From “dog eater” to the #1 Fetish

“If it ain’t rice, it ain’t nice.” 

“ABGs are my type.” 

“If she ain’t squinting, I ain’t sprinting.” 

As a first-generation Chinese-American immigrant, the switch from refusing to eat what my mother had packed in my Thermos to becoming part of “The Oxford Study” and being heavily fetishized seems to have happened overnight. It seems like the fact that East Asians are now deemed “bad as fuck” and “holy ABG”, despite its proper cultural context, erases all the moments that lurked in our migrant lives as children. It seems like that’s all we’ve ever been: an object to criticize, and now, an object to obsess over. An object for society to morph into whatever is trendy, and to have tens of thousands of years of culture stripped away for the mere simplification of us as individuals. Not to mention the fact that other Asian countries are excluded– nope, not Indians, not the Burmese, not Cypriots. Not to mention the hate crimes that East Asians faced during the COVID-19 pandemic that happened only five years ago: another day, another report of an acid attack on an innocent bystander. 

The consequences of the systemic and social racism that we experienced aren’t that far in the past, though: to this day, I have never worn a qipao. As a child, I didn’t really understand the concept of cultural clothing and why I would wear it when no one around me was. As a teenager now, I don’t wear them because of how sexualized they are. With OnlyFans’ stars profiting off of this newfound fetishization, they wear deep leg slits and have their waists cinched with cleavage being shown, making me feel weird and objectified. 

Some would say that I should be glad; it seems as if others are appreciating our culture now, and besides, it’s better to be romanticized than to be mocked. But being sexualized and being racially targeted are two sides of the same coin; at the end of the day, they’re both for the viewing and entertainment of other people. It’s not just that cultures have been reduced so that they’re easier to digest, but people are simplified down to someone’s fetish. It’s the opposite of being stripped: it’s being suffocated and buried by the watered-down version of your culture– boba tea, Buldak noodles, false lashes– so someone can say that they’re living their rice bunny ABG heaven. 

It’s not easy to predict what the next trend will be. It’s not easy to say if it’s going back to children pulling back their eyes to mock the way my mother and I look, or if it’s going to stay in a reality where my cultural clothing is going to be someone’s sex fantasy. However, I will say this: even though it’s heart-wrenching and absolutely disgusting to watch cultures be bent back and forth based on supply and demand, I hope that today’s children don’t have to face the judgment that I once did. I hope that the overly obsessive facade has slowly eliminated remnants of “Is that dog in your lunchbox?” and “Can you even see?” I hope that every East Asian individual realizes that their worth lies in themselves only– not their culture, not someone’s screwed porn-addiction version of it, not in their classmates' reaction to the snacks their mother packed. 

In a world that cuts you up so you’re easier to digest and fetishize, stand whole, unbroken, and unapologetically yourself.