On the podcast Feeling Asian, hosted by comedians Youngmi Mayer and Brian Park, the two talk about a broad range of topics, from dating to politics to food, all tied together and contextualized by their own ‘feelings surrounding the Asian-American experience.’ They also have guests on every now and then (usually Asian-Americans, sometimes other BIPOC) whom they interview about their work and their own ‘Asian feelings.’ I’ve followed Youngmi Mayer and her ‘work’ for a while. When I say ‘work’, I mean the searing and deeply relatable jokes she shares on Twitter and Instagram. I came to know about Youngmi via her ex-husband, Danny Bowien, a well-known figure in the food world for his wildly successful restaurants Mission Chinese Food in SF and NYC.
I finally gave the podcast a listen when I had heard that they’d had Danny on as a guest to discuss some of the allegations that were recently made about the toxic work environment over at Mission Chinese NY. He addressed them, owned up to some of them, but also talked about the complicity of the person who’d levied the allegations against him. You can listen to the episode here. I won’t go into that part. But what I do want to talk about is one of the questions Youngmi and Brian asked Danny that struck a nerve, a question I would later learn they ask all their guests.
“How Asian are you?”
The question seems innocuous but you’d be surprised at some of the answers it provokes. It asks guests to delve into their own complicated histories as Asian-Americans. In Danny’s case, it prompted him to talk about being adopted and what it was like to grow up in an ultra white and religious community and how being the child of white parents informed his experience growing up. He also talks about the abuse he suffered at the hands of both his mother and other people in the community. In another episode, food writer Noah Cho talked about being half-white but not white-passing and how that’s affected how he’s treated by people. He talked about how his (white) mother tells people she can’t be racist because she has Asian children. Youngmi shared that her father says the same, despite being deeply racist.
I’m a Filipino citizen but I spent my early childhood in the US, in a small city just 20 minutes outside San Francisco called Pacifica. My best friend back then was a girl named Katie Van Skiver. She had blonde hair and blue eyes. I remember wanting desperately to be blonde that one time, on a trip to Disneyland, at one of their novelty photo studios, my mom had them superimpose blonde hair on me. I remember looking at the photo afterward and feeling empty.
Although it was only six years, those six years informed a lot of who I am today. One of them being in how I communicate. When we moved back to the Philippines, both my brother and I had a tough time adjusting. Because we couldn’t speak the language, we felt isolated. I spent every recess period of that first year crying. One of my best friends, today, likes to recount how he remembers always seeing me crying back then, and that he’d even told his mom about me. “Give her a cookie,” she told him. He didn’t, but that hasn’t stopped him from telling the story. It wasn’t until two years later that I finally got my footing, made friends, and my grades started improving.
One would think that being Asian in Asia would be easier, but even then, white supremacy would continue to rear its ugly head in insidious ways. In school, discussing one’s ethnic background was a normal part of conversation. Having Spanish blood was a point of pride. Having Chinese blood was not. If you were more ‘Filipino’, (meaning had a Filipino-sounding last name or dark-skinned), you were neither celebrated nor derided. I have a Chinese-sounding last name and so people thought I was Chinese. I remember having to convince people that I wasn’t and that I had Spanish blood on both my mom and dad’s side as if that made me more worthy of their respect.
In Cathy Park Hong’s memoir Minor Feelings, she writes: “There’s a ton of literature on the self-hating Jew and the self-hating African American, but not enough has been said about the self-hating Asian. Racial self-hatred is seeing yourself the way the whites see you, which turns you into your own worst enemy. Your only defense is to be hard on yourself, which becomes compulsive, and therefore a comfort, to peck yourself to death. You don’t like how you look, how you sound. You think your Asian features are undefined, like God started pinching out your features and then abandoned you. You hate that there are so many Asians in the room. Who let in all the Asians? you rant in your head. Instead of solidarity, you feel that you are less than around other Asians, the boundaries of yourself no longer distinct but congealed into a horde.”
For the last four years, I’ve lived in Vietnam, in an expat enclave in Hanoi called Tay Ho (West Lake) where, most of the time, I’m surrounded by white people. Strangely enough, it’s here that I’ve probably experienced the most micro-aggressions, even while living among people who’d consider themselves ‘woke.’ Like the time a friend referred to the cocktails my boyfriend (also Filipino) and I had brought to a party as ‘jungle juice’ even after we had told her it was Planter’s Punch, a cocktail developed in South Carolina. Or another time when, while watching stand-up at a bar, the ‘comedian’ (I’m being very generous here) on stage asked me why my English was so good after I’d told him where I was from. Or that time when my boss gave my job to a white dude out of nowhere because they wanted a ‘native speaker,’ even though English is my first language and had already been doing the job for two years. Or that time when… well, you get the point.
My point is, even being Asian in Asia can be a weird journey.
I wish I could tie this all up in a way that feels profound. I wish I could tell you that I’ve figured it out and have fully come to terms with what it means to be a Filipino woman in 2020; I can’t. In one episode of Feeling Asian, Brian says, “Shame is integral to the Asian experience.” What I do know is I’m trying to embrace that shame, roll around with it, and put it on like a pretty dress, in the hopes that, one day, I might even be able to show it off. It’ll take me a while but I’ve got nothing but time.
Vegetarian pantry staples
These are my four ride-or-die pantry staples. I truly do feel like if you have these four, you can make anything.
Let’s start with the leftmost. I feel like I’ve only been able to really harness all of sesame oil’s powers in the last year, thanks to Maangchi. If you’ve been stuck in a cooking rut, I highly recommend going to her page and just going nuts. Every dish is a winner. My current favorite is a dish we make at least once a week: kongnamul muchim or soybean sprout side dish. If you’ve eaten at a Korean restaurant that serves banchan, you’ve definitely tried it before. The dish comes together so quickly and gets better as it sits, meaning leftovers are a must.
The second is vegetarian oyster sauce. The brand I always buy is Lee Kum Kee. I’m not sure if other vegetarian oyster sauces are this good so I recommend sticking to this one. This sauce is an umami bomb that borders on truffle territory. Try a bit on a spoon before using it because it’s very assertive and can be used alone on tofu, steamed veggies, what-have-you.
Kewpie. Mash up some chickpeas, add a tablespoon of two of Kewpie, a few dashes of soy sauce and mix it up and you’ve got yourself a great sandwich spread. Add dill, a bit of Dijon mustard, and squeeze of lemon and it’s vegetarian tuna salad. For something a little simpler, shake a few drops of Knorr or Maggi seasoning into a few tablespoons of Kewpie and it becomes THE BEST DIP EVER for every manner of fried potato. Trust and believe.
It might seem a little strange at first, but once you start appreciating nutritional yeast, your life will never be the same. Some of my favorite ways to use it:
Sprinkled on top of noodles (pasta or Asian noodles)
To make vegan parmesan, blitz half a cup of roasted unsalted cashews in a blender until it’s a crumbly powder, add a heaping tablespoon of nutritional yeast, 1/2 tsp garlic powder, and 1/2 tsp salt, and mix to combine. Taste for salt or if you want, more garlic powder. Sprinkle on everything.
On top of tomato toast: Toast a slice of bread until well-toasted, slice a clove of garlic in half and rub on one side of toast, spread about a tablespoon of Kewpie onto the side you rubbed garlic on, then place a few sliced tomatoes on top, sprinkle tomato slices with salt and black pepper, and top nutritional yeast until evenly covered, and eat!
This was very late, I know. I’m still trying to get the hang of pouring my heart and soul out into this little thing every week. It’s tough but know that I love every bit of it. I hope you do, too. As always, thanks for reading.
Loved this so much I shed a few proud tears