http://nymag.com/news/features/asian-americans-2011-5/
Maybe it gives some insight as to why I’m (we’re?) in a band in the first place – yes I like indie rock music and I love me the free drink ticket, but being in a band is also a way to be different from what I’ve been expected to be by my parents, and what the general population expects to see from someone like me (although I still think I have fallen into a different subset of a Type of Asian girl, i.e. Hipster Grifter-esque?) It’s just sometimes hard to say “I’m in a band” without it simply meaning “I’m in a band” and people respond to it like, “oh big deal, so was I (in my suburban house). I mean, jeez, I grew up in the Bronx, the first tape cassette I bought was A Tribe Called Quest and Mary J Blige on CD and um, I didn’t know who Pavement were till much later in college and I still refuse to actively listen to Zeppelin and any other classic rock artists just out of principal. Which makes me think, “damn, our band is really good because it’s fucking original”. I feel like there’s little rhyme or reason as to how we formed but somehow it works. We’re (I’m) not trying to follow after anyone’s footsteps, we just want to explore, create and do the things that no one ever said we could do. I think that’s awesome.
May 10th, 2011 at 1:59 pm
Oh, man, I read this article, too, and I think I found a little in common with all the folks in the article, and that I probably engage in a bunch of the same adaptations. I related a lot to the bit about the guy trying to chill and play Scrabble with his girlfriend’s family and how that was completely alien and revelatory to him. And not because I don’t know how to play Scrabble.
May 11th, 2011 at 5:17 pm
interesting. in similar terms, I guess I gravitated to where I am now by also breaking the mold. I was supposed to end up like this photo (if you grew up in the south, you’d know what I’m talking about):
http://static.ragamuffinsoul.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/dsc-2938.jpg
but instead I moved to Oregon which totally blew my mind. I really have all those people in Oregon to thank for nurturing my musical talent. somehow that mixture of southern juices and oregon granola led me to the soy sauce.