... is kind of asking for trouble.

You're a real original Vancouverite. All my friends were 2nd or 3rd gen kids from immigrants and it was cool. At the end of the day CRA is a formulaic rom-com. Congrats in not being duped into thinking it's much more. If you want to see great Asian film go watch a Chen Kaige or Zhang Yimou film.

Same. I'm Asian and grew up here. I grew up with friends of all races and never felt being Asian was a bad thing or under represented. Maybe we were lucky!

Most Asians work in domains where their race does not affect their ability to get a job. I can imagine that it must be frustrating to be an Asian in the theatre arts if you can't get cast in anything other than Miss Saigon or The King and I, even if you know the classic Broadway songbook inside out and backwards. Things have been evolving slowly - an Asian Eponine in Les Miz, an Asian Linus in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, and then Hamilton came along and kicked down that door by enforcing a non-white cast, save for one. So for people who are affected by this stuff, this movie is a huge deal.

“There were moments in my youth when I wanted to be not-Asian”

That statement is exactly how many people have felt at one time or another. The weight and significance of those feelings is different for everyone. It’s great that you don’t feel affected by lack of representation, but lots of others do.

I'm glad that you didn't feel that sense of isolation or need to change. I also get that people want representation of their ethnicity & culture in the media they consume. If no one looked similarly to me on tv or in any of the stories I read, it would feel lonely. I haven't seen this movie. To me it seems marketed towards people who want to watch rom coms or the cinderella story. It still seems to be the same hollywood story but now there is Asian representation. I felt like Black Panther was a hugely overdue too and by diversifying hollywood is getting it right. But all these films glamorize rich, beautiful, powerful people. Most of us aren't rich, flawlessly gorgeous and privileged, so it's still creating a divide when I wonder if their intention was to unify. Sometimes I think these movies are just pacifiers. Put in our face to keep us content and occupied instead of questioning.

... "under-representation" stuff is a plank in corporate capitalism to allow corporate capitalism to appear relevant. Let's say you had a fundamentally unfair system of economics---we won't spend much effort defining unfair, let's say any system that tolerates one family/family trust having billions while some families have a few dollars a day is unfair, which is what we have.

So, while these family trust companies have oodles of money in stocks and other instruments, they also tend to take plum executive/management positions for themselves and their cousins, etc. More money is always better. But the upper upper 0.1%/1%, their large family structures are fine as long as the stock market keeps ticking and corporations keep existing (remember, corporations have only existed a few hundred years). So, how do they effect this?

They buy off the people who were "historically excluded" by acting like every white guy is somehow "Rockefeller in waiting" if not "Rockefeller himself" and that there's some great tidal shift if we allow black, hump-backed lesbians to wield the reigns of upper management. The big family trusts don't care, they don't really _need_ these office jobs they take on, it's mostly something for them to do.

It's all a big scam to continue a fundamentally unfair economic system on the premise that if you have an unfair machine, if you change a cog from a white one to a black one, it suddenly becomes fair. The issue is the machine, not the colour of the cog.

Is it even allowed to be seen in China?

I'm glad you grew up feeling okay about being Asian despite the lack of representation. I'm also so grateful you are respectful of those who didn't and are excited about the movie (like myself).

Each person is entitled to their own thoughts and feelings about things. There isn't one "right" way of being an Asian person growing up in North America. If only more people understood this and stopped bashing on others for not feeling exactly the same way as themselves.

I guess we only LOOK alike, just kidding hehehe.

I too grew up here and my experiences led me to truly wish to be judged only by my actions. I kind of can’t stand being lumped in with other folks on the basis that we have epicanthic folds, even when, or especially when, it comes from earnest white liberals who think they are in a position to reassure and placate me.

I would almost rather be in grade four being called a chink again than to read another article from a professional ethnic whose reaction to a book or movie is to ask how many people have naturally black hair. At least that racist kid and I had an immediate opportunity to exchange reactions.

Fuck that shit!

Buuuuuuuuttttt....even so, when you saw the trailer in the theatre for Crazy Rich Asians, didn’t the (coarse, straight) hair on your neck suddenly stand up?

I had to see it to believe that this movie would have any kind of emotional hook for based on race, but it does for me.

It means that people who kinda sorta look like me are acting in parts that are not, ironically, about their race, but about who,is good enough to marry my son, how to fit in, all that rom com shit, that happens to be set in Hong Kong.

That feels kinda important.