A new podcast of “Archetypes” came out today and I thought I would post the transcript here for those who aren’t listening but may be curious about the content.
https://storage.googleapis.com/pr-newsroom-wp/1/2022/03/Archetypes-Episode-4.pdf
I found this episode, personally, to be a little disjointed in its structure and I thought the intro was jarring. In the U.S., it would normally be considered rather impolite to use cuisine and spa treatments as your lens to these cultures, and I wondered if maybe Meghan struggled a little bit to craft a relevant episode about something she doesn’t have personal experience with.
Please note: I did contact the Mod team before posting and with their guidance, chose to link to official transcripts of the podcast rather than to any existing opinion pieces. They were very responsive and helpful!
Let me put disclaimer that I don't listen to the podcast and only read the script available.
As Asian woman, reading it I feel that instead of highlighting stereotypes towards Asian and clear it up (which I assume is the goal of the podcast), what Meghan did was stereotyping us while what her guests did were complaining. Admittedly I didn't grow up in the US, my experience about living there was when I worked in North America for about a year (split time between Alberta and Colorado-Oklohoma).
I experienced racism, more when in the US than in Canada, but when a colleague nicknamed me "Dragon Lady" never once I thought of it as racism or stereotyping my Asian background. I'm far from femme fatale, in fact I'm tiny and they often joke that a mere breeze could blow me away. Nor am I aggressive, I'm a quiet person and always try avoid conflict as much as I can. The "dragon lady" came from because despite my reserve and quiet personality which made many doubt whether I could do the job, my performance ended up topping everyone, so basically they thought I was a tame kitten but turned out to be a sleeping dragon. And I took it as a compliment, not insult. The dispatcher told me that the crews sort out fighting over to be put in my team and my fellow engineers approached me for my tricks to do the job faster (proper planning and ask your crews nicely, and the job would run smoothly), so I was not a villain either.
What's wrong with Kill Bill? My reaction when I first watching Lucy Liu and Kuriyama Chiaki (I've been a fan of her since Battle Royale) was screaming "COOL!!!", and they insert anime too!! What's wrong with their roles/characters?
And maybe it's just me, but I don't see Miss Saigon as sexualising Asian woman. It's true that historically in several countries in Asia, women were forced/used sexually by the invander soldiers and then left with children; Chinese women by Japanese soldiers during Japan occupation, Japanese women by American soldiers post WWII. In fact, it's actually based on Madame Butterfly first premier in Italy which based on a French novel about Japanese woman. It's a sad story about a woman's life post war, has nothing tp do with sexualising. (Now, if it's about Memoir of Geisha, then we can talk about stereotyping, they had it all wrong because in reality Geisha/Geiko is forbidden to offer sexual favour).
(...)part of that, my mom and I would often go to the Korean spa together. Now those of you
who haven’t been to one before it’s a very humbling experience for a girl going through puberty
because you enter a room with women from ages 9 to maybe 90 all walking around naked, and
waiting to get a body scrub on one of the tables lined up in a row.(...)
Honest question: is that how they do it in US? No robes or even towel when you lay down for massages? I've never been to Korea, but Japan has public bathhouses and onsen where you'll be fully naked in front of strangers but only when take a dip, when exiting changing room you have towel around you, not walking around naked.
And why it become a surprise for Meghan considering there are several nude beaches in western countries (which we don't have here in Asia btw, at least as far as I know)?
