I mentioned a while back that I wanted to introduce what I am calling Tube Thoughts. These are thoughts that merit more than a few sentences and are quite nebulous. Perhaps writing them down will bring forth some clarity. This is the first, and I am interested to see how free-form thought looks for me. I never allow myself just to write, so here we go!
I mentioned in the "About this Blog" page that you could expect my thoughts. I am often on the Tube and, therefore, often have quite a bit of time to think. Wi-Fi doesn't usually work, and reading makes me motion sick, so I have been using this time as a time to think. Mini Tube Thought, we rarely have space just to think. Having nothing to do but be with your thoughts is scary because they don't want to confront their thoughts. Then these thoughts pile up and keep you up at night. Instead of letting off the pressure a little at a time, we pile all of our buried thoughts, and they spring forth most unhelpfully at the wrong times.
Well, I have been chewing on a concept for a while, since before coming to London, and this concept is seeing reliance in my life now. Last semester in Literary Theory, we read "Borges y Yo" by Jorge Luis Borges. In the short story, the speaker distinguished the I as in yourself, the person who is seeing the world, and the I that others see or the Borges. This concept has intensely bugged me, and I cannot figure it out. But while abroad, I have been confronted with the I, I see myself as and how this outside world sees me.
A flatmate mentioned that her father saw me and had told her that her neighbor was "a Chinese girl." It was a passing comment, and nothing was meant by it, but it made me think. I think I never realized others see me as Chinese and would describe me as such. I know this should be blindingly obvious that people see me as Chinese since I have always lived as a minority and often the only Asian person in a situation. But somehow I think at home I saw myself as a "banana" (yellow on the outside, white on the inside) and never thought about strangers only seeing me as Asian. I have my share of racist experiences but growing up in a white community, I always felt it was misplaced, or somehow that racism transcended down to some fiber of me that is immutable regardless of race. It is always weird to hear about yourself from someone else. Eavesdropping is one thing, but to have someone tell you their accurate description of you to your face is another. Again this wasn't bad; it was just a catalyst to further thinking about the I.
An Asian girl in one of my classes asked me my ethnicity, and I told her Chinese. She told me I looked mixed, and without hearing, my voice had assumed I was from London. That being the best compliment I ever heard in my life aside, I never considered the broader world of having that shared, connected consciousness of being Asian. I don't value what other Asians do, and she mentioned how I had very fair skin, and that was something she was trying to obtain. I would have never considered being Asian means caring about how light your skin was. I mean, I know skin bleaching is a thing, but I figured that was more of a style than a culturally ingrained concept that I missed. I see myself looking into the Asian world when this girl thought I was in that world looking out.
In that same class, there is not a single white student. This has never once happened before in my entire life. I have never experienced being in the majority, and it felt weird. Somehow I was in a room where we all had a shared idea of not being white, and yet I felt like I was the white student (Banana complex at play here). The professor was white, and I wonder if he thought about the ethnicities of the students. I mean, this could be very normal for him. London is very diverse, and the idea of a room full of POCs is apparently very common. My consciousness wonders what it must be like to teach a diverse classroom, but to everyone else, diversity is normal. In fact, it might be so common that race doesn't even matter, and the I, I see myself is also what they see. People have told me they don't see me as Asian because I don't act Asian, whatever that might mean, or they just know me as me and don't consider race. This is the whole color-blindness problem. I am Chinese, but being Chinese does not define me, yet being Asian is a description, and to ignore the description might mean ignoring me and the problems of being Asian.
Outside of race, the I is showing up in other places. I have been asked don more than one occasion where the nearest Tube is or how to get somewhere. This is usually by Americans or tourists, and I am always happy to help. But it also feels surreal. I see myself as a dumb American, while others see me as a competent Londoner. Even real British people have asked me where things are, which I genuinely wonder why they asked me.
This is a very long-winded and this is what I think about when I am on the Tube. There is no conclusion, no answer to the problem. I am doing everything an academic writer shouldn't do, but frankly, I just need to visualize all the scraps of thought. I wish I could find authors of color who spoke about this more; perhaps I would know how to conclude these thoughts or know how to formulate these complex ideas into a way someone could understand. I hope I have been understandable. But as it stands, I am happy this is my first Tube Thought.
Another update that is long overdue is coming soon! Thank you all for reading!
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