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poom134 's review for:
Yellowface
by R.F. Kuang
RichardBurns08: Me too. Been with my Thai wife for three years now, and they still think this gaijin can't handle it (spicy food). Love to prove them wrong!
As a Thai, I found the above excerpt from this novel so funny. I assume that R.F. Kuang intentionally chose the word "gaijin" (Japanese word for foreigner) here. It represents how RichardBurns08 pretends to know about Asians by trying to use an "asian" word. The Thai word for foreigners is "farang" (usually mean westerners/whites). But instead of using farang, he used gaijin. Also not all asians eat spicy food. Japanese foods are definitely on average less spicy than Thai foods. The real spicy in asian restaurants in the US is also not comparable to the spiciness that local people eat.
Thai foods are too diverse even for Thai people to know all of them. Pad Thai is not a thing in Thailand but a lot of foreigners still think they know a lot about Thai foods.
One time I went to a Chinese restaurant with three farangs. One of them asked for a fork because he wasn't comfortable using chopsticks. One of them, who can use chopsticks, then asked me how I felt about that. I said "I don't care. Some Thai people also don't use chopsticks." (Thai people usually use fork&spoon for rice and chopsticks for noodles because we think of noodles as Chinese foods. ~10% of Thai people are Chinese.)
Just like Juniper Song Hayward, some westerners really have no idea about asians but think that they know a lot. In general, I don't really care about how much westerners should know about asians. Just please don't try to show off.
Yellowface was a fun read. I finished in a few days despite my flawed English. However I slowed down after 200 pages because I felt that the story wasn't moving forward after a certain point. I really like the ending though. The first-person (June) narrative made it a little shallow but it is understandable.
As a Thai, I found the above excerpt from this novel so funny. I assume that R.F. Kuang intentionally chose the word "gaijin" (Japanese word for foreigner) here. It represents how RichardBurns08 pretends to know about Asians by trying to use an "asian" word. The Thai word for foreigners is "farang" (usually mean westerners/whites). But instead of using farang, he used gaijin. Also not all asians eat spicy food. Japanese foods are definitely on average less spicy than Thai foods. The real spicy in asian restaurants in the US is also not comparable to the spiciness that local people eat.
Thai foods are too diverse even for Thai people to know all of them. Pad Thai is not a thing in Thailand but a lot of foreigners still think they know a lot about Thai foods.
One time I went to a Chinese restaurant with three farangs. One of them asked for a fork because he wasn't comfortable using chopsticks. One of them, who can use chopsticks, then asked me how I felt about that. I said "I don't care. Some Thai people also don't use chopsticks." (Thai people usually use fork&spoon for rice and chopsticks for noodles because we think of noodles as Chinese foods. ~10% of Thai people are Chinese.)
Just like Juniper Song Hayward, some westerners really have no idea about asians but think that they know a lot. In general, I don't really care about how much westerners should know about asians. Just please don't try to show off.
Yellowface was a fun read. I finished in a few days despite my flawed English. However I slowed down after 200 pages because I felt that the story wasn't moving forward after a certain point. I really like the ending though. The first-person (June) narrative made it a little shallow but it is understandable.