"arigato, feco-san!
party like chopstick ninjaaaaa's!
Hot Asian Night
a feco-san production
Location: Cambridgebar
Partytime: 2200h
Dresscode: asian!
Thursday 11th of May"
When I first saw this poster perhaps a week ago, I was pissed off. Was it was because it was an example of the "Orientalism" that pervades the thinking of condescending Westerners? Or maybe I objected to the "Essentialization" of people of Asian descent in terms of their race? Or perhaps I objected to the blatant "Racism" embodied in the poster? Did I also take issue with the grouping of divers peoples residing in a huge continent ranging from Arabs to Indians to Russians to Chinese to Malays under the umbrella term of "Asian"? Surely I seethed at the "Objectification" of women and their being portrayed as mere sex objects!
The reason was much more simple (and none of the above) - it was damn stupid. If nothing else, the 2 stylized "Asians" (presumably "Asian" here is equated to "East Asian") weren't respecting the "asian!" dresscode (whatever an "Asian" dresscode might be). [Addendum: I had half a mind to go as a sumo wrestler or a seditious, half-naked fakir.]
And I still don't get what a "chopstick ninja" is. Maybe it's this:
Or maybe it's:
I wanted to see just how stupid this thing was, so after wolfing down dinner I went down to join 2 of my housemates, who were very pleased to see me. One asked if this was the first party I'd been to in Utrecht. Hurr hurr.
The bar was very crowded. In the first place it was smaller than I thought, and then this small space was packed with people - except for one or two pools of relative calm it was hard to find enough space to even raise your hands.
Almost no one adhered to the "Asian" dress code. Besides the 2 girls in cheongsams who I'd seen earlier, there was a guy with a mini-Vietnamese hat and one guy with a T-shirt with some Chinese words on its back. Meanwhile the decor had some "Asian" elements - paper lantersn (sans candles), anime clips projected onto a wall and random Chinese characters on the wall either singly or on a banner.
Most of the people had white cards with one or two random Chinese characters on them stuck on their upper bodies. It turned out that if you found someone with the same card, you could redeem the pair for 2 drinks. I wonder if anyone is hooking up tonight (I wouldn't qualify in any event - if nothing else, I came in too late).
They were serving a drink at the bar which they called Asian Sangria. Since it was only €1, I figured I had nothing to lose in seeing how "Asian" it was. It turned out to be composed of flat Coke and wine (perhaps one or two other things, but my alcohol sense is not trained), and canned lychees, cherry, peach and pear pieces were at the bottom of the cup; before I'd drained the cup one lychee was floating in the liquid with the opening facing down - I was wondering if it was a century egg or something.
I was very (and visibly) amused for maybe the first 10-15 minutes but I soon got bored and ran upstairs. Luckily the place is just 10 storeys below me.
I've just realised that the picture shows that Cambridgebar is not open on Vrijdag (Friday). Just what is it with relac one corner day over here?! Amusingly, it is also open latest on Thursday, which over here is night shopping day.