I don't really know why this is here right now. Let us say for now that I have thoughts, and sometimes wish to write them down for more to read than just myself.
That scene in Mulan where all the ancestors are arguing about whose fault it was that Mulan ran off to join the army except with all the Force ghosts arguing about Ben Solo.
This is the greatest thing I have ever drawn I am so proud
A pat on the back for your fave not being problematic was never part of the deal.
“Personal enjoyment and critical readings can and should exist mutually exclusive of each other. I understand the desire to be a good person, and the desire to think that you like the right things for the right reasons, but that’s not the point. It was never the point.”
I’ve been following this blog for… I don’t actually know, though the internet probably does? I just remember being pretty excited that I found a space where I could learn about the experiences of other mixed POC (with me being half-white and half-chinese, and generally white passing), and…
Such a long post and I’m not a moderator, but as someone who’s biracial (I hate the the term mixed I’m not a smoothie) I think I can help you out :D!
I’ve been following this blog for… I don’t actually know, though the internet probably does? I just remember being pretty excited that I found a space where I could learn about the experiences of other mixed POC (with me being half-white and half-chinese, and generally white passing), and I’ve learned a lot! I’ve spent a lot of time grappling with my identity which is arguably almost entirely white (my chinese grandparents pushed my father to assimilate growing up, and that’s propagated down to my sister and myself). I think one of the major questions I’ve always tried to wrangle is how I should connect to my chinese heritage, given a primarily white upbringing. Some of that has included making active effort to learn chinese (a long time effort since I was young), but I’ve never really been able to connect in other ways, besides through hearing about my grandparents’ experiences. They’re getting older now, and I worry about how I can continue to connect to that half of my heritage, because they were instrumental in what little connection I have. How do I keep it up? Do I even need to?
Hi,
So, I’m not Chinese, I’m Japanese and Australian (mother is white), but I don’t consider that as “half of my heritage” because I’m just as Japanese as I am Australian. Don’t you think it’s ridiculous to say “Oh, I’m half my dad and half my mom” like we know that so… why? It’s stupid. In a way, I find that many biracial children and young adults degrade themselves, but you’ll come to realize that you are best of two worlds because you can claim two or three identities. For example, you could be Chinese and American, but grew up in UK so you have all three identities within yourself.
I’m a strong believer in people holding onto their heritage, national identity. So, I think you should read up on Chinese cultures, history, and tradition… I don’t mean tumblrs version of Chinese culture, history, and tradition, but actual Chinese. For example, 100 day birthdays which I attended 6 or so years ago. My cousins family is Chinese and Australian and they keep tradition up as well. Unfortunately, I think there’s some disparity between one Chinese/Australian family and the other as one family knows more Mandarin/Cantonese more than the other one.
It’s hard, but you can go to classes and immerse yourself in Chinese culture. Watch Chinese TV shows, news, and movies. That way you’ll be understand or pick up a bit.
I certainly feel a sense of obligation from my grandparents because I think that while they chose to push my father to assimilate, they still want the type of chinese family that they grew up knowing, and see my sister and I as a chance to create that. But that isn’t an internally sourced motivation. Why do I want to? (To which I don’t really have an answer besides, it tells me about where my family comes from.)
You should want to do it because it’s part of your identity. It’ll open up a door for you. Languages, cultures change brain patterns. Perhaps, without knowing it you are somewhat Chinese. I don’t really know, since I don’t know you, but I know that for me I can think like a Japanese and I can think like an Australian, but often not recognized as either.
A lot of these questions have come up for me recently because of a discussion I was having with a friend of mine which stemmed out of the recent Reddit post about the father who accidentally raised his adopted child with Chinese culture when the child was born to Korean parents. What defines someone’s right to interact with a culture? Is it a right by birth, or is it more a right by environment? Do we have an inherent need to connect with our racial background as mixed people? Or does it not matter?
What that father did was wrong because he just automatically assumed. It is a right by birth, but you can also understand and learn different cultures by environment. For example, I know so much about other cultures/traditions and yet I’m not of their nationality because I either lived there or I had friends from there. I think the parents from different nationalities, cultures, languages should always teach their children their side. It’s sad when one or both part is lost due to lack of respect or thinking it’s unnecessary.
I guess I’m not necessarily looking for answers, since these are pretty broad reaching questions. I have to make my own choices, learn about the things I want/need to learn, and create my own identity from my own experiences and decisions, just as this Redditor’s kid has to. But I wanted to throw out there that I’m open to talking about these questions (or other types of questions) if anyone wants to.
-mobiusot256
P.S. Also, if there’s anyone looking to practice Chinese, I could totally use some help with that. I don’t have many friends who are in the “somewhat competent, but not native speaker” level of language skill.
I think you should find friends who are fluent in Chinese, but have a teaching background as they can help you with it in a way that you’ll understand. That’s what I do with my friends who speak Japanese to me.
Hmm. I never really thought about "mixed" vs. "biracial" as a dichotomy for describing oneself. I always kind of thought of myself as a blending of things, rather than "I am Chinese" and "I am also White." But I can see how that carries a connotation of degradation (as if I'm somehow less because I'm not one or the other). At the end of the day, I'm pretty new to identity... politics? Hm. I don't know the right word, but discussing and understanding identity as a construct is not something I've thought about consciously. Rather it's always been more framed in terms of "Who am I?" It makes for talking about this a bit challenging.
You're certainly on point with the cultural immersion and language. Part of what motivated me to study it in the first place is build that connection, but I've basically stopped studying since finishing undergrad. Part of that is difficulty finding an appropriate venue to study, part of it I can definitely attribute to me not making enough effort to do so.
I think a couple of things have made it... a little curious. A lot of it comes from being white passing I would imagine. Most Chinese people assume I'm just another white person looking to learn about a foreign culture, rather than one that I've been disconnected from. The other point is that the Mainland Chinese culture is radically different from the Culture my grandparents brought with them to the United States (having left China before the cultural revolution). At the end of the day, I guess I should stop worrying so much and dive in. I'm hoping to visit my grandparents for the Lunar New Year, so maybe I'll get to learn through that.
Thanks for the detailed response! You've given me much more to think about. Cheers!
It’s time for us to talk about a difficult and complicated series of issues which have affected the gaming community in recent weeks. This is one of those times when we’ve had to take a deep breath and just wait. It’s hard to do that, sometimes. We do like to say our piece. But sometimes you have to wait, because it’s moving too fast and affects far too many people. So we’ve waited. We’ve written something down, and we’ve turned the comments off.
Let us explain why.
Here’s what has happened: The past month has seen an explosion of criticism and harassment of gamers, games journalists, games critics, and game developers. The harassment has been particularly focused on women, and men who have spoken out in support of women. Without exception, harassment and abuse, for any reason, is unacceptable.
There has been criticism, too, which has resulted in gamers claiming that we hate them. We don’t hate gamers. We are gamers. Numerous (often offensive and widely incoherent) attempts to provoke controversy and scandal about the relationship between game developers and the games press have resulted in some people saying that RPS should be destroyed. Perhaps unsurprisingly, we disagree with that proposition, and we’ll explain why we disagree in this article.
Sadly, too much of the criticism we’ve seen has been enmeshed with abuse and harassment, and that has included threats, personal information being published online, and even people’s friends and family being personally menaced.
All this makes the related argument difficult to deal with calmly or methodically. The consequence of this abundant irrationality has been that no resolution currently seems possible, with violent deadlock between the various people who are affected by this event.
But all is not lost, as events like this one illustrate.
Crucially, some people have been attacked with such vitriol that it has damaged their personal lives, and caused them intense distress. This is unacceptable, offensive, unwarranted, inexcusable and we condemn it completely. These actions are embarrassing to the community, and profoundly damaging to the lives of people who work with games. This means it is damaging to games, which is the thing we are all supposedly agreed should be regarded as important and meaningful.
Rock Paper Shotgun issues a statement about their stance on recent events in the industry.
In this episode we explore the Women as Background Decoration trope which is the subset of largely insignificant non-playable female characters whose sexuality or victimhood is exploited as a way to infuse edgy, gritty or racy flavoring into game worlds. These sexually objectified female bodies are designed to function as environmental texture while titillating presumed straight male players. Sometimes they’re created to be glorified furniture but they are frequently programmed as minimally interactive sex objects to be used and abused.
Full transcript, links and resources available at FeministFrequency.com
I'm still trying to collect my thoughts about the Burial at Sea DLC for Bioshock Infinite, so this will be a bit... meandering in its track.
The first thing that comes to mind is Elizabeth's realization about the cycle of violence, and how Daisy Fitzroy comments on this, in a kind of "behind the scenes" look at Daisy's character. At least of one of the audio logs has Daisy monologuing about feeling stuck, knowing full well that the revolution she leads would bring uncounted bloodshed. but at the same token recognizing how bitterly she feels about her lot in life, and how revolution could fix that.
While I'm all for it, it does seem kind of shoehorned in. Especially once its revealed that Daisy tried to kill Fink's boy just so Elizabeth could become a real killing adult. What is it's purpose? It seems it is to redeem Daisy as a character for the heinous acts she committed in the main line of Bioshock Infinite, though it hardly seems enough. Though to be fair, I was always of the mind that Infinite's invocation of racial issues and revolution were simply a setpiece for a story that is about something else entirely:
Redemption.
Which is a recurring theme in Booker/the Vox Populi/Coumbia's story. What redeems a man/society? Is it bloody revolution? Is it drink? Is it fanatic devotion?
None of the above.
Which is something both Elizabeth and Daisy comment on in the second episode of Burial at Sea.
Which, actually, now that I think about it, is also something Booker/Comstock thinks on during the first episode of Burial at Sea, which in that case is him running away from his sins (which ultimately does not redeem him).
(This of course, does not necessarily excuse how racial issues and revolution were used as a set piece, but I don't have an opinion worth sharing)
So the endings of Infinite and the second episode of the DLC, are the moments in which Booker and Elizabeth redeem themselves, sacrificing themselves so that the future timeline(s) could be saved.
Okay, subsection II: Gameplay mechanics
I really, really, really, liked that the second episode featured a noncombative option. I did not have to kill a single person (a few died with bouts of possession and turrets) but it was refreshing, especially compared to how violent the base game required you to be,
Or, I could have gone in guns mostly blazing.
What I didn't like was that once I had the peeping tom upgrades (scanning for enemies has no cost, and standing invisible has no cost), the game got stupid easy. No longer particularly fettered by a need to be truly stealthy, I was able to easily see my way through every level with liberal use of peeping tom, and standing still and waiting invisible when I got caught.
Ammo was never really an issue because I just melee'd everyone unconscious, only tranquilizing people when I screwed up.
In fact, I only really needed peeping tom. Posession was useful for turret takedown, but ironsides and old man winter were honestly not just worth it. Why worry about alert levels or eve when I could just stand there invisible and whack anyone who got too close?
Only at the very end did I start to run low on EVE for stealthing about, but that didn't really pose an issue because the game then ended.
In short, my choice to not kill people made the game well... no less easy or difficult, which was unfortunate because I kind of feel the series has always made noncombat very challenging (because it wasn't really designed to be played that way).
"Perhaps I should finish playing Dishonored instead of these poor attempts for stealth games" cries devil's advocate.
"Hush you." says the rest of my brain.
Hm. There isn't a third section right now. Clearly this was designed as a wrap up for the bioshock franchise under Ken Levine's hand, and accomplishes that, but at the end... I still wish it could have been something a little more.
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