economically superior) or it could be that China was not colonized as India was. The Anglo-Indian superstate dominated the 19th century. In 1870, 17 out of 20 British civil servants lived in India. India is now the leading power in the Commonwealth of over 50 states linked by the former British empire, but being represented by the British propaganda machine as the world's most rigidly unequal and poverty-ridden society leaves Indians struggling against a western cultural legacy that the Chinese don't have to worry about. No wonder that letter to the Economist was apopleptic.

The Japanese case is interesting and you have brought up some of the elements that might make it hard for Asian countries to sign up for a contemporary version of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, perhaps conceived of initially as a China-Japan condominium. Of course things will look different after the Japanese bond market collapses. But the composition of the OECD, the nearest thing to a Western economic bloc, is revealing. Apart from the usual suspects, Turkey has been a member since 1961, Japan since 1964, Mexico 1994, Korea 1996, Chile, Estonia and Israel in 2010. None of the BRIC countries, nowhere else in Asia, Latin America or Africa. It appears that a few non-western countries can be admitted to the club.

Reading M's and Heesun's reflections on confliucted attitudes to America made me think of France. The two countries have never fought a war and French official antagonism to the US is almost comical. Yet Hollywood movies outsell French movies in France by 3 to 1. My 8-year-old was taken by her school this week to see Joseph Losey's The boy with the green hair (1948). French structuralism was an explicit attempt to replace German intellectual influences with American. Even within the French political elite and definitely outside it, Americanophilia beats Americanophia.

[heesun hwang]

Oh that's interesting. : ) In fact I was thinking about the US when writing the comment. It's another sensitive political problem, you know. North Korea was quite radical about it; for them, liberation meant both from Japan and from the US, and an anti-US sentiment found in the progressive movement in Korea in the past had one root in such a standpoint, though the whole picture is more complicated than this.

It seems that at least ideologically or superficially the (most well-off?) North Koreans have some pity on us in SK for our "subjugation to Amerian Imperialism and Capitalism and the resultant poverty" - if it is so, we indeed have a big problem here no matter how one thinks of "Communism". : ) Last year one YouTube footage from NK was widely reported by mass media - alas, it was erased by the uploader, I've just checked it. But you can see it here instead. The funny thing is that the laptop in the footage is made by HP and this fact became a source of cynicism. The synopsis is that the woman is a college student and has recently moved to a larger apartment arranged by her country (fatherland), her younger brother asks what "home" is, and she thinks about her fellow Koreans in the South who have to risk their lives in order to keep their rights to life in the Capitalist society.

Somehow, probably one symbolic recent event is the Korea-US FTA - for some observers it meant a continued alliance with the US, rather than with, say, China, or creating an East-Asian bloc. Probably Japan is the same in this regard. The problem is so complex that I doubt if I could give any reliable analysis on this but it seems that the idea of "Asian bloc" (probably consisted with countries formerly colonialized/invaded by Japanese Empire?) reminds me of "the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere".

[heesun hwang]

(Say, if there's a possibility of such things, then would China become the "center"?)

In daily experience American culture has spread widely here, especially during the last decade - through TV shows and many other forms of pop cultures, informal personal networks in private sector (like having a kin living in the US), worldviews, and so on. My accent in spoken English is also American. And there are probably lots of things to say about political problems. Still, such thoughts right away remind me of my American friends, though few in number, and the American authors I like, and I would never credit the "American hegemony" per se for our conversation for instance. It is again too much complex indeed.

[John McCreery]

M, to me this last comment is particularly compelling. How would you feel about the suggestion that the difference in emotional response reflects a shared structural position in the post-WWII world, with both Japan and the Phillipines treated as "little brothers" by the U.S.A., which has remained the dominant power and the primary source of cultural influence in the region from the end of the war to the present?

[M Izabel]

I could have given a Japanese name to represent the colonial period, but my memory of my Asian History courses failed me so I could only mention one for the invasion example (Imjin war).

 

This angst I'm talking about, it seems, is really only between East and West.  We have almost the same interaction with our Japanese friends and acquaintances.  During World War 2, Japanese soldiers forced Filipinos to bow to them.  My grandfather was treated less than a dog.  I heard stories about Filipino comfort women.  I heard about all these brutalities perpetrated by the Japanese, but I don't have a feeling of aggression, intellectually and psychologically, towards them.  When I'm with my Japanese friends who are artists and designers, the first thing I think is collaboration.  I feel we are equals. The strange thing is that Americans have always been an ally to us Filipinos, but there is somewhat a wall that divides us. It seems they are the "uncles" we, "bastard children,"  don't know.  I wonder if it is related to the wide influence of American culture in my country that marginalizes our own.

[heesun hwang]

... He cannot identify himself with "normal Japanese people" but still he is like Japanese in a way (why not). I think I can extend this list longer and longer.

Somehow, I've never felt in my life that Korea is inferior to Japan. This is not that I had to overcome such feelings in the past, because, simply, I never had such feelings. (I think I can say the same with "the West" for example.) When I see or hear what's problematic indeed, I often just laugh at it (what else can I do? I'm a busy person who have lots of fun and valuable things to do during the short lifetime allowed for any human being), but then instantly start to think if I have to be angry at the moment, or say or write something against such problems. And when I do talk or write something about Japan, I have to watch over myself carefully in order not to "orientalize" it. I'm not innocent either.

So, "Japan" is a too broad word for me. And I think I'm more familiar with, say, Deleuze's books than Yi Sun Shin's writings. Some seniors often regret about such trends; but there are many people in my generation who indeed are much more familiar with Korean discourse. So I can't represent "Korean" but instead I think I also make up at least one person's part what "Korean" is these days. I wonder if this can be an answer to your question. : )

[heesun hwang]

Well, first, the colonial history is not so long; from 1910 to 1945. In 35 years so many things can happen, but I wonder if you were taught otherwise - Hideyoshi and the War/Invatsion in 1592 is a separate issue from colonialism or subjugation. It's true that many Korean people have antagonistic feelings toward Japan. But the manifestations of such feelings are quite specific to concrete contexts, I suppose.

On the streets I see many Japanese tourists. I'm glad to be their hostess when they ask me, say, directions. I like to read manga and to watch anime and films. I also enjoy Japanese food; I'm a semi-vegetarian so Japanese food goes well with me.

Sometimes I watch a documentary of Korean people who were transferred to Japan during the colonial period against their will, exploited severely, looked down on, and are going on their lives in harsh conditions. (The Japanese Right say to them "This is not your country so go back home.") I have some friends in Japan and in Korea who are Jainichi (Korean migrants with Japanese citizenship - this is a fairly complex story in its own rights). Sometimes I read papers on or interviews with the Japanese army's "comfort women" and cry. Sometimes I read the articles written by some admirable Japanese intellectuals in which they say they cannot identify themselves with the Imperialism and the Far Right (because they were and are fighting against them), but it's not likely that the fact saves them from the responsibility. Maybe Korean army had done similar things to, say, Vietnamese people during the Vietnam War. Shamefully, I don't know much about the history.

Personally, I have a number of friends in Japan, and they happen to be "progressive" people. I sometimes feel that there are many differences between them and me, and still, can sympathize with what they say. I have a close Japanese friend here, who married to a Korean woman who's also a friend of mine, who has spent his entire 20s in the US. He ca

[M Izabel]

@ Nikos

 

I like your idea of intellectual emotion.  An Indian posted a comment under an article about technology in The Economist.  He/she berated the writer  for calling rural residents of India "peasants."   Although it was off-topic, I could understand his/her emotion.  It felt familiar and important.   When in such a situation, the feeling I have is intellectually debilitating.  How can I proceed to the real subject when there are other  things I  need to talk about first?  In my case, foundations always attract my attention.  If they're questionable, I question  the entire argument.  Maybe it's the effect of mathematical logic and basic neurolinguistics on me or maybe it is due to my indifference towards an intellectualization whose fundamentals are interpretive assumptions.  Western scholarship is full of such assumptions about the realities in the East.  I do understand why the Indian poster exhibited aggression, intellectual or not.  "Orientals" had been passive for so long; decolonizing such passivity by asserting and expressing their bombastic "intellectual emotion" seems natural in the age of postcolonialism.

 

@ Heesun

 

It's understandable if a question has multiple answers from different people considering their different experiences and realities.  I'm intrigued to know though if you have such aggressive feelings when you have a discussion or argument with a group of Japanese, for example, considering that (South) Korea has a long history of being subjugated or looked down by Japan and whose culture was viewed as inferior by Japanese invaders/colonizers like Hideyoshi, whose biggest mistake, I think, was his underestimation of Yi Sun Shin.            

[heesun hwang]

Izabel, I think you sometimes ask questions that make me feel that I have to answer in a way (not necessarily right away) when I read your comments or posts, rather than that you write in the way you described above. This might be one such question too. These questions are not easy to answer, but they make me think.

My personal experiences are quite different from yours for several reasons so I can't directly compare them to yours, but I from time to time have similar feelings in situations where gender matters. At such moments, my feelings are so mixed that I can't have any clear thought. Sometimes it looks 'accusing' something itself is like granting the power soley to the supposedly dominant ways of thoughts so I hesitate to speak out what I feel. At other times I think any hysteria is structural, so it is not me per se who is hysteric or is the source of the hystery. My conclusion often becomes that such position (of minority? I don't think that there's something like minority in general so I can't say like that) is not necessarily bad or in a sense better in many ways but I can't settle on this answer because there are many other aspects in it. There must be lot much to say about such feelings and self-introspection.

I think, at present, that what's important is to figure out what exactly is not and what exactly is to be so, without closing the possibility that some changes can take place, whether the changes take place in a specific person or in a situation. Both are never easy indeed, and I am often at a loss not knowing what to do.