What it means to be an asian girl?

Author: jennifer suzuki

I have been a very confused—some might say very conflicted—girl ever since I can remember and I have always lived in a fantasy world of my own making. I was born in Japan, my mother is Chinese and my father is Japanese, and my father's mother or my grandmother was German Dutch, and I came to the United States as a teenager and lived and went to school in Maryland, and worked in New York. I lived in fantasy worlds since I was a teenager and I have always done so, sometimes so deep in my own fantasy I forgot my own identity. I no longer knew who I am. Physically I look more European than asian. My father is of mixed heritage—he has white blond hair, but he also has some distinctly Japanese features. On the other hand my features mostly resembled my grandmother, who was a full blooded European woman. Which was not something that really bothered me. Actually most modern Japanese look very European compared to the rest of asians. My father was a sadist, and my mother, on the other hand, was, in my opinion, a masochist with no self respect. Growing up, seeing my father beating my mother was almost as frequent as having dinner, and when not beating her, she was constantly being humiliated and degraded, like having to serve dinner to him naked on her knees or being tied to an utility pole only in her panties during the winter. At first I believed my mother was a victim, a unfortunate human being in the hands of a cruel evil man, but as I grew older I realized that it was my mother who enjoyed being treated this way. The initial realization made me feel she was a disgusting, perverted, sick person, but as I grew older I began to have the almost identical sexual fantasies that my mother lived and experienced through. I began to think that my mother was the luckiest woman on earth since apparently she had found a man who understood her desires and could give them to her. My dad studied and worked in America before, and during that period he desperately wanted to marry a white woman, and vehemently pursued several white women, but was unsuccessful. At the same time Japanese women were unwilling to marry him. Maybe because just like him they were looking to marry into the white race, or maybe because he had sadistic tendencies. Out of options he settled to look for a Chinese woman. Statistically, marriages between Chinese women and Japanese men have been quite common, and I personally knew quite a few couples just like my mother and father. Even here in America I knew several Chinese women who had Japanese boyfriends and those women were actually quite proud of having superior Japanese men as boyfriends. Japanese in general look much more European compared to other asians and I suspect it was the putative European appearance that attracts other asian women. Of course Japanese are not Europeans, no matter how much we try to become European, just as Jews will never be fully accepted as White Christians. I think Jews and Japanese have a lot in common. We were both persecuted by Europeans, the Jews by Germans, and Japanese by Americans, yet we both come to love our white Masters. Jews weren't officially considered white until very recently, and I think as time progresses eventually Japanese will be categorized as white in the future, though Jews and Japanese will always know that they are still inferior to their Nordic Masters. But as always the Jews will be Masters over the Arabs and the Japanese will be Masters over the rest of Asia. There is no other meaning to life, other than the degree of domination. I had an older sister who looked fully asian, as opposed to me who looked much more European. And ever since childhood I have always known for a fact that I was treated better by everyone else because of my distinctly European appearance. In school classmates would be hesitant to tease me because they always thought my father might be an American or an European man even though they knew my mother was Chinese but somehow they still were afraid of me solely because of my European appearance. The thing was that in Japanese naming system, my mother's last name automatically gets attached to mine, so for example, my name in Japanese would actually be "Suzuki Liu Jennifer", because my mother's maiden name is Liu; this way everyone would instantly know my mother is Chinese. On the other hand my sister was bullied almost everyday by upper classmates because she looked very Chinese. They made fun of her hair and clothes and told her that she looked like a Chinese pig and I had seen boys pulling down her pants and laughing at her for having a "Chinese vagina". I was a very young girl back then and I felt ashamed of having her as a sister so in school I didn't talk to her at all. When I was 12 years old, she committed suicide by hanging herself in her closet. I know this because I was the one who discovered her body. My parents would have never told me about her death if I did not saw her dead body by myself. And ever since her death a dark cloud formed over my head and throughout my teenager years I was constantly harrowed by thoughts of suicide. It was not until I was much older that I learned suicide is infectious and that had been why I was constantly thinking about suicide. The realization made me try not to think too much about death, but no matter how much I try I can never get her image out of my head. Sometimes I feel she still haunts me because I didn't talk to her in school. My parents divorced when I was 14 and I went to live with my mom in China for two years. Contrary to popular beliefs, I had never experienced any form of racism or discrimination against me when I was living in China. Most people assumed that I was an European girl and the aura of being European seemed to make me inapproachable, like the shield of Athena covering me from head to toe. Even when I was in school, when classmates would know my father was Japanese because of my last name, I had never really felt any discrimination, though I did feel they were kind of afraid of me. I had never realized how much being White meant until I was in America: the symbol of power, domination, and superiority that being White implies. Being White is being the entelechy of all that is beautiful, good and righteous. Which is strange because my nationality still is, in actuality, Japanese and as I grew older I started to look more asian. My hair has gotten completely dark and my looks started to resemble my mother's. I used to have very light-colored hair, but I just felt fortunate that I do not look fully asian like my sister was. When I saw this image [of a naked asian woman kneeling next to a black furred dog] in a Japanese SM magazine a few days ago, all of a sudden I remembered seeing my mother in a similar position when I was maybe just 5 or 6 years old. It was not a pleasant experience; it was an extremely scary and traumatic experience, and growing up I heard constant moaning and muffled screams coming from my parents' bedroom. Every evening was a nightmare to fall asleep. But knowing that many asian women were treated the same way as my mother had been treated somehow made me feel better about my own family. At least my parents were not as weird as they seemed, and while growing up I had gradually come to realize that many asian girls have the same masochistic tendencies as I do, but many were just very shy and wouldn't admit their secrets. So it seems there are many masochistic asian women out there who thrives on been humiliated and degraded just like the girl in this image; I don't know why but this image made me feel kind of normal. I have lived in the States for nearly ten years now and I have not talked to my parents, who had divorced, for several years, especially to my mother whom I had some very severe arguments with over the years, especially when she remarried after she went back to China. I was more fond of my father though I haven't really talked to him that much either because he too had remarried. Despite all the mean things I had said about my dad, he was always very gentle with me and never beat me. He beat my sister and my mother but never me and I suspect he was much more gentle with me because of my more European looks. I felt their divorce was a punishment for me, as if they had abandoned me and I never felt comfortable with either of them or their new spouses, whether it be in China or in Japan. My mother's new husband was a very cruel and domineering white man living in China and he never treated me with the same special treatment I received from my dad. And I remember one time when I went out with him people on the street mistook me for his wife and I felt so disgusted I never wanted to go out with him again and then he would yell at me and yell at my mom. I am glad to have gotten out of there. And my dad ... well let's just say I couldn't bear to coexist with his new wife either. The last time we talked was already 3 years ago. This image had brought back so many long forgotten yearnings. I miss my sister and my parents. The memory of my sister and my parents started to fade away, like wavering forms they passed before my clouded sight; their images have become a blur rise about me out of mist and cloud; their faces, and their figures have become shades of phantoms; I wanted to hold you close to me in that blessed fleeting moment when you reappeared to me in my dreams. If only I possessed the strength to draw you near. I wanted to forever remember you—you bear the images of happy days; your airy smiles still stir youthful tremors in my breast—but my memory faltered. It would have been simpler if I were already dead. I would never be seized again by those long forgotten yearnings. I shuddered at those thoughts; and a tear draws other tears. Crying is my only form of release; through crying I am channeled to the solemn and silent world of spirits; crying is my whispered prayer that lingers in a vagrant tone. I have no one to talk to. I live in solitary confinement. I have been driven to madness even though physically I stay put. My life—full of dolor, pain and suffering. Sometimes I wish I could end it. The only reason I continue to live is for otherwise I lack the courage to carry out that final act, to take me beyond and step into the unknown. It is so much better to have been never born at all, or at least to die an immediate death. How sweet and wonderful death would be. My dear Aya, I am so very sorry! A vast space of nothingness in the empty universe fills my heart. Everyday of my life I live in terror because of you. A family dog Growing up, I always felt lonely. My family dog was my only companion. He was a slightly larger than a medium sized dog, with grey and dark fur, and a nozzle that resembled a wolf. He was so cute, so adorable, and he was my only friend. I often played with him in my desperate attempts to communicate with another living being, like Madame Bovary sitting by her fire place in a melancholic longing for escape. I want out!, out of this nonchalant prison of thoughts, out of this cruel alienated society, out of these mind forged manacles whose clanking I hear like looming madness; the marks of domestication on their faces, marks of psychological slavery, marks of intellectual death; they are mere automatons, inanimate objects, so lifeless like straw men, hollow men, stuffed men. I can't bare to look at those miserable beings' faces. In a domesticated dog I see more humanity than the entire humanity. If only my family dog can take me away! And I will elope with him to a happy place, where there is no more sorrow, no more dread, no more cold metallic prison walls of the mind. My family dog was my only friend, and he was my only confidante. To him I entrusted all my deepest secrets. Sometimes I wished I was a dog: no more worries, no more sadness, no more consciousness, no more thoughts, just the need to satisfy my most basic instincts, lying by my owner's feet, worshiping him and completely dependent on him. Sometimes I wish I could have another dog just like the family dog I used to have in Japan. And he will be my husband. I will belong to him. I will be his bitch. I will obey him, crawl under his belly, gently caress his furs with my soft hands, and please him like I would please my husband. And he will be my beast and I will be his beauty. Albeit he will be a gentle beast, always so obedient to me, and yet always so much more aggressive, and animalistic; he will protect me from harm, with his sharp fangs and naturally endowed muscles for chasing down his prey; and yet he will honor me and obey me like a lover would. He will never be jealous, never be angry, as long as he is fed and watered. He will be my best friend. View all posts by jennifer suzuki