I really should grow out of this. Here I am, once again, regrettably dazed before meeting someone new for the first time. And, he’s American. Kent bares his teeth to me in a grin with a piece of Thai Basil on his canine, knowing how uncomfortable I am. My tongue feels swollen and takes up too much room in my mouth. I rummage deeper into my ruminations as our guest chirps pleasantries to me/himself. I let out a grunt as he gives me unwanted recommendations, hoping to portray my growing social anxiety as disinterest.
I let my attention waft to the table to my right, a Japanese couple with a baby. The young mother, with heavy bags under her eyes and perfect white nails, lovingly strokes the back of the baby’s head. I notice her speaking Japanese to her husband and ask for water. We make brief eye contact. The following moment, a British father and daughter walk in. Though we make eye contact, I feel slightly rejected. I don’t get the nod of acknowledgement most British men do to each other.
Sitting in a foreign country, feeling more ‘Other’ than usual, I ask myself “which of them saw me and identified with me? Which of them thought that we are of the same descent?” To the British father-daughter, am I just another Japanese yuppie enjoying golf and escaping the stresses of the salaryman life? To the Japanese couple, am I just another sunburnt tourist finally getting in touch with his so-called spiritual side? Am I either of these? I stare into my soup, looking back at the cloudy herby reflection.
My attention turns once again to the Japanese couple as the baby lifts his head from the comfort of his mother’s bosom and gazes blankly at me. Surely a baby, a blank slate, a bundle of innocence without the stains of stereotypes from the outer world would identify with me. The folds of fat around his big eyes slowly converge. His face scrunches tightly together as he begins to cry profusely. I guess he didn’t identify with me. Maybe he’s just an empath.
Jump ahead to
Perceptions of mixed ethnicity
I deflate back to my soupy reflection. How do people perceive you? Maybe it sounds egotistical but it’s something everyone thinks about: I care about what you think of me and I hope that you care about what I think of you. Growing up in North London, although having a few Japanese friends outside of school, within school I was classified as “Asian”. I’d had the squinty eyes thing done at me, the small weiner jokes, the “kung fu noises” when impersonating the way I speak to my mother.
Did it get to me? At times. But it didn’t feel malicious, simply misguided. At the time, Jackie Chan was the only East Asian household name. Before the internet shrunk everyone’s world, the perception of Asians was largely shaped by the figures they saw in the mainstream media. So, people viewed East Asians as shy, disciplined, and knowing martial arts. Asians were the secondary character or the sidekick to the Hollywood lead.
But why did I receive comments on my Japanese side and not my Caucasian side? Simply, because it’s different. It’s not the same as the other people around them. When being white is the default, anything different is the target of attention. Now to be clear, this isn’t an article on why euro-centric views are harmful to society or about the plights of growing up Asian in the UK. I don’t even feel Asian enough to write one.
Binary perceptions
I’ve lived in Japan for three years now and feel a bit more ‘Asian’ now. But here, even in multicultural Tokyo, my mixed ethnicity sets me apart, though now for my whiteness rather than my Asianness. It’s the same thing but even more intense. The choice feels binary. You are Japanese, or you are not. You are one of them (us?), or you are not. And honestly, it can feel alienating. Receiving stares, replies in broken English even when speaking in Japanese, and leaving empty seats next to me on crowded trains.
According to the 2021 census, 5.8% of London identified as mixed race. On the Japanese census, that’s not even an option. Even speaking the language, having the passport, having Japanese relatives, I feel like I’m pooled together with the other gaijin. I try not to care, but the selection bias for white guys who move to Japan yields some less than average results.
For me, being half asian can lead to a strong and an often suffocating feeling of ‘other’ in both countries.
Too white for the Asian kids and too Asian for the white kids. We’re expected to act Asian (timid, meek, servile) compared to our Caucasian counterparts and expected to act “white” (individualistic, direct, confident) by our Asian counterparts. On the flipside, there is still the expectation to act both Asian and Caucasian from both parents; likely projecting their respective cultures onto us.
The impact of clashing perceptions
All of these clashing expectations can lead to confusion on how to act, even in our own homes. For me, as there was a strong disconnect between the behaviour within the home and outside the home, I struggled to reconcile which was the “real” me. Was I playing a role to appease my friends or appease my family? Am I playing a role for both?
This problem can feel exacerbated when bilingual. Though a gift, bilingualism can make you literally unintelligible to your friends or a parent. And when so much personality is built into language, it can be impossible for both parents to know both of these sides fully. The inability to share these binary experiences only cuts deeper into this feeling of isolation.
Self-perception
being biracial is a physical manifestation against the binary. i am both and i am neither.
Like my blood, my behaviour is not going to be fully Japanese or British. I benefit more from this fact than I detriment from it. Being mixed or multi-ethnicity means you get to experience more cultures, understand more of the world and, if you’re multilingual, can interact authentically with more people. In terms of aesthetics, unconscious bias still exists and the road to changing that is a long battle against deep rooted human behaviours. But it’s not always a disadvantage: Racial ambiguity seems to be the aesthetic zeitgeist now – a welcome change after a whole childhood of not fitting in.
When it comes to your confidence being affected by expectations, that can only happen when you care about what those expectations are and it helps to stop trying to meet or fit into them. Admittedly, it’s challenging when other people’s perception of you seems to fixate on the ‘Other’. But if that’s the case you could just assume that those expectations are positive and gaslight yourself in reassurance. I believe that’s called positive affirmations now.
I look up from my soup and see the Japanese couple tend to their baby. Kent tries to pull me back into the conversation. Although I stutter, I manage to catch up in the discussion about the best tourist destinations in Bangkok. I relax my shoulders and try to enjoy the conversation. With each word, I feel my breath steadying and the tension in between my eyes ease. The baby looks up again at me and this time he smiles; his pillowy cheeks rising as his eyes beam at me. Maybe he was just hungry. Maybe I just needed to talk.