(soju = Korean alcohol, shoujo = Japanese anime)
To say that I’m a foreigner to Asian cultures would be the equivalent of saying that pineapple doesn’t belong on pizza (it does!), as I have Indonesian blood coursing through my veins. If asked where I’m from, it would be so simple to say that my sisters have skin the colour of our ancestors’ sand. But my premature exposure to the Australian culture has manufactured my cultural identity as a ‘whitewashed’ Asian female – yes, I am an Australian citizen but no, I don’t own an Australian birth certificate.
Watching my fellow co-auto-ethnographers burrow into profound analysations of a culture in relation to their own presented to me how cultures were scrutinised by outsiders. Those who admitted unfamiliarity toward Asian cultures may be the parallel adjacent of how the Australian culture was once incongruous to me.
On the other hand, I’ve also…
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Digital Asia 
Hi @Salafaldy!
I think you have nailed the narrative form of writing in your blogpost. You gave a really detailed account of your cultural background, upbringing and what has influenced your engagement with Asia.
Some suggestions I have are:
1. Be clear about the autoethnographic experience you are writing about as you mention both live-action and Shoju. Are you reflecting on your experience with shoju, live-action or both? Including a clear sentence stating exactly what you are exploring will help to avoid confusion.
2. In your reflection of ‘Ao Haro Ride’ you mentioned having watched ‘Big Hero 6’ but there’s no explanation as to why this is relevant to your reflection on ‘Ao Haro Ride’ other than the two being different as ‘Big Hero 6’ “was so whole fully Western”. Try avoiding ‘East’ and ‘West’ comparisons, or if you do make the comparison in your reflection, be sure to explain why the comparison is relevant to your experience of ‘Ao Haro Ride’.
Overall, I really enjoyed reading about your passion for shoju anime and the YouTube clips you included. Keep up the good work!
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Hey Sham, thanks for your comment.
Just to clarify, I’m discussing both live action and shoujo as the live actions are of shoujo anime – it’s not necessarily one or the other 🙂 I’ve also mentioned that I watched the two at the same time, so Ao Haru Ride and Big Hero 6 are relevant to each other in the sense that they are both cartoons that released at around the same time, yet so different.
Thank you!
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Hey, @Salafaldy! My apologies, you do mention a sentence about live-actions that are recreated from shoju animes. As for the comment on Big hero 6, I worded it a bit badly. What I meant was that it sounds like you had an epiphany about anime when you watched Big Hero 6, so i would encourage you to write a bit more about that (while trying to avoid any ‘East’ and ‘West’ comparisons)! 🙂
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I love how you began this by engaging with your experiences being an Australian Citizen but not Australian born. It’s a very interesting point to note that you grew up having more asian influence and perspective and that Australian culture was something you adapted to. I haven’t watched any live action ‘shoujo’ anime’s and I’m curious as to how it would impact the final product, do you find there be much difference and does it elicit stronger emotions from you considering the use of real people and places?
This was a really good post, as Ellis points out, Auto-ethnography is all about analysing your own personal experience and how that helps you to understand other cultures. Your cultural background and you love of Korea have certainly shaped your response to the ‘Digital Asia’
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