Racism

I'll write down these thoughts here before I forget them.

Unexpected events happen in life all the time. Some you forget immediately, some you forget in a few days, and some you remember for a long time. But there are some that will hit you so deep you become scarred by them. Here's one.

After being in Norway for over a year now..and living and hanging out with a predominantly Caucasian crowd, the issue of racism comes up ever so often, in both a positive and negative light.

I remember last year when I first made a self-deprecating (most likely Asian/Canadian) joke, and that opened the opportunity for others to realise, ''hey, he's not some stuck up kid who can't take a joke."

I will openly admit I make jokes about my own culture, heritage, ethnicity, whatever, on an almost daily basis. I don't (usually) mind if others do as well, because if I can do it to myself, why can't others?? I am not ranting about this because I honestly don't mind as long as I know the person doing it and it's in good taste. I'm usually hard to piss off so again, the point here is: I really don't care.

Or at least I thought I didn't.

Last night I think I experienced my first real sense of racial attack. Yes, I was under the influence of alcohol. I don't know if the other guy was as well, that's beside the point. Normally I wouldn't care, but when another person persists and doesn't let up and thinks it's funny to mock me my based on my skin colour despite not knowing me, that's not cool.

The more and more I sit and reflect on it, the more I realise that maybe I do care. I'm from a community in Vancouver where Asian immigrant families are the predominant makeup of the population. It's something I've been accustomed to for all my life which is why I think I chose Norway to let myself immerse in an environment nothing like that of Vancouver. It's refreshing and I love it, don't get me wrong.

Some here may even view me as a "self-hating Asian" since I honestly don't identify with being a stereotypical Chinese male which is why I say some of the things I do and make it a point to correct people if they call me Chinese/Asian/whatever. Others will disagree with how I view my identity but I'm Canadian first and foremost, but therein lies the problem. I allow for these racial comments and jokes to be made at me because I enable it. Hell, I even start it myself. I'm not even remotely mad or upset at any of the friends/acquaintances that have been guilty of these remarks, please don't misinterpret this.

But it's not until you experience something racist firsthand does it make you re-think how you've been acting. That incident will probably be a one-time thing (I hope) and is completely unrelated to my every day life here in Trondheim. However, I can't help but feel pissed off at not only the guy, but at myself for creating this double standard for myself. I am a hypocrite for even writing this. 

I don't know what my point is, but I think at the risk of hurting people's feelings I need to rethink how I allow others to perceive me. Racist "jokes" are never just that: jokes. They exist for a reason. I know most people don't mean it to hurt me and I've become so de-sensitised to it all. I enjoy that people can be cheeky towards me because I can take it and I give it right back. I don't want others to change how they act around me, because I would absolutely hate that. I enjoy the banter with or without these snide remarks because it's also awesome to break stereotypes when I open my mouth and people go "oh he's not from China/Japan/Korea/Thailand and can actually speak English like a [North] American." (Not that there's anything wrong with speaking English with an Asian accent.) I identify with being a Canadian. Am I ashamed of being Chinese? No. But am I proud of being Chinese? Not necessarily. I'm proud to be a Chinese-Canadian.

I can't shake this feeling in me that I'm doing something wrong; that if I'm allowing others and myself to "mock" me at my own expense even if it's in honest to good fun, I'm somehow allowing racism to exist in society without me even fully realising it. I know for a fact many of my Chinese-Canadian friends back home could never take half the things people say to me here. Does this mean it's okay then to just say it to me but not others? It's like the whole "N" word dilemma in the Black community. I don't want to be that politically correct guy because I'm not. But you know that feeling you get inside you that weighs you down? I'm feeling it.

There is no answer to this problem, but just a bit of reflection and hope others realise I'm not as much of a clown as I may seem. Life events change you, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. It sucks right now.

I didn't like that anger that I felt last night. I don't like the anger that I'm feeling today. I know it shouldn't affect me, but it is. I'll get over it, I always do. To that guy from last night: don't think for a second you're better than me. You're not.

/end

Merry Christmas/Gung Hay Fat Choy/Happy Easter!

Okay, so I totally suck at updating this blog. Luckily, I have a good memory. The Norwegian beer hasn’t completely depleted my brain cells just yet. And speaking of Norwegian beer/alcohol, I can no longer proudly say “I never get hangovers”. This makes me oh so very sad. Mom, if you’re reading this, sorry.

Well, I guess I’ll go update month-by-month in the most concise way possible.  Let’s see...

December – Exams and Melbu!

Given that the education system here is a bit different in the sense that many classes have 100% exams, this promotes a lot of cramming. And I mean a lot. I don’t think I’ve studied so much since...maybe third year when I was close to failing Organic Chemistry before the final. Not that I felt like I would fail, but with no midterms or any kind of mid-semester assignments in many of my classes, I was not caught up with the readings. It was painful, but it made the last day of exams feel so much better. We finished our Immunology exam at 1pm and off to Mormors for drinks! I can still fondly recall my friend and I going in, and him ordering 4 beers for the two of us in the middle of the afternoon. Mind you, tables all around us had students studying hard. Jealous bastards. J

Word I learned that I will probably never use in conversation: trommestikkespikker

After exams, I had a few days off before departing up North to Melbu! Ivar, one of the friends I’ve made at Samfundet was kind enough to take me in for a week over Christmas. I was determined to see the Northern Lights and try moonshine. Only one of those goals were accomplished.

View of Melbu at night.

The sun tried to come out..

In short, Christmas in Norway is quite a bit different from what I’m used to at home. There are traditional dishes that his family made such as ribbe (pork), pinnekjøtt (lamb), risgrøt (rice..porridge) among other traditional foods served over breakfast/lunch. I’m used to my family usually roasting a huge turkey with 31315 different side dishes (my family eats a lot..ha), but in his family it was more “basic” with one protein, one vegetable and one carbohydrate option. Not that I’m complaining, since it was all delicious, but it was a nice change. I was also driven around the island with my durable camera in hand taking pictures of everything. It wasn’t until a couple days there that I realised there are no traffic lights... Melbu is a small town of roughly 2000 inhabitants. My high school almost had that many people. I don’t know if I could live in a small town, but something about being in such a tight knit community (it seemed like everyone knew eachother or had a mutual friend regardless of age) makes it..cozy. Yes, I started to use the word ‘cozy’.  All in all, a very low-key, eye-opening Christmas spent somewhere I never thought I’d get the chance to see.

Oh right, there was absolutely no ‘’daylight’’. The sun tried its best, but the most it could do was illuminate the fjords. My last day there it was raining and that’s when there was 0 daylight.

In about 3 hours, this much snow accumulated. I thought it was a ''snow storm''..my friends just laughed. Vancouver snow worries are going to piss me off when I return.

January – New Year’s and Experts in Teamwork (EiT)

I went back to Trondheim on NYE to celebrate New Year’s since a friend was having a party. It’s strange for students (unless they’re from Trondheim) to spend the holidays there since it’s predominantly a student town. The city’s a ghost town at times... NYE was fun, we went up near her place to watch the fireworks! They were amazing. Vancouver needs fireworks on NYE, seriously.

School started soon after where I took an intensive course called Experts in Teamwork. Basically, any 4^th year level student at NTNU (their equivalent of 1^st year Masters) had to take a course where they combined students from multiple disciplines together, group them off into teams, and have them make a project/product based on the “village” theme. I don’t know why they decided to use the word village to describe our group, but whatever. Most people complain about how much it sucks because you’re forced to work with people you (usually) don’t like very much and there’s one common grade given, no exceptions.  However, my village, “Trondheim as an International Student City” was really engaging. I won’t blab on about it, but I came out of there, yes, frustrated at times, but honestly had a really good time. Even though I took a very similar course to it back home at UBC, it did not prepare me for all the frickin’ diversity in my group.

February – ISFiT

Walk of Peace. Over 800 people walked through Trondheim.

As mentioned in previous posts, ISFiT was the one commitment I put myself into that I was really looking forward to! I think this deserves a post in its own, but I fear this is turning into too long a post. I only have positive (but very tiring) memories of those ridiculous ten days. Along with three others, we led a workshop over 10 days. From about 7:30am – 11pm (on a good day) I would be out of the house running around with our participants. In the morning, we had activities and methods aimed at helping them explore the theme of social movements. Then, dinner. Afterwards, speakers and events at Samfundet that easily went late into the night. I wanted to see and do everything, but holy, my body was dying at the end of it.

It's hard to put in words how freakin' amazing this night was.

 There were incredible concerts, dance parties, speakers, unexpected lessons, and even a billionaire who treated us to breakfast. I still remember all 30 of the participants in our workshop (who represented 26 different countries!), and I hope I can see some of them in the near future. Hearing their stories about the struggles they go through in their home countries makes me feel so lucky that I’ve grown up in Canada. Seeing all 450 participants at the closing ceremonies representing over 100 countries was very special. I don’t think I will ever get to experience such a festival again. Okay, sappy Nelson over.

My Workshop! :)

 March/April

The highlight of March by far was FINALLY seeing the Northern Lights! They were all over Trondheim one night, it was gorgeous. I'll just leave this picture up, it obviously does it no justice but that was one of my "Norway Bucket List" items I can now finally cross off!

 The sun also decided to come out a lot more.. This meant my pale body could finally (attempt to) tan. HAHA. I literally sat outside sometimes like this soaking in the sun... One thing I've noticed about my body is now anything above 0 degrees is ''warm''...I wear my Vancouver-spring clothes here in 1 degree weather. I am going to die this summer in Europe when I re-experience 30 degree heat. Oh well!

There's obviously plenty more to say, including my Easter trip to Oslo. Perhaps I'll write about that another day.