Disorientation: marvellous
Midterm season is coming up, and i’m colossally behind on work given little lapses and periods of me being sick, but i wanted to jot down thoughts on this wonderful paperback compact of colour and thought experiments, Disorientation by Elaine Hsieh Chou. first of all, can we take a look at this limited edition cover? it’s soo stunning!! and as someone who routinely uses e-readers, this paperback is literally a delectable treat to flip through.
This book is a smooth, easy read. It went down so fast because it’s not a book lecturing at you, but one that you can hum along reading and surprise-burst in to laughter and dilly dally doing so but ALL AT THE SAME TIME deeply relating to. There are lots of crispy layers of race and gender to this book baked together, and i think the way Chou crafted the papier-mâché concepts of our biases (in-group, out-group, ethnocentrism, cultural relativity bias, benevolent sexism, or even, benevolent racism if we’d like to say that) and split-up movements in response to affirmative action/ advocacy /authentic Asian representation is phenomenal.
(spoiler alert!)
i would most def agree that if you enjoyed Yellowface by R. F. Kuang, this one will be a sweet spot book. Both books revolve around very similar concepts. essentially, when it comes to representation in the media, are people of non-asian culture allowed to represent asian cultural heritage and legacy at all? are we reading too much into it — does it derive from a more uphill battle of love and devotion to a culture that is not one’s own? or is it a twisted, warped type of hobby-building and objectification?
sudden flashback to when I was in Victoria, and my parents and I visited this Chinese-Canadian museum, and the museum guide speaking to us was a Caucasian man in his 60s, with a “ni hao” on his volunteer shirt. My dad politely inquired about certain aspects of Chinese-Canadian history, ceding to the guy as the expert while the five of our asian faces (only people touring the museum at that time) surrounded him (only staff member working at that time). my dad very enthusiastically supported his answers, without a flicker of this dynamic showing up, and i felt a little bit strange, but i also wasn’t sure, because my dad was the expert, ever more so than me sometimes, and he can tell me so many chronicles of ancient & modern Chinese history right off the tip of his tongue, but at the same time, he was asking a genuine question, and the dynamics just became fuzzy.
Coming back from that tangential stream-of-consciousness memory that just came up. i think basically, Chou’s book here is very funny and brings out lots of questions that show up in Microsoft WordArt when i picture them (i suppose because this book is one big satire, and a fun/funky read, and the aesthetics just seem to fit into this 2000s category).
The questions that Disorientation brings up, and stay with me include:
- is it possible to toss aside the colonialist dynamics in cross-race (mostly talking about white-other race) relationships and aesthetically throw the concept of fetishization out the window?
- is a racial fetish, by definition, racist? (yes)
- what hidden (or in plain sight) institutions and resulting dynamics shape how the discourse revolves around east asian studies?
- how do power and politics shape academia? and who does not hold this power, and what are the consequences?
- and is the truth worth sharing at all costs? even if it dismantles entire systems and structures? aren’t working structures, although problematic, better than no structure at all?
- and who determines what is “true”? what the majority subscribes to?
- how exactly does one’s identity shape discourse? identity brings power and privilege, and lots of complicated intersections. does it mean inherent weight in what you say, or a lack-there-of?
- as a minority, do we innately have an ingrained sense of self-judgment accumulated from our childhood experiences that show up in different, seemingly neutral/benevolent ways in which we lead our lives?
- are we easily “offended” or too sensitive in thinking so? and will that be our downfall as we sink into misery, forever?
- what does it mean to truly understand one’s own racial identity…
interesting tid bit to point out that the major character in the book, a made-up scholar called Xiao-Wen Chou who shaped three decades of Chinese-American thought and literature through his revelatory poetry, shares the same last name as our author herself Elaine!! And apparently, the book is not based on pure speculation either, because just a short 9 years ago from today, Yi-Fen Chou was the pen name of a guy whose real name was Michael Derrick Hudson. there we go. https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/when-white-poets-pretend-to-be-asian
