OMFG I'm not white!

Hi,

Anyone else surprised that they are not white? I am racially Korean, but I grew up in New Zealand, mostly. Technically my mother tongue is Korean, but I cannot even hold a conversation in it anymore. I think and dream in English. And I do not get Korean jokes, which I take to be the ultimate test of cultural integration (assimilation?). In conclusion: I am racially Korean, but ethnically Pakeha. Being in New Zealand, I am sometimes in a room where I am the only person who is not Caucasian. And sometimes, suddenly, it hits me: I am not white! One of these things are not the same as the other! It comes to me as an actual surprise. And when I look in a mirror, I think that my aesthetic appeal is that I am exotic.

I think it is funny. But I am worried. It is sort of like... Fat is a Feminist Issue (Susie Orbach) meets Asian Mystique (Sheridan Prasso). (Btw, this makes me think of Alien vs. Predator for some reason. But instead of Alien and Predator, it is a fat white woman and a skinny Asian woman. Which is so wrong, and I am so sorry. Please, God, do not turn that into a movie. And please, please, do not turn it into a porn movie.)

Orbach says that women do not embody their body truly. Women believe that there is a skinny person inside their body, and that is who they are, trapped inside their faulty, larger body. Prasso shows that Asian women are fetishised as "exotic orientals", especially by white men. This fuels the terrible and tragic sex industry in many Asian countries that carries on to other countries by underground sex slave trade.

Do I consider myself as a white woman trapped inside an Asian woman's body? And from a white person's perspective, do stereotype my own body as exotic and "oriental"?

I am bombarded every day by the media that the norm and the ideal of womanhood is white. This is also true in Korean media, in which beauty products are often modeled by Caucasian models, Korean models with European features are considered more beautiful (e.g. see epicanthoplasty: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicanthoplasty) and whitening creams are still sold.

What do you think? Who am I? Am I in Freaky Freaky Friday Redux?

The Rule

There is only one rule for this blog. Actually there are two. One: only positive posts. Two: my mother can never, ever find out. I have been having a bad week, but this?

This makes me smile:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/little-boy-gives-an-epic-inspirational-speech-afte