What is it about Asian Americans that makes some of them be ashamed of being Asian? I’ve noticed this phenomenon in the past on a NPR cartoon where Adrian Tomine talks about how the character Long Duk Dong in Sixteen Candles ruined his life. Now I read a very interestingly titled article “Dear Michael Chang. You ruined my tennis career. Thanks for nothing.”
Even if you allow that Chang influenced Chinese-Americans to participate in sports beyond the Academic Decathlon, he still shackled us with another stereotype. Thanks to him, we were all seen as determined counterpunchers, tireless tongue-lolling retrievers who compensated for our lack of physical gifts by outlasting our opponents because we couldn’t outplay them.
Before Chang, we were free to dream about becoming Boris Becker, that Teutonic badass who strutted around the baseline, blasting aces, or Edberg, the square-jawed Swede with a stylish attacking game and a hot blond girlfriend. Now we were stuck with the introverted, 5-foot-9 (on his best day) Chang, a devout Christian with a cream-puff serve who scrapped his way to the French Open title with borderline bush-league tricks (moonballing, crowding the service line on returns, the instantly legendary underhand serve). Worst of all, his dragon-lady mother once stuck her hand down his shorts after a practice to check if they were wet. At the Junior Davis Cup! In front of his friends! After Becker retired, he impregnated a woman in a restaurant’s cleaning closet; when Chang hung up his sticks, he studied theology at Biola University.
I’m not sure I understand the author Huan Hsu’s point. I mean Michael Chang is a Chinese-American and he is a real person subject to all those real person qualities that are appealing to some and unappealing to others. Hsu’s basically saying he wants Michael Chang to be white, you know like Agassi, or Boris Becker, or one of those guys. Why should he be? He was a fabulous tennis player any way you slice it. An athlete. A French Open champion. What I really loved about Michael Chang was how short he was compared to his competitors. He may not have been born with a tennis body, but he sure made good use of what he had.
I get it, Hsu doesn’t like the fact that Chang is a Christian. Okay, but Chang is a tennis player so who cares? You don’t hear a lot of African Americans ashamed of Venus and Serena Williams because they’re Jehovah’s Witnesses. You don’t hear Russians bemoaning Davydenko as a stereotype because he could be involved in game fixing? No. It’s just some Asian Americans who seem to have a problem with being Asian. Now you do sometimes hear about some straight-acting gays putting down gay gays. I’m not sure if there is a tennis connection, but I’ll be all over it if there is.
