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So, my experience with Fragrant Harbour (which was an 80 person game set in Hong Kong in 1899).
We had one Asian player and she said had a good time (and contributed a lot in things like signs and artworks and props which really helped the set dressing). There are a few other Asian roleplayers in Wellington who didn’t come for various reasons (one sounded interested but had to babysit, the others I didn’t see at Kapcon.) We did engagement with Asian individuals in terms of setting and tone (partly people we already knew, partly contacts from Morgan Davie who works at the Race Relations office), but in hindsight I think it would have been a good idea to front up to some youth groups and explicitly invite people who are Asian but aren’t already larpers along. So, I respect the concern about feeling isolated, it can be a real barrier, but I also think that there’s a tipping point effect - if only a few people of a given group are present then they’re seen as individuals, but if a critical mass of that group start coming then you get positive network effects that acts as its own draw - and achieving that tipping point is something that is possible to manipulate through engagement efforts on both sides. (F’r’instance, I think in the early days of NZ larping, women were a distinct minority, but we’ve gotten to the point where the girls often outnumber the boys in games and running larps at a tabletop convention acts as it’s own draw to help even out the gender balance). One comment that Teresa made is that as larpers we’re a bit more ‘touchy’ than is normal in an Asian community - it’s not like anyone’s going to get groped or anything, but it’s possible that your friends may feel their personal space a little bit invaded (people standing a little closer to each other, a bit more likely to touch people on the arms, that kind of thing).
In terms of ‘not looking the part’, I don’t think anyone’s ever going to care no matter what the genre. (People can get snobby about costuming sometimes, but they’ll generally respect ethnicity as determined by the outfit rather than the body, if that makes sense.)
I’m not aware of any racists elements in the larp community (I can’t say that they aren’t there at all because it’s hard to prove a negative, but if anyone has those views they’re not sharing them with me.) I do think there’s a degree of reverse anxiety - not everyone has this concern, but there have been some instances of NZ European people running games that are deliberately outside European culture and getting flack for it from other NZ Europeans. So Al Shir Ma (Arabian Nights fantasy) apparently got some very concerned private letters about content, for Fragrant Harbour there was someone who raised issues upfront just after we announced the game and while we got a good outcome out of that conversation, it was still a big emotional drag on the game and a lot of stuff to work through. There can also be anxiety for the game writers - for us, we put a lot of work into research and we still knew that we were going to make some mistakes, plus the engagement of our player group with the foreign material varied (some were really into getting details right, others a bit less so), although I suspect that for a smaller game you could manage to have higher participation standards around costuming and cultural engagement. And I’ve heard a writer of another game talk about where she deliberately wrote in an Asian character for an SF game, and was then really worried that she’d written that guy as too stereotypical. For your friends - as long as they accept that people aren’t trying to be dicks about it but will sometimes get things wrong, they will probably be OK; but that it’s also OK for your friends to speak up and point out if there’s something that’s inappropriate or making them uncomfortable. I also suspect that people’s willingness to run games that use Asian material will go up if we can get a bigger Asian community that larps - easier to have a conversation with people about what is and isn’t cool to do, easier to get resources outside our existing experience, that kind of thing.
Hope this helps?
Steph
I think that two things may contribute to this.
The first being a general shyness in the Asian community about branching outside of the community. A lot of the people I have dealt with over the past several years are incredibly shy or nervous and therefore reluctant to try new things. For those who are interested in trying larp, it may not be such an issue, but not knowing people involved and not knowing what is expected can be a big problem in and of itself.
I’m a born and raised New Zealander (though I am half Chinese and do adhere to much of the culture). However, even so I was nervous about wanting to try larp and going to the last Teonn game. This was with two people who were larpers and two more who were interested in it. Originally I said that I’d go if my friend who was also interested went. In the end, I went without her because my curiosity and interest won out over my nervousness and shyness. This feeling I imagine would only be amplified for people who are NOT used to New Zealand culture and who don’t have people they know within the larp community.
The second thing I think which may influence it is that there is a culture amongst Asians to stick together and in some more traditional families, there is the expectation that women do not go and spend a weekend with lots of other people in a larp type setting where anything could happen (there is a surprising amount of emphasis put on propriety and proper conduct. Fighting, I can assure you is NOT considered proper conduct for a women of good standing/reputation).
In order to get around that, and try to increase the numbers of larpers within the Asian community, maybe if someone wanted to run a few very small larps targeted at introducing new members to the larp community. It would be a fun way to introduce new larpers and also be a less intimidating setting than a larger convention or weekend game.