E-mail from Frank Chin
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Frank Chin
I originally posted the following letter on my personal site at bigWOWO.com, which I received from the cultural pioneer Frank Chin, who asked me to post it:
To: Byron Wong
Sent: Monday, October 13, 2008 7:52:17 AM
Subject:
Byron
Why haven’t you changed your Greek name to an Asian name? It’s been years. If you’re Asian (I mean “Confucian” Chinese-Korean-Japanese) and an actyivist org you would have found an Asian name for yourselves.
The talk abouut Asian dating other thanh Asians is offensive to me. Chinese lit (the Chinese children’s storyu and the heroic tradition) respects individual privacy. What happens in the bedroom and with whom is nobody’s business unless the individual makes his or her provate life public.
The concern should be the children. Your children are going to learn JACK AND THE BEANSTALK with or without you. If your partner is not Chinese and you’re going to tell your kids they’re AA, they should know the Chinese children’s stories. That’s the parents responsibility. The parents should have their own schools (remember Chinese school?) Public school is white and white racist. If your kds don’t know the Asian stories to match the European stories they’re taught as American, they’re not Asian. They’re American tourists.
You’re conference where you talked to someone who’d written his dissertation on me was without any real content. You didn’t name names till the end and left the impression that feminists have a case against me and for Kingston.
Your interviewee disstertation seems to have strayed from literature into Socioology (feminism).
The feminists haven’t proven they know the history of feminism or why Asian are responsible for changing their history to conform to their view of what should have been, and the rest of the world including whites are left untouched. That racism. AAS, sociocolgy, Karthika, and the name Thymos as you use it is racist at worst and young self-pity to be generous. But I’m not generous.
TAKEYUKI’S BOOTS is to be circulated privately until it’s published. Is it real? How do you know?
Share this with Thyos and the Fightig 44’s. (I would change the name. 44 is double death to the Asian)
FCC
You can see my original comments along with reader feedback on the original post here. I still agree with my previous comments, but it feels a little weird to repost the exact same stuff that I posted a week ago, kind of like running in place. Frank is an amazing thinker, and as usual, I think he’s right about Thymos.
What about the 44s? Names do mean a lot. 8Asians and the 44s have numerical meanings that are exact opposites in Chinese numerology, and indeed, the viewpoints often (though not always) fall on different sides of the spectrum.
Thoughts?
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nightshade
2:51 pm | Nov 03, 2008If we’re going to be all Chinese about it, then you shouldn’t write anything in red ink. The only time you write a name in red ink is if the person is dead.
lopan
3:17 pm | Nov 03, 2008Damn it! I knew we should have called ourselves the “Flaming 88s!”
nightshade
3:19 pm | Nov 03, 2008lopan, you could have had the gayest Asian American site out there–it would have been so much more profitable.
lopan
3:34 pm | Nov 03, 2008^I know. With Dialectic’s bald head, we would have made so much cash.
JadeDragon
6:37 pm | Nov 03, 2008And the word “Asian” should only honour “Confucian” Chinese-Korean-Japanese. Chee bye please, lah.
Heyyu
11:26 pm | Nov 03, 2008Is it just me, but does anyone else think that letter is kind of… incoherent? Like Frank Chin was smoking some weed or something when he wrote that letter…
Kuroyama
11:56 pm | Nov 03, 2008Living over in Japan its weird how people get weird about 4, 7, and 9. Now I do too. It doesnt freak me out completely, but I do take notice of it. Whats also weird is how sometimes that whole aversion to those numbers gets pushed aside in matters of convenience.
I dont know how much of that comes from China, Further, I dont know how much “Chinese” influence is in 44s. But I have “noticed” the name, and wondered why.
nskripchun
1:22 am | Nov 04, 2008I forgot if I left a comment on jaehwan’s original blog post or not, but isn’t the “44″ reference to “double death” intentional?
From an activist standpoint, you could always argue that the double death symbolism is in reference to:
1. -Isms such as racism, sexism, classism, materialism, colonialism, imperialism should DIE.
2. The state of a lack of an Asian American voice in the areas of culture and mainstream society needs to DIE.
Heh heh…
jaehwan
1:25 am | Nov 04, 20083. Romeo must DIE.
:)
nskripchun
10:41 am | Nov 04, 2008jae> hahaha!
lopan
11:39 am | Nov 04, 2008skrips, it was certainly intentional!
doppelganger
11:40 am | Nov 04, 2008Yeah, like I said on Big WoWo, the word “Asian” is Greek in origin. Byron, forget English words. How about you just choose a Chinese character as your organization’s symbol: “___,” the organization formerly known as Thymos.
HeyYu,
Frank ain’t smokin’ weed. Dude, somebody should give weed to Frank so he can chill.
minbo
8:35 pm | Nov 04, 2008On the email, he talks about Asians and AAs. While he is OK with AA kids learning Jack and the Beanstalk, as long as they keep in touch with their Asian heritage, it is at odds with his insistence to ditch a non-Asian name for an Asian one. If the organization is an Asian activist, not AA he might have some point, but if it is an AA activist site then why do you have to reject one side of your identity to have legitimacy? It is culture and not “race” based, but rejecting a large part of your upbringing and identity because it is not “Asian” is still self-hate. As long as the name has personal significance which can be meaningfully communicated to a larger audience, I don’t really care what language it is in.
As for the 44s name, it was mentioned way back that it was deliberate and why. In line with the choice of Lopes and Tojo’s board names and their profile pics. Not going to speak for them since I don’t remember the exact details, just the general reason, but it seemed reasonable enough to me, as someone who knows fully the implications of double fours, but was raised such that it does not bother me… AA, not just Asian.