The term “shtetlcore” was coined at a dinner party with a few friends. Nile and Lucy, who are both Jewish, described the comforts of being Jewish together. My boyfriend Michael is half-Chinese, but I like to call him “Chinese passing” because he looks much more Chinese than white. The shtetl is a Yiddish term for small neighborhoods or communities of predominantly Ashkenazi Jews. In our dinner table discussion of “shtetlcore,” we described racial experiences we had each endured and the importance that one’s partner could empathize. As a reformed white boy dater, I would like to share some of my experiences with Michael where we found comfort in being Chinese together. I hope that speaking openly about my experiences will be relatable for some other POC, especially Chinese women, and also informative for well-intentioned white folks.
As a Chinese-American woman who grew up in the San Francisco Bay area, I rarely encountered explicit racism. The only experience I can pinpoint is in high school. A white girl was upset that I had made the varsity water polo team and she hadn’t. She said that I should stick to being good at math and that water polo was out of my lane. Mostly, my experience with being potentially marginalized is a gut feeling that I don’t belong. My boyfriend grew up in a small town that was all white and has had different experiences. He was surprised when I told him that I had never been called a racial slur. I think boys face more aggression and have it tougher growing up.
In August of last year, we traveled to Glasgow together. Michael is half-Scottish and wanted to see his dad’s hometown. Coincidentally, I had researched architectural uses of stone and have an interest in historic Scottish masonry buildings. I had even written a travel fellowship proposal to study in Scotland. On our trip, we saw beautiful historic castles and also contemporary architecture like Carmody Groarke’s preservation of Mackintosh’s Hill House. We drank high tea at the original Willow tea rooms designed by Mackintosh. We had fun.
In a trendy restaurant in Glasgow, we started to notice that every guest was white as the host walked us to our table. Once we got seated, my boyfriend said, “I’m so glad you are Chinese. We can be alone, together.”
The weekend before Halloween, we dressed up as cowboys and walked in Central Park. We had no agenda other than enjoying the colors of the fall leaves and yee-hawing. Michael is actually from cowboy territory in Alberta, where his high school classmates attended class dressed up in hats, boots, and belt buckles. We had fun dressed up and playing around. Michael liked to approach the horse-drawn carriages and ask, “Horse for hire?” One of the people we passed shouted, “I’ve never seen a Chinese cowboy before!” We laughed.
Racial identity is often something that is imposed from the outside. I don’t necessarily care to insist that I have Chinese heritage. I also don’t care to insist that I’m a woman. The fact is that other people tend to treat me like I’m a woman. Other people, especially white folks, can also treat me like I’m Chinese. (I started writing about what it means to be treated like you’re Chinese, but that got very long so that is saved for another post.) Oftentimes the micro to big aggressions that make me feel like I don’t belong cannot be definitively linked to racial motivations. But the thought lingers in the back of my mind…”Would I be in this situation if I was white?”
Last weekend, Michael and I went to Carnegie Hall to see the Vienna Philharmonic. We had never been before and were there because Michael had received tickets from a friend who couldn’t make it. We were excited. As the performance began, we both took some photos on our phones. The lighting in the auditorium was dim but not dark. The ambiance was different from movie theaters, so we didn’t realize photos were not allowed. Someone sitting behind us swung his hand vertically down on Michael’s shoulder, like a karate chop, and then flipped him off while saying no photos were allowed. Obviously, this upset Michael and he began to talk back. I was scared to look at who was sitting behind us, and I tried to get Michael to calm down because I didn’t want to make a scene. The audience at this performance was mostly old white folks, and I already felt out of place.
As the orchestra played Hindesmith’s Konzertmusik für Blasorchester, Op. 41, I leaned into Michael’s shoulder and could feel his tension, his pulse rising. This caused my own body to react in anger. I could feel the blood rushing to my cheeks in tandem with the crescendos of the music. I just knew that it was a white man sitting behind him who had acted out. Unprovoked women rarely hit other people. Unprovoked Asians also don’t hit other people. And other than the concert hall staff, there were almost no other POC I could see. It just had to be an entitled white man.
When the music finished, we turned around. The aggressor was a plump, fair-skinned white man who pursed his lips. Michael said, “You didn’t have to hit me so hard.” I leaned toward the man and added, “You are exactly what I thought you’d look like.”
And it was nice to be alone, together.