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ARTICLES:
Eurasian Experience
Real
Life Musings of a Eurasian Male By David Horwitz July 2002 I just searched the Internet for this "hapa" thing two days ago. For some strange reason I just did it and now I've discovered this whole community. I do feel like it could be bigger though. I think if the word got out then people would be really into it. On the other hand some people probably don't really care. Anyhow, I really like it when people tell about their life experiences. I got some real good insight off of this guy's Web site where he kept a journal. On the other hand, some of the stuff gets on my nerves. Primarily when people express their opinions too openly, or inconsiderately in my view. To me it makes them look wack, but I guess people are just people, and my opinion of them being wack is just another opinion, so I guess I can't really say anything. However, I do tend to avoid the chats and forums for this reason. They seem to be so catty and just annoying. Anyway, we digress and move on. To be quite honest, and this is just my personal experience and not necessarily anyone else's, I think it is extremely hard to be half-Asian. Part of my life's problems has to do with my father not being a very good father. Part of it has to do with your experiences as a youth and beyond too, with and without the half-Asian thing. Some people might never experience the differences that we encounter from being half-Asian, but these experiences have made me feel that I'm not really anything, but instead in my own world of culture that I have built as a result of isolation. I do not feel like a mix of the two. Some people would tend to classify me in this manner. I typically feel isolated from society because I don't feel like I fit into the mold of anything out there. For this reason, I think it will be hard for me to survive in my work-life. But perhaps I can do something never thought of before and make millions at it too, so who knows. As far as racism goes I have encountered some of it, but racism is a perception too, so you have to be careful how you perceive a statement. Something that might be completely harmless to one person can really hurt another. If you feel different, encounter some racist people, and you don't have any ethnic/social group to fall back on or anyone else to talk to, your self-perception becomes skewed as a result. I think this is a big problem with the half-Asian community. There are not enough of us out there, in my case half-Japanese and half-Caucasian, so we really don't have a tightly-knit social group like people of every other race have. I don't feel like this is racist, but everyone else has a group, so we should have one too. That is not to say that half-Asian people are better than anybody else, believe me not all of them are, but I still would like to meet more people with the same ethnicity as I. That is my view. Back on track. My family life wasn't that good as a child so really I didn't have anyone to talk to about my feelings and problems. I developed a sense of distrust for other human beings, and some of my mentality was based on racial profiles. On the other hand, not having anyone to talk to and feeling different because of ethnicity seems to have really made me feel independent in a sense. I feel this way especially in the way of thought. I am fiercely anti-assimilationist. I don't care at all what others are doing. I want to do what I want to do. I try not to run over anybody and hurt their feelings, but I don't want to play into, or try not to play into, the games that most other people seem to be playing. This might be somewhat of a self-perception, but not completely. People tend to think I have certain characteristics because I'm half-Asian. I think stereotypes circulate a lot. Maybe some of them are true, but I don't think that anything is completely true. And perhaps it is true that truth depends on what angle you approach something from. To give you an example, some people think I'm really smart and good with electronics cause I'm half-Asian. Maybe somewhat, as far as exposure goes, but still I personally don't feel like that's what makes me smart. If I am smart, I am smart because I want to be good at something. I think that intelligence comes from knowledge rather than some inherent characteristic. An example: I go to school in Tennessee right now where there are a lot of uneducated people. Most people would say they're stupid, but really they're just uneducated. Ignorance is the issue here. This is a funny example, and one that most people have heard before. People think that Asian men have really small penises. One time a girl really pissed me off, because she wanted to sleep with me (which I did not want to do) and she told me that she was glad I was half-Asian because my dick probably wouldn't be too small or something. That was just about the wackest thing I'd heard anybody say, and it made me realize one thing: caring about what people or what general society thinks about you is the biggest waste of time and energy ever. So I have developed a philosophy. I don't care what any one person thinks about me because if they are not making me feel good then they are probably not the type of person I would want to hang around anyway. If people are with you because of your dick size, which you did nothing to earn anyway, then they don't care about you. They will leave you in a second. What if it got chopped off in a car wreck? Can you answer me that? Sometimes it is hard to find people who can really love each other. I am probably guilty of this as well though, and it does bother me. On the opposite side of things, it is important for you to watch your ego. I've found that being different can lead you to go one of two ways. You can either think that you are not good enough, or you can also become arrogant. Sometimes they can be mixed together, which makes me think they are two sides of the same coin, which I've heard a wise person say. Some things I have done because of my heritage. I got into Zen Buddhism because I just wanted to do something for a book report and I wanted to do it on my culture, my Japanese culture. I consider this very special and I feel privileged to participate in it. I had never really known anything about Buddhism or meditation, but this book, which was written by a white American master, simply amazed me. I wanted to know exactly what she was talking about. I didn't understand it at all, but I knew something was there that was very deep, but supposedly just a simple trick. I struggled with it for years and I guess I can say that maybe you have to give up the struggle and then you can start understanding things clearer. Back to racism. It is kind of sad because some of the racism that I've experienced comes from my own brother. He looks somewhat more Caucasian than I do, even though people say we both look the same. Anyhow, even though he is my sibling and maybe more for this reason, the times he made fun of me because of the way I looked really made an impact on me. I didn't understand. That really can hurt your feelings, but you might protect yourself by becoming angry. Things like that have happened before and if you look in the mirror and think "Yeah, I guess I really am different." then you'll start to form a perception about yourself. For example, I thought I was really unattractive for a long time, but now when I look in the mirror I usually feel like I'm very attractive. More about this in a minute. I've found that all the negative things people told me really don't seem to be true. I think that especially in these times and in America you can be whoever you want to be and whatever you want to be. If you can't get something, go somewhere else and try harder. There are some positive things I have experienced from others. One positive thing is that it seems like people, and especially in beauty salons, say that I'm very attractive. Probably not everybody, but enough do. Sometimes I don't believe it, I wonder why they say it, but if I look in the mirror then there's times that I do feel like I'm very attractive. Some people say that I have a good build too, cause I used to lift weights and I got pretty cut. I've always had a nice build because I feel like I have good genetics, but in the last few years I've been getting older, and I was lazy for a few years so I've gotten a little chubby in the stomach. Hopefully b-boying can cure me of that. People think I'm pretty smart and that I have good ideas. The music teacher at my old school told me I had more ideas than anybody he knew. He was a pretty talented person too, so coming from him that was probably a good compliment. We didn't get along though. My friend Cary said that my ideas were good in my music tracks. And my friend Brian said my mix-down skills were "killer," in his words. I'm still working out the technical details of the programs I use, but I think I have a good philosophy behind my production. One
other thing is that my mother says I'm a very kind person. I try
to never kill anything. I don't understand people who kill things
indiscriminately. I believe that since you did not choose your birth,
you could have been born as an insect or other non-human creature.
Here's another positive quality. I'm not sure if it's cause I'm mixed or not, but I feel like I have good athletic skills. I used to be very athletic when I was a child, and I seemed to be able to get first place in just about anything. Now I have slacked off, but I feel with practice you can be capable of anything. I tend to think towards the future too. Someone once told me that I'm just ahead of my time. To be honest I think that's true. Perhaps I do get some of that from Japan. I feel like Japan has things that really speed up the evolution of technology. Different things are made in the U.S. and worldwide, but Japan seems to be able to do it in a sleeker, sexier way, instead of bulky and awkward. Do you get it? Check out any of the new electronics in Japan compared to the ones here and you'll see what I mean. That might be the reason I'm good with computers. I've come up with good ideas that I think could revolutionize the world. It is beyond my capacity to do things like that now, and I'm not an electrical engineer. I just have the ideas, but I know it can be done. I think I'm pretty funny too. You may not think that now because of this essay, but there are times when I don't give a fuck and can be pretty stupid and amusing. To myself and some others at least. Not everyone gets my jokes. Oh well. I try to be as kind as possible nowadays. I feel like it's the most important thing. Without it your life can be miserable. Kindness to yourself is most important. Once you have that showing kindness to others is even more important. My goal in life is to bring a sense of beauty and purity to the world. I often feel claustrophobic because I feel like there's so much work to be done. Perhaps it is a selfish motivation to make music for a living, but if I can make myself happy doing that, and in my spare time be kind and help others then I think I'll be doing fine. And that's about enough for now. This is an essay that's very deep into my life and personal. I hope it's what you wanted, and that it isn't too long. About
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