Subtle Asian Traits
Language can be found everywhere around us. From the commercial signs in public streets to the people that you interact with, language is being used. However, with the emergence of an internet-based society, the most common way that people are using language is through social media. “Subtle Asian Trait” (SATs) is a Facebook group with over 1.7 million members, where Asians share their experience as children of immigrants.. Similar to neighborhoods that express their culture through signs and stores, the members of SATs create Facebook posts. As a member of SATs for more than two years, I have noticed that SATs has become a popular platform for Asians to share Asian-related content through visual rhetoric such as form of memes, images, and discussions. The common types of content that are created as memes are Asian Entertainment such as Anime and Korean drama, high expectations from Asian parents, and food cultures such as Korean barbecue.
Screenshot by David Chen, 2020. Subtle Asian Traits
Formation of Subtle Asian Traits
In 2018, SATs was formed by a twenty-one year old student In Melbourne, Australia, named Angela Kang. Like most immigrants, Kang and her family struggled with adapting to a new environment. Although there were many changes to their way of living, one of the things that they maintained was their culture. With the support of nine other friends who shared similar cultural upbringings to Kang, they formed SATs. In just a year, the group garnered a following of over one million members. The surge of SATs popularity was unexpected to the founders who had formed the group just for fun. However, SATs became a platform where Asian immigrants can share their own experiences while living in a western country.
Expectations of Asian Parents in Subtle Asian Traits
Among Asian immigrants, the expectations that their parents have for them are very high. Immigrants are known to be very hardworking because of their desire to provide a comfortable lifestyle for their children. Asian immigrants are no different from this. Because of the hardships that they had to endure in a new country, Asian parents expect that their children are doing their best in school. This translates to having high grades. In the image shown below, a meme that was created from a cartoon is used to show the expectations that Asian parents have for their children. The caption above the image says “Asian parents when their kid has a 3.99 GPA”. A 3.99 GPA is considered more than satisfactory to many, but to Asian parents, it’s considered a disappointment because a 4.0 GPA was not earned. Therefore, one of the cartoon characters in the image says “Oh, that’s right, honey. We don’t have a son” to represent the disappointment that an Asian parent would have to their child achieving only a 3.99 GPA. This meme from SATs demonstrates in a joking manner that Asian Parents have high expectations for their children.
Screenshot by David Chen, 2020. Subtle Asian Traits
Tutoring Center in Subtle Asian Traits
In SATs, a similarity that a lot of the members share is that they have attended a tutoring center when they were younger. To be specific, 25% of 15.4 million children who have attended after-school programs are Asians, which is the highest percentage for minority students . As I mentioned earlier, this is because Asians parents have high expectations for their children. The picture below shows an image of the after-school program called Kumon. However, in place of the letter “O”, there is a sad face emoji. The emoji is used to demonstrate that a lot of the members in the group were forced to attend the program, and so, they did not get any enjoyment from it. From my experience in Kumon, I can say that it was not enjoyable
Screenshot by David Chen, 2020. Subtle Asian Traits
because of the work that was given in addition to the homework that I was given at my public school. The common reason that SATs members gave for attending an after-school program was that they were not given the option of refusing. Asian parents want to show that they are hard-working, so they make sure that their children are also doing the same. Therefore, they are retaining the value of being overachievers by sending their children to tutoring programs.
Parental Affection
Another fact about Asian parents that the members in SATs share is that their parents have difficulty showing affection to their children. For example, when their child has become eligible for graduation, an Asian parent would typically reply with a one word response, which indicates that they do not care. In the meme below, a hand is shown to be pressing on a button with the word “good on it.” The sentence above says “Asian dad if you do anything from filling up gas to graduating from Neurosurgery Residency at Harvard”. This means that an Asian dad will reply with “good” whenever they hear good news from their child. Although filling up gas is not considered to be an accomplishment that deserves praise, graduating from Neurosurgery residency at a top ranking university is. Neurosurgery is very difficult to learn because there are many things that are required to be memorized, and mistakes are not allowed. Also, the ability to graduate from a top ranking university is also considered an accomplishment in itself. Therefore, replying with the word “good” is undermining the work that a person has put in to achieve that goal. The meme below demonstrates this meaning in a joking manner.
Screenshot by David Chen, 2020. Subtle Asian Traits
Asian parents primarily show their affection through their actions because they are unable to express it with their words. A common way that they do this is peeling fruits such as oranges, or cutting apples to give to their children. In the image below, a tweet from a person says “my mom be cutting up fruit and bringing it to me in my room without saying nothing. That’s when it hits me, nobody ever gonna love me this much.” Fruits is food that students typically bring to school as a snack to eat while they are working. They are nice to eat because of their sweetness, and they are not too filling. Because of this, it’s a nice gesture to give someone fresh fruits. Asian parents are unable to say affectionate words such as “I love you”, but they are able to do kind gestures to indicate that they do. Giving fruits are a symbolic way for them to show that they care about their child.
Screenshot by David Chen, 2020. Subtle Asian Traits
Asian Entertainment
In SATs, two common forms of entertainment in terms of shows are Korean dramas and Anime. To show current events, the image below with the caption “the lock down won’t be that long” and two characters fighting are shown. The lock down is referring to the protocol to restrict people from leaving their homes that most countries have instituted to prevent the spread of Covid-19. The two characters in the image are named “Freiza” (Left) and “Goku” (Right), and they are from an anime called Dragon Ball Z. In the show, it’s been proven that the two characters fought for more than 4 hours. To put this in perspective, a typical anime show is about 23 minutes, so the fight scene lasted for 10 episodes. The meme is showing that the lock down for Covid-19 may take just as long or even longer to be over.
Screenshot by David Chen, 2020. Subtle Asian Traits
The second common forms of entertainment that the members of SATs enjoy are Korean dramas. In the meme below, a man labeled “My Plans for 2020” is arrested after a girl labeled “2020” calls the police on him. The meaning that the person who created this meme wants to express is that their plans for the year 2020 are all gone because of the recent events that have occurred in 2020. They may be referring to the lock down that has restricted travel and shut down businesses. As a result, their plans for 2020
Screenshot by David Chen, 2020. Subtle Asian Traits
have been canceled. In both memes with Anime and Korean drama, humor from Asian culture is used to downplay the severity that the lock down from Covid-19 has had on our lives. A majority of the members in SATs have grown up watching Korean dramas and anime, so creating memes from them is a common way that the members of SATs have used to lessen the impact that an event has impacted their lives.
Korean Food Method
One of the most important things that represents a community’s culture is food. In SATs, Facebook posts about food are very common. The posts may be describing a Asian food recipe that someone has created, sharing a food-related meme, and etc. In this case, a popular Korean cooking method in the form of an edited image of “The Last Supper” is shown below. In place of the original image, the person who posted this replaced it with Korean food. In the middle of the picture, you can see a barbecue grill with many smaller bowls surrounding it. From the way the food is set up, it can be deduced to be Korean barbecue (K-BBQ) In K-BBQ, chicken and beef are grilled, and to compliment them there are many side dishes such as kimchi, lettuce, and pickled radish. Additionally, there are appetizers and a Korean alcoholic beverage called Soju. The aspect of K-BBQ that makes it unique is being able to cook your own food, and create your own flavors using a combination
Screenshot by David Chen, 2020. Subtle Asian Traits
of the side dishes. Rather than having food brought out to your table ready to eat, people are given the choice of cooking their own meat on the grill. Because of the freedom given, K-BBQ creates a type of food culture that many of the SATs members enjoy regardless of their ethnic background. For this reason, many of the K-BBQ related posts in SATs are given positive feedback in terms of likes and comments. This is shown by the images that are titled “Gen Korean BBQ house”. The image on the left shows a yelp review of a dissatisfied customer. The customer states that they were given raw meat and told to cook it themselves, which shows that he/she has never been to a Korean BBQ establishment. However, many of the members in SATs are aware of what K-BBQ is, which is why many of the K-BBQ related content is given positive feedback in terms of likes and comments.
Screenshot by David Chen, 2020. Subtle Asian Traits
Conclusion
As a platform for children of Asian immigrants, SATs has become one of the most popular ways for them to use language in a way that they can’t in person. The common way that a lot of the members use language to share content is in the form of memes. The content often illustrates the expectations that their parents have for them, Asian entertainment, and food cultures such as K-BBQ. The use of images and memes to communicate is a common way that online communities communicate, but the content in Subtle Asian Traits is only understood by other Asians. This creates an identity specific to them.
