The Hero Phenomena III : Conformity and Stereotype

I always pride myself in being Chinese - whether it’d be the culture or my family’s history, I’d always be happy to tell anybody about my background.  

So you could probably imagine how gutted I was when I was told that I looked nothing like a person from Hong Kong - let alone have features that would pinpoint me to a specific province in China. I was simply a girl who carried the classic feature that would mark me as an Asian, and that I may look like I came from any part of Korea, Japan, China, Singapore…

I guess I’m rather late into the identity crisis game...

I have a love hate relationship with stereotypes, they either define you based on first impressions or they become a barrier for your own protection to avoid any kind of conflict with others. If a stranger were to sit in front of me right now and list three things they’d notice about me, I can automatically pick three general thoughts most strangers would make:

1/ I’m Asian

2/ An Asian with Pink Hair

3/ Probably and Asian who loves Anime

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to point out the obvious about my own culture or identity here, rather I’m trying to understand the ridiculous assumed lifestyles that is placed upon us as individuals, architecture students as well. During one of the networking nights organised by a student association I was completely disheartened by the experience of an architect’s friend who, originally had a Middle Eastern name, changed it legally to become a Caucasian one to gain more success at job seeking. Though as always he gave the wise advise of “don’t work for them if they have that mantra”, it was completely defeating when we are living in a society that still has a prejudice based on first impressions - espeically when we live in a world where multiculture is embraced.

How I relate to this? My cousin went through the same experience - he only needed to change a single letter in his name, and behold - all the places that rejected him started calling him and insisting him to work for them.

And that does not sound reassuring.

Sometimes, when I look at magazines or journals - I’m constantly searching through a landscape of text - hoping that I could witness or just catch a flash of features that would somehow resemble mine. I wanted so badly, so very desperately to see interviews who lives in the same country as me and somehow shares a similar culture as me to be sharing their own two cents for architects. Perhaps it was my only way to seek reassurance that I will be alright to strive in this world.

Maybe I am asking for too much, or maybe because I’m feeling petty or be influenced by the chaos that is happening in the news and media today. Yet, we have to remember that it is because now we are so aware and speaking out about the unfairness we experience in this society that it is hard to know where should we stand in this society. How politically do we need to be correct? How do we make sure our process and methods of madness includes everyone equally?

I don’t think I am mature enough to fully understand all the issues that we are facing right now. However, my question is, if this is bound to happen to some firms - how should we tackle this problem? Let alone, how are we supposed bring awareness of this light. As a student who just managed to get some internship experience, I am still wary of outsiders impression of me - the confidence is there, but can my background affect what others think?

In response to Olivia Lai’s TED speech of “The Expectations as an Asian”