Fasians
January 1, 2007 | Filed under Asian-ness
What exactly, is a fasian I might hear you ask? A fasian is simply a contraction of fake Asian, someone who isn’t of an Asian background, yet considers themselves to be of the cutting edge in the latest of Asian culture. More often than not, they will use words like “kawaii” in everyday conversation, as if to convince others around them that although their physical appearance might not suggest it, their soul truly belongs to Asia.
How then can you distinguish a fasian? There are a number of ways:
- Their love of J-pop music, for the fact that it’s J-pop. A true fasian would never listen to anything other than Asian music (preferably Japanese), and would denounce all Western music with their whole heart. Music artists that are prominently supported by fasians include Dir en Grey (with many a female fasian squeeing over Kyo) and Ayumi Hamasaki.
- Anime. Anime, anime, anime. This may be the one true mark of a fasian, whereby they express their love of various animes. More importantly, they like kawaii animes, like those produced by the Sanrio company, or otherwise various Japanese mangas.
- Chairman Mao paraphernalia. Quite often, the fasians that lean more towards China rather than Japan, will deck themselves out in T-shirts that support the Communist movement. These are the same people who shell out hundreds of dollars on a huge soft toy of a kawaii cartoon character.
- False knowledge of Japanese and/or Chinese, to the point of ignoring all other foreign languages. These fasians will walk around spouting random Japanese/Chinese phrases, in an attempt to appear fluent in the language. More often than not, they’re just using grammatically incorrect short phrases that make no sense.
- Their outfits. Fasians will attempt to emulate two styles, either the kitschy Harajuku style, or otherwise, the punk rock look that’s featured by music artists like those in Dir en Grey.
- Their crew. No fasian is complete without a posse of either fellow fasians, or Asians who let them hang around them. To be a true fasian, you must not have any Western friends. Your boyfriend/girlfriend must be Asian. All your friends must be Asian. This is non-negotiable.
You may think that this is fairly innocuous, and you might be wondering why I’m insulting people who aren’t causing any trouble. You might think that they’re simply making fools of themselves for trying to be what they’re not, and that there’s no reason for me to mock them. But there is. As someone who actually is Asian, who has Asian parents, who lives surrounded by Asian culture despite the fact that she lives in Australia, the behaviour of these fasians is insulting to me.
Asian culture isn’t all about kawaiiness, and dressing like a Harajuku girl. Asian culture isn’t just about listening to J-pop music, and learning kanji. Asian culture is long and bloody. Westerners have subjugated us since the times of Marco Polo. Our children work in sweatshops owned by Western corporations. Half of China’s population lives in near-poverty. Most of China consider themselves lucky and well off to earn more than $1000US a year. Asian females are still considered to be second-rate to men. This is the real truth of Asian culture.
Until these fasians realise that being Asian doesn’t just involve Harajuku clothes and kawaiiness, and can embrace the dirty everyday realities of Asian culture as much as they do the glory of it, then they’re merely an insult to those of us who are really Asian.
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