Being A Secret Asian Man

What's the point of identifying the musings of a secret asian man without trying to define what it is to be a secret asian man?

The term started as a joke as a name for a (very) small business venture into the social dance arena (DJ-ing and organizing monthly dances), and even led to the development of a logo

and even T-shirts to help advertise our brand (I still have hopes of marketing these some day).

Eventually I elected to associate the brand with my own personal experience living in the US being an asian male. The experience is uniquely my own; I do not claim to speak for anyone else. Even so, I expect that many asian males will have experiences that mirror my own and many will also have shared experiences with other asian males with which I will not be familiar.

For me, being a secret asian man is a lot like being a spy - operating in plain sight but with the general populace being oblivious to who I really am, instead, projecting on me the stereotype that is continually reinforced by the mainstream media. My personal experience includes having been cast in a few movies and TV shows because of my background as a ballroom dancer, but for the most part, parts for asian men seem to limited to: 1) grocers who don't speak english; 2) martial artists; 3) geeky or effeminate lab tech/doctors; My last gig was in a scene where the punch line is an older asian man grabbing the behind of a young caucasian woman, drawing on the image of the yellow peril that came about during WWII.

Our secret mission: to change these perceptions or overtly or covertly as needed. And this blog will explore that, but I reserve the right to tangent off in various directions as circumstances dictate.

The impetus for starting this blog comes from a FB post referring to something called "the Asian American Experience". My first thought was that the motives/goals were noble, but there is "no one size fits all" way of describing it.

I happen to be Chinese, with parents originally from southern China, and I spent my formative years in an all white suburb of Cleveland OH and moved to southern California in my late 20's. I happen to know a therapist who works exclusively with asians. He happens to be Nisei born and raised in the (San Fernando) valley. He once made an observation I found intriguing: that within 5 minutes, he could identify where within the southland any Nisei had been born and raised, whether it was in the valley, near J-town, in the south bay, etc. The point that is that just within LA there are readily identifiable distinct Nisei sub cultures. And his first observation about me: "...an asian from the midwest... you are unlike any other asians i know..."

And that's something I'd consider a unique experience: I belong to an ethnic group that consists of toisan (specifc chinese dialect) chinese who were born and raised in a midwestern suburb with little to no ethnic culture outside the home. And even though I moved to LA hoping to connect with others of Asian heritage, my friends are predominantly non-Asian. In particular, I have few asian friends - unless they came from similar experiences having grown up in largely caucasian settings. OTOH, I have acquaintances here in LA who are American born, but are what I'd categorize as being completely Chinese in attitude and outlook.

Don't get me wrong, it's helpful to understand the generalities, but there are probably just as many exceptions as there are generalities.