Quotes About Culture

You like pajeon? [...] How does your umma make it?" Kyunghee asked; her tone was casual, though she held strong opinions about the ratio of scallions to shellfish.

people from islands are different. We have more freedom.

Is it so terrible to be Korean?" "It is terrible to be me.

I think he just got tired of trying to be a good Korean and quit. I was never a good Korean.

He had visited South Korea with his father several times, and everyone there always treated them like they were Japanese. It was no homecoming;

In a way, Solomon was Japanese, too, even if the Japanese didn't think so. Phoebe couldn't see this. There was more to being something than just blood.

nearly every Korean-Japanese person I met in Japan had some historical connection or social connection with the pachinko business—one of the very few businesses in which Koreans could find employment and have a stake.

the commodification of Asian hair,

We always think of a diet with a big groan. But I think diets are fun. I think it is an American pastime for a lot of women.

As it is, I guess I find "Jack & Diane" a little disgusting. As a child of immigrant professionals, I can't help but notice the wasteful frivolity of it all. Why are these kids not home doing their homework? Why aren't they setting the table for dinner or helping out around the house? Who allows their kids to hang out in parking lots? Isn't that loitering?

It was finally clear. The reason I'm Kind of Hindu and will raise my daughter to be Kind of Hindu is to have this connection deep inside my own heart to other people who look like us and have shared key experiences, thousands of miles away. I don't have to be full-on religious, and I doubt I'll ever be knowledgeable enough to satisfy her or my curiosity about our faith, but I'm really going to try.

From now on, let's all agree that hooking up = sex. Everything else is "made out." And if you're older than twenty-eight, then just kissing someone doesn't count for crap and is not even worth mentioning. Unless you're Mormon, in which case you're going to hell.

Women always take bad behavior by men and twist it to make it so it's somehow our fault, not theirs. It makes more sense to us that we're somehow wrong than the possibility that a man is being rude.

One thing you should know about me is that I am not a hugger. For the record, in New York, that is a perfectly acceptable way to be. If you hug someone there they are either a person in your immediate family whom you have not seen in months, or they are gravely ill.

Luckily the rope fiasco was eclipsed, several weeks later, when I accidentally pronounced jalapeño with a hard j in front of Vijay, Hondo, and some other campers. I'd only ever seen it printed on the side of a can of salsa. "You think it's ja-lapeno?!" Hondo asked, incredulous. I did.

When they arrived, we all sat around my small apartment, ate delicious Indian food, and talked and talked for hours. I was surprised by how calming it was to be around people who looked like me and who reminded me of where I was from.

In that moment, standing alone in my bedroom, I felt so connected to my mother. It was finally clear. The reason I'm Kind of Hindu and will raise my daughter to be Kind of Hindu is to have this connection deep inside my own heart to other people who look like us and have shared key experiences, thousands of miles away.

One thing you should know about me is that I am not a hugger. For the record, in New York, that is a perfectly acceptable way to be.

and I went to Dartmouth to pursue my love of white people and North Face parkas.

Luckily, I was not born a white man.1 I was born a socially anxious Indian woman.

Drag the kids to the art museum in the morning,

Dance and the other art forms can be taught, but how to make an ozashiki sparkle can not.

She was thanking everybody because she believed, as do many Japanese, that it takes a village to raise a child. I was the product of a group effort rather than any given individual. And the group was Gion Kobu.

An Englishman's home may be his castle, but an Englishwoman's kitchen is where he eats his humble pie.