Asian Wife, Asian Nanny
A friend of mine showed me this video
Then I went through the comment section:
These comments are following very common disturbing assumptions when you see an Asian woman with a white guy:
This is just very sad how inequality rooted deeply that it is hard to see two human beings as two equal entities without the society judging them.
Back then, I felt so uncomfortable to hang out with my partner in public. People stared at me and judged me. People thought that I was interested in his money and that he paid for my life in general. When we traveled, people were asking if I was a tour guide or a prostitute. When we hung out, even when I was the one who gave the card to pay, the waiter gave it back to him to sign. When we went shopping and I asked for a price of a dress, the shop keeper told my partner the price of the goddamn fucking dress, and not to me.
When people hear that I am in the US, the most common reaction I got from Indonesian male friends is: you must be following your American husband. Double wrong, he is not American and he is not in the US.
Even among my friends, I will always hear a lot of jokes that I have a physicality of "selera bule/ foreigner's taste". Which I found very degrading because I am only seen as a piece of meat, not as somebody who is pursuing her dream, or fun to hang out with, or funny, or any quality that I have.
The worst one I got was when we were at a restaurant called La Moomba in Gili Trawangan. My partner and I were ordering a juice and a salad. It was more than an hour but the salad and the juice were never there. I asked them three times, they just told me to wait. When it was almost 1,5 hour passed, I told them to cancel it because we were about to leave. But they came up with a racist slur about brown women who are with a white guy. I've never been so angry like that. I was an independent woman who is proudly working hard to get all the things I want by my own hand, being told that I was just a prostitute who was not supposed to be arrogant to them because I didn't even have the ability to pay if it was not because of my partner. I've never been so angry.
The second worst was when a taxi driver thought that I was a prostitute from Sukabumi who has an Arabic client just because I was staying at my friend's apartment for two days at Apartment Batavia as a transit place after going back to Indonesia from Cambodia, and before the US. He said: "I don't believe that you are working here (in Jakarta), you must be from Sukabumi and having a guest in the apartment". He was really emphasizing on (1) I will never be able to stay in Apartment Batavia if I was not a prostitute. (2) I will never be able to live outside Indonesia if it was not because of marriage (I was not even married yet, and didn't mention anything about any relationships at all). I was just trying to be friendly by having a conversation with him. I never thought it will be one of my worst mornings in Jakarta.
By all mean, YOUR RACIST STEREOTYPICAL IS NOT FUNNY AT ALL.
I am so done with all this discrimination and I have reached the point where I don't care anymore. But it doesn't mean that the problem is solved. The society needs to change.
Then I went through the comment section:
These comments are following very common disturbing assumptions when you see an Asian woman with a white guy:
- She is the maid/ nanny
- She goes for him for money
- He goes for her for sex
- She is stupid Asian from the village
- The guy is having Asian fetish
This is just very sad how inequality rooted deeply that it is hard to see two human beings as two equal entities without the society judging them.
Back then, I felt so uncomfortable to hang out with my partner in public. People stared at me and judged me. People thought that I was interested in his money and that he paid for my life in general. When we traveled, people were asking if I was a tour guide or a prostitute. When we hung out, even when I was the one who gave the card to pay, the waiter gave it back to him to sign. When we went shopping and I asked for a price of a dress, the shop keeper told my partner the price of the goddamn fucking dress, and not to me.
When people hear that I am in the US, the most common reaction I got from Indonesian male friends is: you must be following your American husband. Double wrong, he is not American and he is not in the US.
Even among my friends, I will always hear a lot of jokes that I have a physicality of "selera bule/ foreigner's taste". Which I found very degrading because I am only seen as a piece of meat, not as somebody who is pursuing her dream, or fun to hang out with, or funny, or any quality that I have.
The worst one I got was when we were at a restaurant called La Moomba in Gili Trawangan. My partner and I were ordering a juice and a salad. It was more than an hour but the salad and the juice were never there. I asked them three times, they just told me to wait. When it was almost 1,5 hour passed, I told them to cancel it because we were about to leave. But they came up with a racist slur about brown women who are with a white guy. I've never been so angry like that. I was an independent woman who is proudly working hard to get all the things I want by my own hand, being told that I was just a prostitute who was not supposed to be arrogant to them because I didn't even have the ability to pay if it was not because of my partner. I've never been so angry.
The second worst was when a taxi driver thought that I was a prostitute from Sukabumi who has an Arabic client just because I was staying at my friend's apartment for two days at Apartment Batavia as a transit place after going back to Indonesia from Cambodia, and before the US. He said: "I don't believe that you are working here (in Jakarta), you must be from Sukabumi and having a guest in the apartment". He was really emphasizing on (1) I will never be able to stay in Apartment Batavia if I was not a prostitute. (2) I will never be able to live outside Indonesia if it was not because of marriage (I was not even married yet, and didn't mention anything about any relationships at all). I was just trying to be friendly by having a conversation with him. I never thought it will be one of my worst mornings in Jakarta.
By all mean, YOUR RACIST STEREOTYPICAL IS NOT FUNNY AT ALL.
I am so done with all this discrimination and I have reached the point where I don't care anymore. But it doesn't mean that the problem is solved. The society needs to change.
Comments
Post a Comment