[Interestingly, in China we have a similar saying "light skin conceals three flaws" (一白遮三丑). While in Japan it conceals seven flaws, I am wondering why in China it conceals some four flaws less...
Actually, the whole sentence is "一白遮三丑，一胖毁所有" the latter means "if you are fat, that destroys EVERYTHING!" Imagine growing up all these rotten-old demeaning bullshit sayings were deeply carved into your mind and soul.... well, luckily not mine.....]
Don't know when Aditi started to be aware of different skin colors and the different weights behind them. I caught her calling me "my white skin mommy, I like your color". I was like "What?! No no, first of all, mommy is yellow to be exact, yellow like the sun and moon, secondly, mommy prefers your brown skin, brown like the sun and moon!...."
I thought I prepared her well, I have been praising her skin color from day one. I would kiss her all over, telling her "mommy loves your skin color, it's a bit darker than mine, but I rather have yours."
The reason for doing that? White Supremacy exists in the most unexpected trivial matters that could unconsciously but strongly diminish a young mind's self-esteem.
I've heard enough stories, especially for girls.
I indeed a few times caught some girls in school comparing each other's skin color if "yours is whiter or mine is whiter". You have to admit, the majority of Asians still prefer whiter skin and if the mommies are comparing each other among themselves, their daughters learn that behavior.
To deal with this head-wrenching matter? Thank God our VP is Kamala Harris. Aditi by now has developed a strong sense of self-pride because of the way we look up to our VP and the way our VP looks, the same brown as Aditi's. This fact gives my daughter so much self-reassurance, it would weigh down the white-loving tendency among her peers much more efficiently than a mommy's "maybe blind" love to her daughter.
A sign of moving forward, no? I'm still waiting to see a black/brown/yellow/rainbow/white/anything Female president of America in my lifetime.
I know most of you Indians are too cool to care. As an interested outsider, I am keen to get my facts right. Please correct me if I were wrong, and welcome to more discussions.
So this is what I figured out recently: Aryan invasion theory is utterly fabricated by the British to put down Indians, so they are easily subjected to occupation and exploitation. It's one of the evilest shit ever in human history. For more than 300 years, the British put this in the Indians' mind - You are just a bunch of bastards, you lost your original culture (Indus Valley Civilization), what you have as a culture now, comes from some white dudes who are moving herdsmen and rapists.
Aryan Invasion theory was in each every textbook and each every scholar's mind, it was in each every classroom that studied Indian history and in the South Asia department of each every university and college in the world. This theory was injected in all of South Asians' blood, for centuries. But it just took me, a stay-home mom some reading and India trips to figure it out.
What is the Aryan Invasion theory by the way? In short, it's saying that at the decline of the Indus Valley Civilization (2000 BCE), bands of light-skinned Aryans invaded the Indian Subcontinent from Central Asia and conquered the dark-skinned Indus dwellers. And the light-skinned Aryans were the noble ones who designed the religious ritual system and stayed on top of the pyramid, ruling over the dark-skin ones.
By the saying of it, I could feel that the theory was baked up from an extremely racist place. Not to traumatize you all, the large majority of Chinese who think themselves know something about India, they learned the light-skinned higher caste rulers are white people - the European descendent Aryans who came to invade India.
The sad part is most people are unaware, but in their conscious mind, they are situated to white supremacy without knowing. Good work British, this is how you ruled the world and we are still living in the dark.
Five years ago I was named as one of the 100 people who actually really know something about India (out of the 1.3 billion). Five years later, I am not sure how many of the 100 people are still active. And out of the 100 or whatever number it is, I don't think other than me, any scholar ever openly brought up the evilness or wrongness of the Aryan Invasion theory, or they just never cared to question. So ya, the 1.3 billion Chinese are still in the dark, thanks to the British.
So why Indus Valley Civilization is still alive and active among all Indians? How can you say Indian culture is the only surviving ancient civilization that never died? First of all, with more advanced technology, more and more unearthed artifacts from Indus Valley Civilization are undoubtedly proving, today among Hindus, they are doing pretty much the same thing. For example, worshipping to Goddess (female) statue, worshipping of Shiv lingam, lotus posture found in various artifacts, figure that highly resembled lord Shiv, red-colored Sindhu found on the forehead of women's statue. The evidence is only accumulating.
Also, recent satellite photography has shown that between 1900 and 1600 BCE the Indus River changed course, the cities of the Indus Civilization were being abandoned during that period. Most likely the Indus Valley people just migrated to different locations. Furthermore, Aryans' own extensive writings never mention wars or hostilities against peoples who can be positively identified as indigenous to India.
And take a look at the Durga Puja celebration, one of the biggest events in Hindu culture today. The mythology of Durga maa goes way earlier than Ramayana. Lord Rama chose the date of Durga maa's fighting to go on his own fighting, and he prayed to Durga maa to gain strength. To me, it shows the continuance and persistence of the ancient culture.
And as a human being, I don't think we are recognizing and celebrating enough the fact that, whatever the humans in Indus Valley did 6000 years back, we are still doing it today. This is definitely the biggest miracle in today's living world. And I truly believe that to decipher the ancient culture that has survived through all the ups and downs in human history, is the only way to save us in the future.
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More on Durga Puja
I asked my husband about the story of Diwali, the connection between Diwali and Durga Puja. What I realized is the mythology of Durga maa goes way earlier than lord Rama ("Ramayana" was written at 7th to 4th centuries BCE).
At that time (7th century BC), Durga maa's story must be like lord Rama's story at our time - prominent mythology that came from hundreds and thousands of years back, passed down from generation to generation.
It has to be from a very advanced civilization that had a systematic worshipping mechanism, that civilization must be around for a long long time, and was strong and influential enough to later lead to the creation of Ramayana and Mahabharata. Which is just a development of the same civilization. It has to be Indus Valley Civilization.
This is what I couldn't get out of my mind.
The key to this issue - decipher the ancient words found in Indus Valley, if there is a connection, then it can prove the "out of India" hypothesis. Which will have a stronger and stronger stand in the future, I personally believe.
Even there is no connection between the languages in Indus Valley to Vedic, it doesn't eliminate the fact that the rituals and worshipping system has passed down. The Vedas somehow recorded all of this. By all means, I don't see the sign of "Invasion", maximum "Integration".
I wouldn't at another life, believe the worshipping of Durga maa was imported from Central Asia. lol
Correct me if I were wrong.
My take on Aryan Invasion Theory
The famous Shiva figure with lotus posture, three faces and surrounded by animals
The other figure found in a seal with lotus posture and three faces
This is absolutely what internet violence looks like. And everyday uncountable new comments and violent direct messages are being made to me.
[Bilibili is a video sharing website in China.]
Each of my video, no matter the content is about Indian food, Indian dress, my Indian family or India trips, in the comment section the replies are filled with brutal cursings like "may you gang-raped a thousand times", "may you and your family die a tragic death" etc. 50% of the comments are composed with short cursings like "get the f* out of Bilibili", "not dead yet? still here?" A large number of comments would use a dog or a pig or it (pronoun of an animal) when referring to me.
80% of them urge each other to officially Report my videos and account, just because my videos are talking about India in a positive but not demeaning way. And they would tag the official account of "Communist Youth League of China", wishing CYLC would give pressure to Bilibili so to delete my account.
Almost none of them stay within facts or topics, but directly aiming for personal attacks, my accent, my appearance, my makeup, my facial expressions, my body shape, my education background, my hometown, the logic of my mind wouldn't matter at all.
Because my accent is similar to Taiwanese accent, a huge amount of the comments make a discriminating gesture to my assumed-Taiwanese identity. My accent is how my family and the people in my area speak, to the majority of users who leave comments, if you can't pronounce the so-called "standard" Beijing or northern China mandarin, you don't know Chinese at all, you don't know Chinese culture at all and you are not a Chinese at all.
From the very beginning (around Feburary 2019) of my Bilibili account usage, the users there started to accuse me "deleting comments which give blessings" so to intentionally show in Youtube, for financial benefit. I have never even had time to take a look. Now it's July, my parents are here to help me take care of my two kid, I can deal with this issue at last.
I feel that there is research value to record each of my "popular" videos in Bilibili and upload the recording in somewhere safe (Youtube e.g.), meaning my account won't be "disappeared" by other forces other than myself.
It's history, it's evidence.
To reply to those comments about me "deleting blessing comments":
1. Only the same type of people who leave nasty, offensive, ignorant and eye-opening comments in Bilibili are in Youtube watching my recording of their own nasty, offensive, ignorant and eye-opening comments;
2. Bilibili is infamous for being intolerant and filthy nowadays, uncountable accounts have closed down themselves due to the unbearable internet violence and personal attacks;
3. I never delete nor block any comment or users, that's just my online policy to myself. If I ever have the time to do such things, why do I delete blessing comments? Am I nuts? lol...
4. In all the screen recordings of my videos in Bilibili, there is a small percentage (around 3%?) which is condemning the act of internet violence (on me). In the recordings, you can see me "Like" the comments. If I have deleted them, why they are there? lol...
Why don't I just delete my account in Bilibili?
First of all, I am not a person who easily back down. Threatening works on me way less effective than treating me with respect;
Secondly, Bilibili provides an external url that allows search engines like Google or Baidu to display the video in their search result. Why not?
Until they delete my account forcefully (which could happen any second), I will keep using this platform to post videos.
Here I am posting four recordings. First three are complete recordings of three "popular" videos. The fourth one is a compilation of positive feedbacks. This type of comments are rounded up to around 3%, vs 97% violent comments, it includes some neutral feedback, some support and some condemning on internet violence.
My internet violence experience started from a decade ago in 2009, when I accidentally posted some photos with Raj and a short description. It created a huge wave of violent responses on me throughout China, only because of my choice.
A decade now, from establishing my blog to keep exploring new ways of expressing, from going through ups and downs to achieve extreme calmness. Thanks to this experience online, now I am as tough as a diamond.
No matter what you do, there will always be people who throw rocks at you, who spit at you. Simply because they are lacking basic respect and they don't have goals in life.
So keep your calm and keep doing the right things. Because in the end, none of those noises ever matters or hardly existed. But only the people you helped pull up, with your positivity and love.
