Shame--Lorelei

 

It was October of 2010 when I was selected as the Student of the Month of my small Kindergarten class of 28 people. As a reward, I was given a blank “All-About-Me” poster template to fill in with my hobbies, family members, and favorite songs and foods and toys. I was ecstatic to share all my interests with all my new friends I had made in the past few months. While presenting the poster, I got through my family members, hobbies, and favorite songs with content approval from my peers and my teacher. I arrived to present my favorite food, and confidently said with my crooked small smile, “My favorite food is ramen noodles.” The class’ approval quickly converted to glances of confusion or disgust amongst a silence in the classroom that had ironically echoed in my mind. My teacher said hesitantly, “Ramen? That’s… interesting.” Prior to this, the other students in class would typically choose pizza, cheeseburgers, or ice cream as their favorite dish. The feeling of shame had washed over me for feeling proud of this Asian dish. This same feeling had prolonged in my heart for years to come in which I had to continually lie on the repetitive question on what my favorite food was, to which I’d now reply with “pizza”, “cheeseburgers”, or “ice cream”. 

Shame is defined as “a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior” (Oxford). Although this experience had seemed minor, this flashbulb memory had significantly marked my first introduction to feeling like my Asian identity was something to be considered as foolish. Growing up, I tried to conform to a predominantly white favored society which had led to the extreme efforts to deviate away from my Asian culture. However, as I approached more recent years, I found comfort in Asian diasporas in middle school and high school that struggled with this same feat, but found myself in the dilemma of not being Asian enough for having tried to erase my Asian identity as a child, yet being too Asian to be able to “fit” in with the society surrounding me.

Shame in society has been deemed to be the roots of one's insecurities in their character. Yet the irony of the concept of shame is the fact that shame is actually rooted in the judgment of others, for without such judgment, we would never know what to assume shameful or not. The societal perceptions of shame are incorrectly attributed to the faults of one’s character, but in many cases, this is just another example of victim blaming. Although people should be ashamed of their actions when acting ethically or morally incorrectly, current day views of shame are elevated to where people are unable to feel secure in their character without being shamed. It's shameful for a woman to wear a short skirt, but not shameful for the predator to view her in such a way in the first place. It's shameful for a man to show his emotions, but it's not shameful for society for instilling such standards. Shame should not be used to define social conformities and double standards. The modern day development of shame has altered people into deindividuation and conformity, which is a betrayal to one’s culture, beliefs, or lifestyle. Our idea of shame in today’s world is representative of society’s developing absence of empathy and individualism. 

If used effectively, shame can actually be used to better society, by acting as a way to uphold social order and separate right from wrong rather than to be used as a means of social approval and stagnation. In such a world where we lack empathy and openness to differences, it’s necessary to push towards a world where shame is not rooted in the fault of the victims. A world of equity and appreciation for individualism. A world where cultural differences are not seen as humiliating. A world where my favorite food truly can be ramen noodles. 

Source: “Oxford Languages and Google - English.” Oxford Languages, https://languages.oup.com/google-dictionary-en/.