The Defenders-only Discussion Post!

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The Defenders Prompt Post

Talk about the Defenders! Speculate, discuss, squee and debate. There's a thread for each episode so you can discuss what you've watched so far without being spoiled for future episodes - click on top level view to see only the first comment in each thread and stay spoiler-free.

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Comments

(frozen comment) Re: To people who watched Iron Fist: A Very Important Question about Danny Rand and education

[(Anonymous)]

I've read stuff (everything from askreddit threads to books) on some of your questions--specifically What do Asian immigrants/tourists find most surprising when coming to a place like USA? what do Asian Americans struggle with the most? What do they miss from home?

The first one: an answer I've seen popping up a lot is that the US is friendlier and safer than a lot of Asian tourists think it will be. A lot of the things I've seen have had statements to the effect of "I didn't realize people were so nice and generous and giving in the US, I thought they were all thieves/individualistic". Also, the sheer size of the US seems shocking to people from very small Asian countries of Japan? And the variations in US cultures and places? Not sure how much of that is relevant to Danny Rand.

Asian-American struggles: a huge theme of p much everything about this that I've read is about double-alienation and the myth of the model minority: basically, a lot of especially 2nd and 3rd generation Asian-American immigrants feel alienated from their families and their home and immigrant cultures while also feeling alienated from American culture. Being 'perpetual foreigners' and having difficulty finding people who understand the duality and complexity of their experiences without judging them or viewing their lives through very polarized lenses. Then the model minority myth has its own effects--Asian-Americans feel like failures, are hyper-perfectionistic, feel overly feminized and devalued, have trouble if they're not STEM majors or supergeniuses, are alienated from other minorities, are questioned if they're a part of 'troubling' society, etc.

Also, possibly relevant wrt language--there's this great essay by Amy Tan, "Mother Tongue" (here: http://www.olypen.com/pnkdurr/as/mother_text.htm) that really explains the relationship between 2nd generation Asian-American immigrants and the English language as well.

I think that part of the thing is that it's entirely possibly Danny does have this stuff, because I can see Ward or Danny's secretary or *somebody* setting it up if only for appearances, or out of the hope that he'll lose the 'delusions' of being a monk and snap back into shape.

(frozen comment) Re: To people who watched Iron Fist: A Very Important Question about Danny Rand and education

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for the info. Asian cultures aren't my specialty (African are, kind of), it's always nice to learn something new.

To the first one: yeah, not much of it is applicable. This is surface stuff; you need to look deeper than that. You're looking for the times when in Asia it would be normal to act in one way, and in USA people turn out to do something entirely different, and it was very surprising.

So for example, I think it was an Asian man who was very surprised when his Canadian colleagues asked him what made him choose his career, because what young person would try to make such a burdening, responsible decision by themselves? His father decided his career. He was further surprised when the Canadians were suddenly outraged and sympathetic to him.

Or another one: in Asia, you're supposed to take care of your guests - give them something good, not parade an army of choices in front of them. So it's a bit of a shock to an Asan when they visit a Western home, and the host is suddenly like,

"What would you like to drink? I have tea, coffee, oh, jasmine tea, orange and apple juice, there's some water if you'd like, oh, how about some alcohol? I have..."

"Uh, water please."

"Sure! You want it sparkling or not?"

Your guest is already screaming inside, frantically calculating how long it will take them to reach nearest exit and if you can catch them before they get there.


The struggles: this is pretty much normal for a migrant experience. I'm sure Asians have their own quirks within it, but yeah, none of that is surprising. The whole "outsider everywhere" thing certainly needs to be included in Danny Rand's characterization, but you're again looking for something more. In what ways does the Asian immigrants' culture not fit into US. society? For which aspects of that are Asian Americans actively fighting?

I don't have enough knowledge to give real examples here, I can only speculate. One of the things that don't fit at all are names - in some of the Asian cultures, at least, the name is made out three words, there's no real distinction between a first name and a surname, and your "first name" actually comes *last*, while the first two indicate what family you're from. But immigrants seem to let go of all that pretty easily.

What people are maybe working hard on keeping might be their religions and spiritual convictions, but I have nothing to actually support this claim. It's a shot in the dark, based on how things work in general.