It seems that Ms. Wu’s piece on Shanghai was controversial, but I think she brings up a damn-good argument. I want to put in my two-cents here.

How do Asians reconcile the discrepancies of the public images that “natives” create and those created by Asian-Americans? How should someone like Judge Ito who was born and raised here, who speaks perfect English, deal with the media image that a typical Japanese foreign exchange student creates and is perpetuated by actors like Gedde Watanabe in Sixteen Candles? How do you deal with the stereotypical image of Chinese being dirty, greasy, and rude? If these are images created by the natives or the “fresh-off-boats”, and have nothing to do with the generations who were born and raised here?

I was a Japanese foreign exchange student at a high school in California guilty of contributing to the image of Long Duk Dong. The second generation Japanese people hated me and ignored me. I don’t blame them. Why should they have to suffer from the images that people like me create? But this is an unfortunate schism when both sides have much to offer to each other.

Personally, I stay neutral. In a way, I have to, since I was on both sides at different points in my life. When I hear news like Virgin Airlines canceling Upper Class on-board masseuse for all flights going to Japan since too many Japanese businessmen ask them to massage their private parts, part of me feels ashamed and angry, and part of me thinks it’s funny.

I’ve been seriously ill for a while (it’s getting better now), and from this recent experience I learned the essential difference between Eastern (Chinese) and Western medicine. I have respect for both. The fundamental difference is that the West attacks the negative, whereas the East fortifies the positive. The West kills viruses, for instance, whereas the East strengthens our own immune system. Both are effective in their own ways. Western medicine is very effective when you know what the exact cause of the illness is, but without this knowledge, it is often helpless, which is what happened to me. It’s like a detective without a suspect or a criminal. The Eastern medicine does not have to identify the criminal. It’s like strengthening the economy to lower the crime rate.

I think this philosophical difference applies to everything in our lives. Since I am an Asian, I’m naturally inclined towards fortifying the positive, instead of negating the negative. I believe that by doing what one does the best, whether it is baking, singing, designing, acting, teaching, writing, whether you are a lawyer, a banker, a doctor, an engineer or a programmer, as long as you are positively contributing to the world, you are helping to fight the negative. That is, without dealing with it directly. I think the important thing here is to be forgiving and accepting of negative images caused by others if they have no bad intentions, and to be contributing to the positive images regardless of the amount of contribution. After all, not everyone can be a Chow Yun-Fat.

Every culture, when it adapts foreign cultures, adds its own flavors to them. This not only applies to Japanese rap music, but also to restaurants and cafes. We do it here too. Typical American pizza is nothing like the original from Italy. An interesting phenomenon that I noticed when I was in Rome a year ago, was that Italians reverse-imported the American style of Pizzeria. I suppose it came out of the expectation of the tourists. Likewise, I have been noticing here in New York reverse-import cafes from Asia. The first one that I noticed was Panya on Stuyvesant Street. It is a Japanese bakery/cafe that offers among other things: Japanese style white bread, sandwich with a single slice of bologna, and impeccably uniform and geometric sweet pastries. Then we have Saint’s Alp Teahouse that first appeared in China Town and now spreading elsewhere. Basta Pasta is a Japanese style pasta restaurant which is famous for its fish row spaghetti. “Reverse-Import” in my definition is when a piece of culture exported comes back home with a few twists from abroad. Note: San Francisco style burrito, for instance, is not a reverse import, unless it is brought back to Mexico to be served.

One of the new comers in this genre is East Pearl Cafe on St. Marks Place (Between Avenue A and First, pictured above). They serve a large variety of teas in tall glasses typically used for ice cream floats, hot or cold, with or without Tapioca. I’m not sure of the history of these concoctions but are obviously results of Western and Eastern fusion. Hot teas are served in large mugs with Cappuccino style foam on top. A toast with peanut butter, strawberry jam, butter & condensed milk, or hazelnut & cocoa is served on a piece of perfectly geometric, over-sized, white bread typically seen in Asia. The decor of these cafes is just as much of a product of reverse-importing aswhat they serve, dominantly Western feel with an infusion of cutesy modern Asian culture. Interestingly they also serve Japanese style Chinese food. The Japanese have adapted Chinese food in their own ways. Ramen noodle for instance is a Japanese interpretation of Lo Mein in broth, but it evolved to the point where it became a genre of its own. Fried rice at East Pearl is a very authentic Japanese style fried rice, subtle but distinct. Only the native Japanese may notice the difference like the use of short grain rice instead of more common long grain.

In order to fully enjoy this type of cafes or restaurants, one needs to see them in this perspective, that is, they were exported, altered, and imported back. Only then would you fully appreciate the meaning of what you are seeing on your table, that is, how one culture transforms another. What you don’t want to do is to see them simply as Asian cafe owners trying to pass as Italians. It is a distinctly different statement that they are trying to make here.

As one who is quite particular about clothing, I have wondered as of late whether the resurgence of 80’s-styled fashion is a return of the nostalgic that harks back to an era that exuded power, money, and sex when the present reality and state of economy are quite the opposite. One can say that it is a rather escapist reaction from the fashion world, but then again, one can also say that it is rather dull and uninventive to steal a style so unashamedly without reappropriation, innovation, or improvisation.
Ah, tis sad but true. I cannot bring myself to don clothing that I believe to be the most unflattering (and atrocious!) to exist in the history of garment. In the past unseasonably warm weekends, I have perused many shops in Soho and East Village with a glimmer of hope, that perhaps, designers have moved on from their obsession with recapturing the lost look of the suburbia preadolescent masturbating in a wood-panelled basement room and onto something different, something more Ole! Voila! Voom voom! Ta da! La la! Personally I prefer to wear my traditional Chinese dresses, qipao, when I return home after a long day of being the Woman in Town. Nothing pleases me more than the feel of the finest silk from China caressing against my body, and the way the dress forces my body to shimmy, wiggle, and dance in all its satin glory!
In that sense Mr. Rogers and I share the common love of donning our beloved clothing when we return to our respective abodes. While he puts on his little argyle sweaters, I put on my silver chrysthaneum flowered qipao. While he slips on a pair of plaid house shoes, I place my dainty feet into Flower Madam high heels embroidered by most luscious and creamy pearls of the orient. And while this Mr. Rogers talks to his imaginary friends, Ms. Wu is been pampered and fed grapes to (without the skin!) by her entourage of young men. I do like a good wandering around the home in such a get-up. At times I play music from my Shanghai youth as I place a perfuming lotus flower behind my ear, so intoxicating, so delicious, sooo MOI. Such is the life for moi, and such is the fashion for moi.
Until next time, I bid you zai-jian,
Ms. Wu

Queries from Ms. Wu’s readers have compelled her to come forth and declare that:

A) Ms. Wu is NOT a male of the Caucasian persuasion (as a visitor in the Discussion list incorrectly assumed.)

B) Ms. Wu is of Chinese ethnicity, female gender.

C) Ms. Wu prefers males of the Milky White to Warm Chestnut Beige persuasion. Although she has also played the ol’ Around the World game in her youthful haydays.

and lastly,

D) Ms. Wu’s present standards does not necessarily mean she is “ashamed” of her fabulous self (as an E-mailer incorreclty assumed. She has however met quite a few men in her life time who have developed a fetish for Chinese women, whether that means they are also “ashamed” of their white bodies, she knows not.)

Until next time, she bids you zai jian,
Ms. Wu

After years philandering Bai-Kues abroad, I, Ms. Wu, finally made the long overdue visit to the Middle Kingdom of Shanghai, China.

I arrived incognito. Someone such as myself cannot simply show up to this land of repression and not cause a rise of national (and physical) proportions. Ah, Shanghai, the Paris of the Orient, the Whore of the East, my first love…and I discovered, no longer my roots, my home.

Yes, alas, ’tis true. Shanghai was no longer. No longer were the decadence, the frivolity, and the bacchanalian debauchery. The heydays of head throwing (and giving) laughter of gargantuan scale is now considered pass in favor of economic advancement and high rise buildings architected in the most atrocious fashion imaginable. In the name of national progress and advancement for the People, whom as far as my travel companion and I could detect, were far too involved in spitting and other forms of behavior reserved for the confines of a water closet to understand the meaning of an open, democratic country.

I felt quite ashamed. It was the first time my travel companion visited this country that I have so often brandished about like a dazzling jewel. He, a daring adventurer and ravisher of women, remained the perfect gentleman in the barrage of bodily fluids issuing from multiple directions, and further more, in the face of blatant stares from local people his equanimity was as constant as his relentless appetite for nocturnal pleasures.

Considering Shanghai’s infamous history of cross-cultural influences from the British, French, and even Russian, I was frankly quite aghast at the close-mindedness of the people when it came to interracial relationships. Mind you, I am quite accustomed to being stared at all my life, but this type of staring felt accusatory, implicating, and communist. It was then that I realized I was in a communist country. Capitalistic ideals may have been integrated in the economic relationships with China, and certain democratic values such as multiple ownership of property do circulate in the government and economic sectors, but communism in China is far from dead.

What is left manifests itself in the people’s mentality. What is communism but an enthusiastic participation in a communal social structure that places the Common Good over individual desire? As the antithesis of consumer culture where the distance between desire and attainment is short and easily breached, it is no wonder that interracial couples are stared at like curios in China. As symbols of the freedom to make individual decisions, they exemplify in a way the dream of capitalism, the quintessence of the best ideals of consumer culture.

My journey to the East was long. But not nearly as long as distance between the Chinese government and the People’s ability to understand and embrace capitalism and democracy.

Until next time I bid you zai-jian.
Ms. Wu

Several people have commented on the “Hispanic” category of the test registration. Apparently I have offended some people. I admit, I am not so familiar with Hispanic culture, although most of my neighbors are Puerto Ricans. When I was building the site, I did have to think about the “race” category a lot. I thought about not having it at all, but it is, after all, interesting to see if there is any correlation. Incidentally, a friend of mine gave me a copy of The Economist (July 28, 2001) which had an article titled “Sex, Race, and Brain-scanning”. According to the article, there is a scientific proof that one is better at recognizing the faces of one’s own race.

With any race, as with CKJ’s, depending on a situation, you are damned if you make distinctions, and you are damned if you do not. One could altogether ignore anything to do with race, but that is unreasonable too. It’s like the big white elephant in a room that no one talks about. In any case, I’d like to better educate myself with Hispanic culture. Questions to the readers: what are some ways that you can subdivide the “Hispanic” category?

Here is the accuracy result by location. The percentage number represents the accuracy. 100% being everyone getting everything right and 0% being everyone getting everything wrong. Keep in mind that if everyone picked randomly, 33.33% would be the result.

This list only contains locations that had more than 100 test takers, which means that those locations that are not listed here are not necessarily better or worse than the ones listed here.