In my opinion, the best part of Language of Blood was the scene on page 96 called Don't Worry, I Will Make You Feel Comfortable: A monologue for imagining. Here Trenka describes a (presumably!) fictional stand-up comedy routine that is only funny because it is so unfunny. I really appreciated this part because self-deprecating humor is such a balancing act. On the one hand it can be funny because it's true, on the other hand you don't want to seem insecure. You want to acknowledge your own flaws without shame, in a way.
Here is a partial list of the ways she makes fun of Asian women: Makes a joke that isn't funny. Overly welcoming, like restaurant hostess. Academic. Eats dogs. Unclean. Bad English. This bit even comes with a song! Weee!! We can see another way that self-deprecating humor is a balancing act-- Koreans in Korea wouldn't be able to write something like this, nor would white Americans in America. You have to be in a position where you're sensitive to others perceiving you as different. If you're fully part of an ethnic or national group, there isn't much about your identity that you can joke about with your peers.
If I may relate this back to myself (my favorite subject, and maybe yours, too! I AM that interesting!)-- even though I'm not THAT neurotic and my nose isn't THAT big, I still joke about these things as a way of acknowledging my different identity. As Trenka grows more uncomfortable in her dual identity, she tries on new ways to deal with it. Again, one of the many wonderful things about self-deprecating humor is how nuanced it can be. When reading this scene, it's supposed to be funny because it's stand-up comedy. But it's also not that funny. But its not-funniness makes it funny. But it's also expressing the sad truth about Asian women stereotypes. It's this subtle multi-layering of tone that I think makes this piece carry the most meaning about being a Korean adoptee in America. Even though the whole book is about that, this piece really made me think about what it's like to walk around having those stereotypes shadow you. Despite being called "I Will make you feel Comfortable," this monologue is a very UNcomfortable reminder of what it's like to be an Asian woman in America.
I really appreciate the way you connected to the way the self irony worked and how it related to the way you present yourself (big nose? ah, don't think so). Very few people are able to show how comedy works and it often seems forced and/or insulting. Good anaylsis
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I like what you are picking up on! These little scenes fit so well because of the stereotypes we perpetuate. It's humorous in a cruel way… that we seem to uniformly understand. She wants us to laugh, have some sort of connection to were she is coming from, and in the long run, realize that we are naive when it comes to the blanketing of culture. We fall on these stereotypes automatically. Very interesting.
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