Anne Ishii has posted her Finger in the Throat Report #7.
Come one, come all, down to my digestive system, as I consume this very lovely work of asianica, which I am using to coin a new genre of fiction: Phonetic Asianica, or Phonetica for short.
Phonetica is self-explanatory. It's when a writer chooses to represent his/her characters phonetically. When Yummee from Fan Tan says she likes being pushed around, it reads "I rike-ee beeng pushed alound." When the complimentary hooker in Lost in Translation visits Bill Murray's hotel room, and wants to convey a desire to have her pantyhose ripped off her legs, it reads: "Lip it! Lip my hose!"
Funny? Yes. Relatable? oh, I'm sorry, rerataber? iyessss. Always applopliate? Possibry not.
I was laughing so hard by the end of this article, I had people peering into my office wondering if I was okay.
Maybe white men shouldn't write about Asia.
(via Bookslut)
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1 comment:
And yet, I met Asians - male and female - that talk like that, either while I was serving overseas or immigrants I met in the States. Their "first generation" children generally speak without the accent.
But yeah, if you're writing and making sweeping generalizatons that show ALL Asians speaking like that, it's freakin' racist as all hell. That kind of writing speedily becomes redundant and boring.
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