{"id":88,"date":"2024-06-25T13:12:51","date_gmt":"2024-06-25T20:12:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/adamsperublog\/?p=88"},"modified":"2024-06-25T13:17:28","modified_gmt":"2024-06-25T20:17:28","slug":"x-uno-gringo-chino","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/adamsperublog\/2024\/06\/25\/x-uno-gringo-chino\/","title":{"rendered":"X. Uno Gringo Chino"},"content":{"rendered":"

Waiting for the train from Aguas Calientes to Ollantaytambo, I asked Daniel how to see and write in terms of affect. Of course it\u2019s important to talk about ideology. But I think I think too much in categories and broad concepts and don\u2019t pay enough attention to how bodies move and are affected by other bodies. I said my writing has been too detached. I\u2019ve been afraid to fuck up. Daniel said I should pay attention to the moments of intensity.<\/span><\/p>\n

I journal every night in bullet points recounting the day\u2019s events. At the very least a single line, but sometimes I write a few pages. If there\u2019s something I need to flesh out or give more detail I linger on it. I scanned through my journal this past week and found no moments that screamed out at me. Until I noticed something I\u2019ve noted down almost every day here: people confronting me or yelling at me in the street about my race. I feel disgusted whenever I hear the word race but it just feels more honest than the word ethnicity. Ethnicity is race in the language of tolerance. And tolerance is at best a conditional acceptance of difference. Cleansed, aestheticized difference. Difference kneeling in its right place. Ethnicity is not just \u201ccultural,\u201d it is irreducibly political.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been bothered by people yelling things like \u201cChino!\u201d and \u201cJapon\u00e9s!\u201d here before but I\u2019ve never really been mad. I assumed it was just a crude recognition of difference. One of my favourite race moments was when I was eating chaufa de carne at one of my favourite stands in the Pisac market and the owner, Dina, poked me: \u201cBetter than your country, right?\u201d I asked her: \u201cWhat is my country?\u201d She didn\u2019t reply. But she was right. It was among the best I\u2019d had.<\/span><\/p>\n

The worst moment was probably in Aguas Calientes. As it\u2019s primarily a tourist town for Macchu Picchu, there are already so many people in the streets and in front of restaurants harassing people and trying to get business. One day a man stopped me as I was leaving the market to ask me where I was from. When I said I was from Canada he refused to accept it. He said: \u201cYou don\u2019t look like a Canadian.\u201d I asked him: \u201cWhat does a Canadian look like?\u201d No response. I gave him a friendly glare and walked off. But on the way back to the hotel a man started yelling at me in the street. I hardly remember what he was saying. It was like all the times before but more intensely aggressive and patronizing. This was the first time I wanted to yell back. I wanted to scream at him like a real righteous fucking racist. I wanted to match him and get all of our ugliness out in the open. Because if you know what it is it\u2019s to be seen as a caricature of all the worst associations you can imagine and to see yourself as that, to become that caricature at the same time. I wanted to take away his humanity. I wanted to make him into a figurine on a shelf. I wanted him to feel on what level it hurts and on what level it works. But I didn\u2019t turn around. I just walked away.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yesterday after Inti Raymi I stopped at a mercado for water. A few women were chatting there, most likely the owner and her friends. One asked me where I was from: \u201cCanada.\u201d She made a gesture with her fingers and her eyes. \u201cOriental?\u201d I let her guess a couple times until she got it right and she cheered a little like they always do. But she was very sweet. With the warmest smile, she said: \u201cWelcome to Peru.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Part of me likes this treatment better than back home. I often feel these impressions implicitly even when it\u2019s unsaid. Sometimes my mom and I notice it in the way a waitress treats us. Without words, we know it\u2019s there. I don\u2019t know if I like pretending it\u2019s not. It doesn\u2019t give us a chance to speak back.<\/span><\/p>\n

I wonder if any of you have had similar experiences here you\u2019d like to share, and if you feel similarly about them?<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Waiting for the train from Aguas Calientes to Ollantaytambo, I asked Daniel how to see and write in terms of affect. Of course it\u2019s important to talk about ideology. But I think I think too much in categories and broad concepts and don\u2019t pay enough attention to how bodies move and are affected by other […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101823,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-experience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/adamsperublog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/adamsperublog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/adamsperublog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/adamsperublog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/101823"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/adamsperublog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/adamsperublog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/adamsperublog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88\/revisions\/90"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/adamsperublog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/adamsperublog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/adamsperublog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}