Being Half Japanese

Marcia Yunmi Lise

Marcia Yunmi Lise

I was born to a Japanese mother and an American-Italian mother. Like many other ‘racially’ or if you prefer ‘ethnically’ mixed individuals, I often think about my identity and how I sit in society. I was born and raised in Japan. I therefore consider myself to be predominantly Japanese. That is, culturally. The issue with my experience in Japan was that I was often regarded as ‘non-Japanese’. This had a great impact on my identity. Exploring the experiences of the half Japanese in relation to Japanese society somehow became a sort of a passion or a habit. I came to London in 2001 to study Sociology at university. My undergraduate thesis was on the marginalisation of Hafus, the Japanese word to refer to half Japanese people. I also recently completed a qualitative research project (submitted for MA), which was also about the half Japanese but this time focusing on how they are considered to be the ‘other’ in Japanese society.

In summer 2005, I agreed to be photographed by Natalie Maya Willer, a London based artist who was also a Hafu. She has a slightly different background with a Japanese mother and a German father. She was brought up in Germany and tells me how she had the same problem of not being recognised to have Japanese connection due to her very German look. Earlier this year we decided to put a project together combining her photography (visual arts) and my research work represented by the spoken words of the participants. The result was a one week exhibition at the Bodhi Gallery in east London last month. It was well received with over 450 visitors, half of whom I estimate to be Hafus.

The exhibition was accompanied by three events: a seminar with guest speakers from SOAS and LSE, a Hafu social night, and a Hafu family art workshop. I’m certain that the exhibition together with these events created an important contribution to the cultural dialogue about identity, culture, ‘race’ and nationhood.

Read original article here…

>> Marcia Yumi Lise <<


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We are because of them – Part 5 0f 5

A documentary by Tana Baru Productions, and Directed by Rhomeez Petersen

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Understanding ‘How to make one hell of a prophet and still get to heaven’

How to make one hell of a prophet and still get to heaven by Dr. John F. DeMartini


What the hell is heaven?

Payment is due when service is rendered.

Profits are a by product of having services rendered.

‘Work is love made visible’ – Khalil Gibran

Everything is light.

The inherent nature of divinity is love and light.

Spirit requires matter to express itself, and matter needs spirit to give it motion and meaning.

Your wealth and fulfilment in life are expressions of your heart, mind and soul.

The most fulfilled people are people who are inspired.

In fact, the word Gold comes from the Hebrew Aour, which means light.

Few are going to join with you and financially invest in you until you invest in yourself.

What you believe and what you say to yourself manifest in your life.

When people believe the incomplete teaching that money isn’t spiritual, it’s no wonder they don’t have any significant degree of monetary wealth.

You receive in exact proportion to the value you give.

Life is designed to make sure you express your unique talents and find fulfilment.

When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.

What you do influences what you have, but what you say has a big influence on what you’ll allow yourself to do.

Ask a different question and you’ll receive a very different answer to the same apparent situation.

You’re not on this earth just to get by or survive. You’re here to realize your grandest dreams.

When you’re willing to share your talents, inspirations, and gifts with the world, the desired gifts you receive in return will be even more abundant.

The more you’re willing to receive, the more you’ll be willing to give.

‘If man knew he himself was God and Heaven and Hell, no illusion would have a hold on him, nothing could limit his consciousness’ Daniel Odier, Tantric Master

What you believe and say to yourself manifests into reality. You create your own destiny with your thoughts every day.

Master your financial thoughts and you’ll master your financial destiny.

Questions?

  • What do you consider spiritual? (One word answers only)
  • Write down every single way that having great financial wealth will help you attain even more of the qualities mentioned above.
  • Go through each of them in turn and write down how a non mastery or a lack of wealth limits your ability to express those same inspired qualities.

I embrace spirit and matter equally!

>> Dr. John F. DeMartini <<

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Next Time Call Me Mixed-Race!

I have both white and black cousins, but best of all I have two places that I can call home.

How do you categorise someone who is not 100% white nor 100% black, without offending that person?

This is the debate that I walked into the other day, when a woman pointed at me and told her son: ‘That is a half caste.’

Why she did that I will never know, but it left me feeling hurt that the phrase is still being used.

Why so hurt? The answer is in the meaning of the words. If you research the definition of half caste, it says ‘a person of mixed racial descent.’

Fair enough, but read the synonyms and it tells you: amalgam, bastard, combination, composite, compound, cross, crossbreed, half-blood, half-breed, mongrel … to name just a few.

Caste was first used in India in the sixteenth century to describe the Hindu system of hierarchy. The term half-caste indicates how pure you are racially and echoes the days of colonial slavery when words such as mulatto, quadroon and octoroon were commonplace in sales ledgers and even in post-emancipation days in the old United States census.

John Agard, from Guyana makes some brilliant points in his poem ‘Half caste‘:

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>> Donah Sibanda <<

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Ngoro right on coloured culture!

PLEASE allow me the opportunity to respond to the article “Ngoro invites Khoisan intellectuals”, which appeared in City Press of August 14.

I would like to thank Blackman Ngoro for opening an issue which we as Khoisan rights campaigners have been discussing all along – that coloured people should shed their coloured identity and reclaim their original identities, culture and heritage.

Now is the time for an in-depth public debate across the country for the coloured community to engage in dialogue and debate about the future of this minority community in post-apartheid South Africa.

I was not aware of the Ngoro saga until I opened the newspapers and saw the media hype about remarks posted on his personal website that “coloureds are culturally inferior to black people, drink cheap alcohol . . .” . Ngoro’s remarks may be offensive, but I for one agree with him that coloured people are indeed happy-go-lucky people who are culturally inferior to black people.

As long as they go to work five days a week, show-off their new expensive car sound systems during weekends and go to church on Sundays, coloured people are the happiest bunch of people in the world.

It pains me to hear remarks from coloured people that they are comfortable with being coloured and pay no attention to the emergence of the Khoisan renaissance in areas like Kimberley, Upington, Bloemfontein or Eersterus in Tshwane.

Read full article here…

>> Opinion of Brian Vel, Secretary – General: Northern Cape Khoisan Council <<

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We are because of them – Part 4 0f 5

A documentary by Tana Baru Productions, and Directed by Rhomeez Petersen

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Roots of the Cape – Part 2 of 2

.History of Slavery in South Africa Documentary

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The Ugly Truth Behind The Eurasian Beauty Myth

Growing up in Hong Kong, Fiona Hartley (not her real name) had to walk up a steep hill every morning. By the time this Eurasian teenager got to school, she would be sweaty and flushed, and her wiry brown hair would be a complete mess. She used to look in envy at the Chinese girls walking by in their freshly pressed uniforms and their glossy black hair. “They never seemed to sweat!” Hartley, now 24, laughs as she recalls those days. “No matter how hot or humid it was, they always looked serene and perfect-not even a hair out of place. I always wished I could look more like them.”

But ironically, ever since she can remember, Hartley had heard her Chinese counterparts saying the same thing about her. As a child, she was surrounded by cooing relatives and friends who would admire her more Caucasian features. “They would comment on how fair my skin was,” she remembers, “or say they wished the bridges of their noses were as high as mine.”

The legacy of colonial shame carried by previous generations of Eurasians has long since disappeared from the public imagination. Today, the adjectives associated with Eurasians are more likely to be “exotic,” “stunning,” and above all, “beautiful.”

Beauty has emerged as one of the most pervasive stereotypes about Eurasians. As early as 1921, British writer W. Somerset Maugham described Ethel, the half-caste protagonist of The Pool, as being “adorably pretty” and resembling “something not of this earth” but more like “the spirit of the pool.” This fascination with Eurasian beauty and exoticism continues today. Even in the forums of EurasianNation you can read numerous breathless accounts from males worshiping “hapa booty.”

“I grew up in Japan being told by virtually everyone (adult and children alike) that I was either beautiful or cute because I was ‘ha-fu,’” says Abbie Yamamoto, 23, now a graduate student at Berkeley University.

Eurasian beauty is often attributed to the European influence, particularly among Asians. “It’s because of the Caucasian features that they admire me so,” explains Yamamoto. “They look at me and tell me the clichés over and over again about how big my eyes are and how ‘high’ my nose is.”

Many Asians have even taken drastic measures to try to recreate these Caucasian features on their own faces. Blepharoplasty, the eyelid incision that creates the canthal fold, has become a veritable rite of passage for young females. Plastic surgeons say it is the most common procedure elected by Asian women in North America and Asia, followed by rhinoplasties (nose jobs) and breast augmentation. In the Philippines, a new plastic surgery technique has been invented to mimic the “high” Caucasian nose. According to Salon.com, surgeons insert a flexible plastic tube, called “the Cleopatra,” up women’s noses. The procedure can jack noses upwards anywhere from 3 to 13 millimeters.

Ironically, the Eurasian face, despite its obvious Caucasian ancestry, has become the face that sells Asia. TV commercials use Eurasian models to peddle everything from designer jewelry to sanitary pads. TIMEasia.com reports that in Indonesia, a magazine with a Eurasian on the cover will sell two or three times more copies than one featuring a purely local model. And on Channel V, the Asia-wide music television channel, almost every single VJ is Eurasian.

Read full article here…

>> Carmen Van Kerckove <<

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We are because of them – Part 3 of 5

A documentary by Tana Baru Productions, and Directed by Rhomeez Petersen

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We are because of them – Part 2 of 5

A documentary by Tana Baru Productions, and Directed by Rhomeez Petersen

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