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Tuesday, September 16, 2003 A Quandry (Or, A Spew About One of My Hobby Horses, Again) In theory, a writer shouldn't be limited to what he or she can write. But I am in a bit stumped in this case because I haven't really seen this done anywhere else. Has an Asian author ever tried to write something with a non-Asian protagonist? Yeah, yeah, yeah--one should always write about what one knows about. The immigrant experience. How it is to be an Asian American. How it is to have one's culture being taken over by western ideologies. How Asian kids are always pushed to excel and get into good universities. How they all play the piano or attend chess clubs. How they all open restaurants or become doctors. How the second generation starts rebelling against these expected stereotypes. Blah, blah, blah. Gosh darn it, it's been done almost to death. It's almost clichéd even. No. It is clichéd. That's because everyone acts the same--because it's expected and no one knows how to act any different. That's why no one questions non-Asians writing about Asians. Everyone knows how it'll go. And Asians aren't expected to write about anyone else. Does this mean that I am incapable of picturing myself in someone else's shoes? That I am unable to get into someone else's head? People like to think that they're individual--that no one else can ever understand them because they're unique. Well guess what? Most of the thoughts we have in our lives have been thought out elsewhere by someone else. Most likely by several someone elses. And these people aren't necessarily similar either. When people say that men will never understand women or that people from one country will not understand ones from another, what they're really saying is that they don't want to understand. I don't see anything wrong with writing about whoever I wanted to, but I'm afraid the more serious writers probably don't want to take that view. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 7:56 PM : ]
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