I missed the Koreatown parade. Fuck! I knew I forgot some shit but I couldn’t place what it was, like I knew there was something I had wanted to get done, but I did not write it down and my memory is not what it was. Now that makes me mad that I was not asked to ride on a float or be in a convertible sitting up on the back seat all waving with a lei on or some shit. I could have brought my own float. There have been times in my life where I have dealt with crepe paper. I know my way around a streamer. They have completely shut me out of the parade of my people. I feel like Little Richard. I INVENTED KOREA!!!! No, I didn’t, and I am not saying that I belong there, but I was able to represent at the White House for the last president of South Korea, so what – I am not good enough to kick it down Olympic with all my people? Maybe I could have picked up a paper and looked it up, or maybe gone and paid attention to what goes down in Koreatown, but nothing is in English. I am not saying that is wrong, why should it be? It is Koreatown, not American- town-where-Koreans-be-livin-right-now. It is Nasang gu – which is what they call Koreatown in Seoul – the cities are so connected, they look at it as a suburb.
I got a lot of love for Koreatown, do not get me wrong. It is a place that makes me feel good about being part of another culture, a separate yet important component of my American identity. I buy my makeup there, because the products are specifically made for Korean women, and I can actually find the colors that I need to look like myself. Food is another reason that makes Koreatown so essential to my being. Where else will I find my boba that they will add extra balls to without raising a thinly plucked eyebrow, along with yak shik, the sticky rice with raisins that I need to keep myself fair and balanced, turn the meat on the barbecue sitting on the table and impress all my white friends? Knowing my way all over Western and Wilshire makes me feel like I have a hood, even though I never lived there, and I kinda have that cool swagger like the girl in the video for “China Girl,” taking David Bowie all around, showing off her mad chopstick skills, throwing her rice in the air, acting like she just don’t care, then fucking him on the beach with all that messed up makeup.
I love David Bowie, I swear, love him love him he is a god and he didn’t even write that song, it was Iggy, who was married to Suchi or Sushi or Sukiyaki or whatever – he had that yellow fever, but every time I listened to it, that shit made me feel like there was something that I was doing wrong. I wasn’t exotic and I never thought about wearing a little black linen pants and a shirt that closed with frogs instead of buttons. It made me feel oddly inferior and superior at the same time, like here is the face of me, supposedly a symbol of faraway lands where the food is as mysterious as the sex, so I am the embodiment of the ancient Chinese secret, but in truth, I am an imposter, because if I am so exotic why I am sitting in front of the TV watching Underdog and listening out for my mom’s car so I can turn it off fast enough and pretend I was doing my homework while my brother works on a Revell model of an army truck as we both get high off the fumes? Plus, I am not even Chinese, so I am not a China girl per se, just a pretender to the throne. The chorus is very dehumanizing. “oh oh oh ohhhhhh little China Girl. oh oh oh ohhhhhhh little China.” Like he’s talking to a dog or something. I suppose a little objectification is affectionate, and I cannot say that I am guilty of it sometimes, because the role of concubine can be fun, and to tell the truth, if I modeled myself to fit the tv and movie depictions of what Asian American women can be, the only other alternative to that would be a newscaster. That shit is boring. I would take the little satin pajamas or the cheongsam over the conservative suit any day.
I am going to make sure I go to the Koreatown Parade next year. I am going to start working on my float today.