A Letter to My Younger Self
Dear 10 year old Matt,
I write to you today as a 46 year old man and I want to give you some hope. I remember the day you just experienced. You are the only asian boy in Grade 5 and while you were friends with the “cool kids", this was the morning where your friend found out that Japanese people are called “Nips” and you were quickly given the nickname “Nip Sucking Jap”. That name continued to follow you for the week and then ended the week after, I guess it was too long of a name to really stick. I remember the feelings you had that night, feeling alone, feeling different, hating being Japanese and wanting so much to just be white.
Pop culture did not support a positive environment for being asian. There was a Bugs Bunny cartoon that had Japanese soldiers in it called “Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips”. The Japanese soldier and sumo wrestler in this cartoon did not create positive images of being Japanese and this episode was pulled from its VHS release in 1993. Other movies and TV shows didn’t help, Takashi from Revenge of the Nerds, Long Duck Dong in 16 Candles, the management team in Gung Ho. That said, there were glimpses of hope; Data from Goonies, QuickKick in GI JOE, Harry Aoki from 21 Jump Street and there was all those Ninja movies that gave you hope that you could kick some ass one day if you just stayed in Karate longer.
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You got good grades and while you played almost every sport you were usually one of the worst players on the team. You were skinny, a fast runner but the shortest kid in the class. You struggled with confidence and after receiving the most sportsmanlike player award three years in a row, you knew that award kinda certified you as the worst player on the team.
I know you were not really in touch with your Japanese heritage and you really just wanted to be white. While your parents spoke Japanese you did not, you noticed the Japanese prints on the wall and your mom spoke of hokusai when you asked about the print but you really knew nothing about Japanese culture. You could use chopsticks and you ate rice, chow mein, and onigiri weekly but you also ate spaghetti, scalloped potatoes, hamburgers and hot dogs.
You won’t realize until you are much older that Japanese Culture will have its time in pop culture. Japanimation will be a huge thing and shows like Akira, Sailor Moon, and DragonBall Z will have a massive cult following in the mid 1990s. But this isn't the peak, there will be many more shows to come namingly anything from Miyazaki, My Hero Academia, Attack on Titan, and so many more. Not only Japanimation will blow up but so will other Japanese films. George Lucas gives a shout out to Hidden Fortress as a major influence in Episode 4 of Star Wars, and Fast and Furious has an episode on Tokyo car culture, and Battle Royale and Ring will be a common reference to many.
But that still isn’t the peak of Japanese Culture, in the streetwear scene Japanese Fashion will soon create a tsunami of influence. Undercover, Visvim, Fragment, Beams, CDG, and many others will dominate the streetwear scene which will bring you some pride in being Japanese.
Then there is the day you are taken to an izakaya and you fall in love with the food. So much deep fried greatness: karaage, ebi mayo, fish tubes with cheese in it, tempura, kakifry, and so much more. Then the world of sushi will blow your mind, the freshness and texture, how did you not know about all this Japanese food until you left your parents house.
You can’t blame your parents. Your mom was very patriotic, she would cheer Japan more than Canada during the Olympics, she loved Ichiro, and you had Ultraman and Godzilla books as a kid. While they did everything they could to expose you to the Japanese culture, what they knew of being Japanese was much different. They grew up in a time where the Japanese Canadians were interned, they did not have access to traditional foods and ingredients, your dad never went back to Japan but would constantly research the culture through books. They spent so many years being interned and essentially exiled that they spent so much effort to just fit in with the greater population. This would include the food that they ate, the language they spoke and the music they listened to. But it didn’t matter to you, you just wanted to be white, you just wanted to fit in. But what you wont learn til much later is the Japanese culture is much greater than music, food, TV shows and fashion. You will understand the resilience of being Japanese Canadian, and you will understand the manners and respect that is embraced in the culture. This will make you a very polite person, who is occasionally unable to advocate for yourself but is skilled at being passive aggressive.
As a ten year old, I want to tell you that while you may hate being Japanese today that the world will change and people won’t look down on Asians and carry negative stereotypes. I want to tell you that you will soon learn more about the Japanese and Japanese Canadian culture and grow up to love it. It is an amazing culture.
Respectfully,
Mat
