You know I can't get this reflection out of my head, and fine, like I probably need to do a reread of HR and maybe TLG. But also, I've read a lot of discourse about how RR wrote Shane's ethnicity, and overwhelmingly it's pretty much like one of those things you can forget about - because it just doesn't really come up. And you know, maybe that was from a place of fear, or ignorance, and maybe it comes up in more unconscious ways (Asian - smaller - bottom - submissive)... I'm not sure.
What I will say, is that as a transracial & intercountry adoptee - and I'll preface this by saying obviously people with life experiences closer to Shane have a better take - but reading Shane, kinda reminded me of my own personal inner monologue. Because I'm so divorced from my ethnicity and heritage and culture, and I just mostly really go through life following my adoptive culture which is white/western/British. You know, like, I don't specifically have any memories or habits or knowledge, that connect me to a culture that reflects my outward appearance. Kinda like how RR wrote Shane lol.
Which, two things. 1. Maybe it would be cool to see more transracial /intercountry adopted characters in romance stories or outside of like, idk, a coming of age genre. But 2. And - this is probably my main point (and one that my parents also failed to grasp) despite being 'culturally devoid' I'm still super not white - and I was and am treated as such!
Wildly, despite being culturally "white british" like - there's so many assumptions and reactions that are made based on my race and visual appearance. And by not having that cultural component actually, I kinda experience a weird "Uno reverse" where a lot of people will then react to me in a sort of racist-colluding way where they're like openly anti-immigrant, sometimes openly racist towards other races, but it's fine because my lack of cultural connection and tells (accent/food/etc) kinda puts me solidly in 'one of the good ones' camp. And actually interestingly, JT touched on this in *his* script a little, when Shane told Rose in the show, that he didn't catch as much flack as the other Asian kid growing up because of his Western last name. So that was cool to see, because I feel like that does reflect real life.
So ultimately, I'm really glad the show did, what I would say, a better job at reflecting the experience of Shane actually not being white, than the books did.
