Sep 14th, 2006
Short Round
For any of you not fortunate enough to have an intimate knowledge of the Indiana Jones films, Short Round is the little Asian boy who plays Indiana’s friend in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.”
In the opening scene, Indian Jones is attempting to acquire the ashes of a Ming dynasty emperor from a Chinese gangster in a cocktail bar in Hong Kong. When the gangster attempts to double-cross Indiana, an altercation ensues. Indiana Jones flees the scene (ostensibly before the Ninjas show up) with the blonde female lead and guess who is waiting outside in the getaway car?
Short Round.
A couple of years after I arrived in Cleveland, a number of douche bags in the year above me decided that I bore a striking resemblance to Short Round, which is ridiculous because I was much better looking than Short Round. At any rate, when the joke was suggested to me, I didn’t react very positively: I didn’t laugh and I didn’t even crack a smile. I found the proposition to be offensive and ignorant and I summarily expressed my opinion on the matter.
This didn’t sit well with the “crew” of jerk-offs, and before too long, I found myself being accosted by Short Round imitations whenever I walked nearby.
“Ahhh….Dactah Johnes.”
I ignored it at first, thinking that they would grow tired and stop – but ignoring them seemed to egg them on. The calls of “Dactah Johnes,” became more frequent and more public. At one point, four or five of them sat behind me in a school assembly and spent 40 minutes repeating the statement, over-and-over again, while I sat seething, but unsure of how exactly I was to react.
During that particular experience, a close friend of mine turned to them and yelled at them to stop – which they seemed to find amusing for some reason.
The cacophony of Short Round imitations continued for the better part of two months until one day, I was totally fed up and confronted one of the members of the group in solitude.
I spoke frankly and said, “Listen, this is really irritating. Why don’t you guys just cut it out?”
He responded as if confused about why I would be so upset over the antagonism. I stood there appalled by how ignorant someone could be that they wouldn’t understand why calling me the name of a young Chinese boy who speaks pigeon English in a film might possibly insult me.
It was then that I remembered that a member of their crew was Asian – Korean in fact.
“Well, how would Park feel if you called him Short Round?”
The guy looked at me in wonderment, surprised by my question.
“He would probably just laugh it off.”
And with that, I came to a realization: the joke did not start as an insult; it started as a question of how I would react to being compared with a caricature of an Asian boy from a film.
If I had simply joined in their mockery of me and laughed at the notion that Short Round and I looked alike, the situation could have been averted. It was the fact that I reacted negatively to the idea that there was some resemblance between me and someone who looked nothing like me, apart from having the same color hair and the same color eyes, which got me into trouble.
Some people might think that I just blew the situation out of proportion. After all, who really cares if a bunch of white guys think it is funny to suggest that I look like a Chinese boy from a film?
I care.
For me, it was about affirming my individuality as a half-Asian male. I didn’t think I looked anything like the character and I didn’t find the humor funny.
For me, the humor in their mockery was the notion that all Asians look the same; and all Asians speak with that horrid “me so howny” accent. It is in the context of these comparisons that the ludicrous suggestion that a young Chinese boy and a Korean/Persian male look alike.
So when a white guy starts chanting “Dactah Jones,” in a contrived Asian accent, it is funny because what he is really saying is, “Hey, you’re Asian – I saw a movie with an Asian guy in it and he had a funny accent and I think you guys are identical twins.”
That’s fucking hilarious. So what is the take-away? An Asian who can laugh at racism towards his own race is okay; there is something wrong with an Asian who can’t.
On an additional note, the fact that they had an Asian friend seemed to make the situation acceptable – even more so because he was the type of guy to laugh at his Asian-ness. It is like a white guy following up a joke about a black man with, “Oh, don’t worry about it. I’m not a racist because I have a black friend.” Bullshit.
For the record, I never laughed at the joke and to this day, I continue not to laugh at jokes about Asian stereotypes.
In the words of Forest Gump, that’s about all I have to say about that.
