Joking Around

In the midst of working on this Blog I have gotten a lot of reactions from friends. Many of them don't even realize how much of a struggle it can be for Asian Americans with their cultural identity issues.

Tyrell:  distract me

 me:  ehhh I'm writing a blog on asian identity issues

 Tyrell:  omg

 me:  http://letsbeasian.blogspot.com/ haha it's funny

 Tyrell:  you mean how you can't tell asians apart?  so it's hard to tell their identitiy?

 me:  BAM!

And some of them just like to push my buttons. I'm so used to this kind of joking I think I've grown a bit callous by it. I make silly racial jokes about Asians all the time and for me it's almost natural to look at the stereotypes and laugh at it.  There are times when I forget that it makes some of my non-asian friends uncomfortable. 


I was at this book binding party and we were asked to fold paper.  My friend looks at me and says something like,"oh you're really good at that".  I replied "what because I'm Asian I know origami?" and chuckled.  A complete joke and my friend stammered a bit saying how she didn't mean it like that.  I knew how she meant it but I was just being an ass.  


When I was younger I used to get angry and really offended by this kind of joking around and I think it hurt more then helped. Lashing out at people is not a good way to educate them but if you joke along with them and then politely correct them in a civil conversation it makes much more of an impact.  Also when people know that something of your personal make up can push a button they are more likely to remember that and use it against you later. Sad but unfortunate truth.  My husband had these two roommates in college. One was white and the other Filipino.  Everyday when the two parted the white guy would says "See you on the FLIP side". It seems extremely offense but as long as the Filipino guy didn't care it was just a casual friendly thing they did all the time. I think somewhere as I was growing up sarcasm and ass like jokes became much more acceptable as a way of diffusing the bad taste of stereotypes.


Some would say there is always a bit of truth in jokes and yes I believe that. A lot of Asian jokes do stem from stereotypes but that is no different then jokes on most anything, like women being bad drivers, or men liking sports.  I think that is something a lot of Asian Americans lose sight of where offense can be worse then it really is.  I suppose the ending statement of this post is to learn not to take it so seriously, it's just a joke, we all make them.


Have you heard any good Jokes lately? 
(Don't worry I'm not easily offended or worried about the PC as long as it's not graphic).