(Unless you’ve had a face to face conversation with me, in which case, I probably have already told you.)
Right, so here’s the thing. Most of my life I’ve kinda been “not Asian enough.” No, don’t run away in terror, this is not one of those confessionals about trying to find my way through a culturally confusing-self-discovery-landscape. (I’ll get into that later, if I don’t forget first.)
As in, when people say:
“Oh, you’re Asian? You don’t really… look Asian, where are you from?” And I say: “The Philippines.” And then (some) people say: “Isn’t that like, next to Jamaica?” Which in college, was a surefire to test the patience of both my feisty Jamaican roommate and me.
And Filipinos are Asian, and a little Hispanic, and a little of a bunch of other things – and not really stereotypical in the way that a lot of my American classmates thought of Asia. And I’m Filipino, raised by Midwestern American parents, went to an international elementary school, an Indiana high school, and bopped around all over the country for work. To say I’m cultural mutt is just about spot on.
I like it!
I’ve always found culture fascinating. And especially +in particular my part of the world (re: Asia). I also LOVE a good story. When you grow up watching Japanese game shows, TMNT (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), MacGyver, Princess Bride, Star Wars… it’s not a far jump to “Hey… there’s all this stuff from other countries that’s awesome. It helps that subtitles never bothered me.
E and I met over the discovery that per E’s survey, I was the most “average” person in our freshman dorm. As in, brown hair, brown eyes, shoe size, etc. I think I was only average due to our extremely varied dorm-mates – and that was the first (and hopefully last) time anyone’s described me as such.
When you find a kindred spirit, you just automatically want to share all the things you love with them, which probably accounts for how E went from being a totally responsible young adult who didn’t skip class (much) to a delinquent who ordered pizza on weeknights and stayed up late sketching costume designs for fictional characters we created.
Apparently, I’m a bad influence.
I was never good at catching up on TV shows, because shockingly, tech rehearsals and shooting schedules tend to disregard things like weekly viewing times. So, I was already skimming online (That is, after the age of the internets (I got invited to join gmail back when it was a special top-secret thing) for episodes I'd missed.
I used to just check out massive amounts of books from the library- (I still have cards like six different states) and watch whatever came on TV when I was home.)
Then I discovered Hulu. Then I discovered Netflix. Then I discovered Faith/The Great Doctor. And I may have marathoned the entire series in a few days over the summer.
All this time, E was saying: “So I’ve been watching this anime…are you tired of hearing about this, because I can talk about something else. I mean, I can’t, but…”
And I said: “That sounds awesome!” And by the time I had a full queue of things to watch, I discovered this little site called “dramafever” and it was pretty much all over. Which means that E is by far the anime expert in this duo.
And by over, I mean: after a certain point in the evening, there was no point in me trying to plan classwork (cause by now I was a gainfully employed faculty-type), so… I might as well stay at work later, or get in early – because I have a date with a renegade general/genius doctor/spunky, yet disgraced detective/time-traveling prince/ridiculously wealthy son of a Korean conglomerate who is a jerk with a heart of gold.
(Sometimes I also have dates with mystery-solving writers/bloggers who also solve crimes/Buy More employees with computers in their brains/ Kansas natives destined to save the world/ or gamers who get stuck in a virtual world created by a bored sociopath with genius computer skills.)
Also, work and real life and stuff and things.
I’m a busy girl.
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