Mindy's Blog

I am fluent in Mandarin, and know little Cantonese. From a young age I could distinguish the two languages by the tone of speaking- I thought Cantonese sounded like angry temple bells, while Mandarin sounded like the firm waves of an ocean. I never thought too much about the two languages, until I actually came to the States.

Growing up in Nanjing of the Jiangsu District, I was pretty much only exposed to Mandarin. The first day of American school, My parents introduced me to another Chinese classmate who knew how to speak Chinese, hoping to help me acclimate to this new environment. When she started speaking fluent Cantonese to me, I was flummoxed, to say the least. That’s not what my language sounds like!

But the reality is that even within these two languages, there are drastic differences. Beyond the sound that each syllable made, the two languages represented different connotations, different traditions, and of course, different cultures. Mandarin only has 4 main tones, whilst Cantonese has 9, a difference that can result in completely different ways of communication!

Even within China, the Chinese language can be split distinctly. The notion that Asians can be simplified to one facet of a culture is a fundamentally flawed ideal.

Although I need to wear glasses with a particularly strong prescription (blame my genes), I don’t find myself ever confusing two different people. Especially not when they stand right in front of me, face to face. That’s why it was strange for me to be called the name of my much shorter friend of a completely different Asian ethnicity. To my face.

It was a regular day in Spanish class, and we were separated into groups to discuss “la naturaleza.” My friend and I stood side by side. My teacher, looking at my friend dead in the eyes, motioned toward for her to come closer. My friend returned after my teacher was furiously whispering to her, her mouth was twisted in a way that suggested she was holding back some laughter. She stopped in front of me, giggling about how my teacher thought that I was her and sent out an email to my parents about my alarmingly low attendance rates.

Safe to say, my parents were not happy. To make it worse, it happened more often than not especially with my teachers. There was one time where my teacher wrote someone else’s name when grading one of my essays- an astonishing feat considering there were only ten people in my English class at that time!

More than just an annoying occurrence, it felt truly wrong to be constantly mistaken for other people of the same race. It was like I wasn’t even considered an individual to other people, but an amalgamation of several Asian girls into a single, formless identity. An identity that goes by whatever name comes to mind first. This identity, forced onto me by my teachers, my peers, and even my acquaintances, was like a personal attack on my character. Even if their intentions were harmless, I felt unseen, like the bland wallpaper rather than the porcelain vase at the front of an office building.

But beyond my personal experiences, this problem does not only happen to me, a high schooler. It happens on a much larger scale, where its repercussions are much more than small. It’s extremely prevalent for Asian women in the workforce, who are often discriminated against, to be confused with other Asian women. Moreover, they are one of the least promoted minority groups into senior, executive, or managing positions, likely due to this racist factor.

To give an example, in the scientific world, properly citing names is extremely important to give credit where it’s due. Even the order of the names matters. It means that any sort of confusion between individuals could result in losing credit for all the hard work these researchers put into an experiment or paper. The fact of the matter is that the normalized racism against these Asian individuals may prevent them from reaching the proper recognition in their field that they deserve.

My friend, who is a year older than me, spoke to me the other day about just how frequently teachers confuse her submitted assignments for another Asian girls’ work, just like my past experiences. To make matters worse, this class was a difficult, all-year course on Calculus Physics. Even the name sounds daunting- and having to deal with the stress of getting the wrong grades on your hard work could only raise one’s cortisol levels.

Being mistaken for someone else over and over again isn’t just frustrating. It’s dehumanizing. What seems like a harmless mix-up is actually a reflection of a deeper issue: the erasure of individuality, particularly for Asian women, both in classrooms and in professional spaces. These experiences may start with something as small as a misdirected email or a mislabeled assignment, but they point to a larger pattern of racial bias that can have real consequences. At the end of the day, we all deserve to be seen for who we truly are—not as interchangeable names, but as individuals.

I was told from a young age that MSG, or monosodium glutamate, is terribly bad for your health. My mom would cook up these delicious black bean noodles and tell me all about her recipe and the way she meticulously prepared everything. But then, she would brag a little, making it clear that she didn’t use any MSG in her cooking, and it was still appetizing! She would tell me all about how MSG was toxic to your health, and dangerous to consume too often. The way my mom warned me made younger me think eating any MSG was equivalent to eating rat poison.

My family frequents Chinese restaurants often, hoping to compare it with the food back in China to see if it can live up to its legacy. Especially when I used to live in California, these visits were quite frequent. Usually eating at these places meant I was enjoying the typical, westernized Chinese food. Kung pao chicken, broccoli stir-fried beef (a dish unusually common with foreigners, my dad says), and the like.
After these meals, I would think back to what my mom and my other family members said about MSG. Is that why I feel so sluggish? So tired, and like I could fall asleep at any instant? Was it because of the MSG I consumed literal seconds ago? Was it really poisoning my nervous system and giving myself an early death?

The answer to all those questions, frankly, is no. Anna Maria Barry-Jester, in now archived website FiveThirtyEight, writes that,

People who suffer after eating MSG may be experiencing the nocebo effect, the lesser-known and poorly understood cousin of the placebo effect. The phenomenon is what happens when suggesting that something can cause a negative reaction induces precisely those physical symptoms. 

In fact, the stigma toward MSG comes from a variety of scientific research that were flawed. While MSG may still not necessarily be “good for you,” it certainly is not as poisonous as people drew it out to be. And certainly not as bad as my mom made it seem. In fact, MSG is naturally present in tomatoes! Maybe that’s why my dad’s tomato egg drop soup tastes so good.

The whole taboo against MSG has contributed to demonizing Chinese and other Asian restaurants for using it. The myth itself actually comes from racism when the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed in 1882. The xenophobia developed during this period extended beyond, and a “1968 letter to the New England Journal of Medicine describing sickness after eating MSG spurred an anti-MSG movement,” McKenna Princing writes in blog Right as Rain. She also names a couple racist nicknames that came from this movement, such as “Chinese restaurant syndrome.”

These implicit forms of racism is incredibly damaging to small, Chinese restaurants owners who depend on their business for money. It is harmful to propagate the idea that eating food at these restaurants will give you all sorts of short and long-term problems, when in reality much of these “facts” are derived from racism toward Chinese immigrants a century ago.

Recently, I went on a trip with my family to Japan to visit some relatives. Spending time with family and getting a glimpse into the daily lives of people who live in Japan gave me a fresh perspective on how different our habits and lifestyles are. I noticed a lot of these differences in the small, everyday moments, but one of the most striking was something as simple as grocery shopping; almost everything was high quality and fresh, and bought in smaller portions.

The shelves were full of pristinely made desserts and snacks, that were so delicately crafted I had a hard time actually eating anything. In America, we usually buy things in bulk- and as a result we all lack that same pristiness and perfection found in Japan’s small portions. In Costco, we buy these huge packs of croissants, or these flashy boxes of different flavors of Cheetos and the like.

It is that kind of contrast I experience in Japan that showed me how different our cultures are. Across oceans and mountains, every little thing we do is different- from our shopping habits to the way our toilets function. Japanese toilets are actually super high-tech and cool, compared to the ones I’m used to in America!

This extends beyond the way we live our lives, though. What struck me most about this trip was how much these little details reflect our culturals. Our shopping habits, the technology we use, and even how we handle money all tell a story about who we are and what we prioritize. Our cultures will always be different, but these differences don’t have to divide us. We also see this in the financial habits of Japanese individuals versus American individuals, like the Japanese tendency to be less risky with money compared to Americans. These differences are not universally seen, and results in problems that arise as immigrants from different countries learn the financial system of the States. Our cultures will always be different. But it is up to us to unite and accept these differences!

When I first moved to Washington in 2018, my mom and I would frequent a small nail salon for manicures in our free time. It was a small, beautifully decorated place owned by a sweet Vietnamese couple. When I found out that this place closed a couple years later, I realized how truly hard these Asian-owned businesses were hit by the pandemic.

A particular consequence of COVID-19 was the spike in Asian hate crimes and the hit on smaller, family owned Asian businesses. The stereotype of “universal success” in Asians has lead these businesses to be unable to obtain the financial help they need.

In reality, the financial success of Asian Americans are very dependent on their personal situations- for an individual who is a recent immigrant, for example, their financial behavior and decisions are affected by the cultural and language barriers that they face when coming into the country. When it comes to ethnic groups whose languages are not as mainstream, it is much harder for them to access resources or assistance with possible financial questions and problems, especially for small business owners.

According to the Hmong Association of Washington,

Asian Americans have some of the widest variances in corporate success, education, and income.

The status of our community is unique in that our individual variances are hardly recognized for their diversity. While one ethnic group may have a large population consisted of high-status corporate positions, another may lack a college education. For one, while the Japanese has less than 5% of individuals without a high school diploma, more than 45% of the Burmese/Myanmar are without one.

Ultimately, this means that our behavior in the economic landscape of American and the opportunities we receive also vary. Without a high school diploma, entering college and getting a stable job is significantly harder.

Another example that shows the inherent distinction of Asian American financial behavior is that a large percentage of Asian Americans are also business owners, which “have been hardest hit by COVID-19” which “has exacerbated anti-Asian xenophobia and racism,” according to the Hmong Association.

These small businesses, such as your local nail salon or supermarket, have genuinely been heavily impacted by the pandemic. Even in the place where I live, many nail salons and restaurants, owned by Asian people, were forced to close down during the pandemic. The rising anti-Asian sentiments likely further led to diminishing business.

These struggles are not just a distant piece of data; in reality, it affects all the people around you and yourself. It is important for financial institutions, community organizations, and the like to recognize and address the distinct needs and challenges of the fifty plus Asian American ethnicities to promote equitable economic opportunities.

Every culture in Asia has its own unique preferences and traditions, and the flavors I and many others grew up with are now spreading across the States. To see the same flavors that have been with me throughout my entire life, even when I lived in China, was a huge comfort.

I remember coming across a small restaurant in the Chinatown area of Los Angeles with my cousins that I would have ignored in any other scenario, had I not been as voraciously hungry as I was. It was a nondescript shop with a sign that said “Shanghai Cuisine.” If you’ve been on the Chinese side of TikTok, you might have heard of the idea that if you enter a Chinese restaurant and hear shouting, see a kid working on homework on one of the tables, and feel a generally unpleasant atmosphere, then it is bound to be as authentic as you can get in the States. This restaurant checked all the boxes- and more.

I walked in. The particular aroma of dim sum and the sight of circular tables covered with yellowing table cloths greeted me. When I dug into my order, home has never felt closer.

My aunt, who permanently stays in Japan with her grandson, can usually be seen on the couch in her living room, watching live streams on her beige-colored iPad. It’s not often I see her, yet that sight always brings a smile to my face. Her usual feed is populated by fruit and vegetable sellers, (she’s a health fanatic), dancing videos, and the like.

In China, the main method of buying pretty much anything is through this app called “TaoBao.” Every year when I visit China, I always splurge a little on TaoBao, buying all sorts of clothes or strange gadgets. On the app, there are live streams where vendors sell their products ot a watching audience. Typically, these live streams come with huge discounts that can hack off fifty percent of an item’s value. As such, they are massively popular in China. There’s this one livestreamer who can sell millions (in USD!) in a single day just from selling cheap products.

When TikTok started getting popular in China, live streaming also entered the American social media world of shopping as well. Just recently, I’ve noticed this huge increase in people selling items through streaming, especially on TikTok. It’s nice to see a little bit of home everywhere I go.

Frantz Fanon is a renowned philosopher known for his work on decolonization and racism. His description of the objectification of colonized cultures is reminiscent of cultural appropriation of Asian cultures, indicating the intrinsically tyrannical nature of colonization and the confinement of Asian cultures into stereotypes. In Franz Fanon’s work Racism and Culture, which portrays the dehumanizing elements of racism and its consequences, Fanon expresses how native populations are objectified by colonizers, explaining how colonizers who “constantly [affirm] concern with ‘respecting the culture of the native populations’ accordingly does not signify taking into consideration the values borne by the culture, incarnated by men. Rather this behavior betrays a determination to objectify, to confine, to imprison, to harden… I can think of gestures and thoughts that define these men.”

Fanon’s idea of cultural confinement reminds one of stereotypes enforced upon Asian individuals, wherein general opinion of Asian countries dictate their perception of every Asian individual. He articulates the confinement of a whole population and the ignorance of other cultures through his choice of words, such as the phrase “a determination to objectify” identifying with the ignorance of diversity in Asian culture in the West and the enforced stereotypes on Asian individuals. The need to exert control over cultures without taking into account the “values borne by the culture” indicates the tyrannical goal of colonization to implement and solidify their own impressions, disregarding genuine cultural values. The cultural appropriation of Asian clothing and art forms aligns with this notion, where foreigners believe it is in their right to classify Asian traditions within their own ignorant perceptions. Fanon’s idea that colonizers believe there are “gestures and thoughts than define these men” indicates the perpetual objectification of culture, reduced to a singular, one-dimensional identity whose facets are dictated by foreign perceptions, unreflective of true values in culture. Ultimately this relates to Western stereotypes of Asian culture, such as the model minority, in which every Asian identifying individual is classified as successful, obscuring the genuine challenges and nuances within Asian cultures. This leads us to ponder whether or not cultural appropriation in general is a direct consequence of colonization, or if fetishization of “exotic cultures”  is also caused by colonization?

This photo above shows me holding up a crab from the store that we buy all of our seafood from. My dad staunchly refuses to buy seafood from anywhere else- whether it be Costco’s or even the Asian supermarkets populating Washington, he insists that this is where the real deal is.

Before immigrating to the US, I lived in Nanjing in the Jiangsu Province of China. A speciality of that area is the “hairy crab,” a truly unmatched delicacy only available during winter seasons. My family would frequently tempt me with visions of its wonderful taste, boasting that nothing in the United States could ever come close to authentic hairy crabs. The delicacies in the States are nothing compared to the specialties of Chinese food, they would argue. Not even cheesy pepperoni pizza.

And yet, the seafood we buy from this place, as described by my dad, “rivals the crabs we have at home.” I think a common misconception that immigrants like me have is the idea that we are never at home. We face struggles regularly in school, in the workplace, never feeling like we truly fit in. But I think that it is important to have solidarity; we are all in this together. Regardless of where we are, home always lingers with us, just like how the taste of crab does for me.

As a high school student who frequently uses socials, whether it be TikTok or Instagram, one thing that stood out to me since I first came to the US was the lack of AAPI representation in the media. But living in Los Angeles, a state with a high Asian population, it felt as though their influence was hidden in plain sight.

Growing up in an Asian household, I was surrounded by a rich tapestry of cultures, flavors, and traditions that felt second nature to me. I didn’t realize until much later how these everyday aspects of my life—our food, our fashion, even our methods of marketing, were quietly shaping America’s economy and culture.

This post is a list of all the times that I have seen AAPI influences in the United States.

1. Live Streaming Culture
2. QR Codes