What with Irems thread on clubs in Karachi and the Miss Pakistan/Afghanistan Beauty paegent, I figured this would be another perspective on the issue.
How has life changed for Asian girls in Britain in the last 20 years? Yasmin Hai spent a night out with a group of teenagers from her old neighbourhood in an attempt to find out
Friday October 17, 2003
The Guardian
It’s half past nine and I’m hanging out with 21 screaming Asian teenagers outside a Wembley tube station. We are on our way to a club in the West End. The girls look amazing in their trendy gear, the boys rather young but very charming. This is Generation Asian Cool: confident and carefree.
How different from my lot 15 years ago. No late nights out with boys for us. In fact, if the media at the time were to be believed, we belonged to a sad generation of Asian girls who had no social life and were perpetually being forced into marriage. Our tragic tales inspired British soap writers to create Asian characters whose sole storylines revolved around being rescued from oppressive parents - preferably by a white guy.
The problem for Asian girls was that tradition dictated we remain untainted - for in us, our whole family’s honour resided. If you were even caught looking at a boy, immediate shame would befall the family. Growing up in an Asian area didn’t help. There was always an “auntie” on the lookout to inform your parents if you were caught upsetting the status quo.
Not so for today’s hip young things. They seem totally liberated from the old traditions, a different tribe altogether. That’s why I am tagging along: to find out how it is that things have changed so dramatically since I was young. Here, on the same streets where I grew up, these kids are living the teenage life we could only dream of, and I am curious to find out what new rules are informing their behaviour now that the old rules are obviously out. Pooja Sapna Dhillon, an 18-year-old living in my old street in Wembley, has invited me to hang out with her and her friends to find out.
As soon as I arrive in Wembley, I find myself on “auntie alert” - looking out to see who is watching me from behind the net curtains. Nothing much has changed down my road, except for the fact that some Somali families have moved in.
I meet up with the girls at the bus stop, and they fall about laughing when they hear how strict our parents were. “Ours are different,” says one. “They know we’re here to stay in England, so they let us be like other white teenagers.”
“What, like going out tonight?” I ask. Cue total silence and some shifty looks. “I told mine I was staying over at hers for a sleepover,” one girl finally pipes up. “Yeah, and I told mine I was staying at hers,” her friend replies. They start giggling.
Only a couple of girls have told their parents that they are going to the West End. For the rest, it is subterfuge of a precision and daring that would impress an MI5 recruiter. The girls explain that while their parents are fine about them going out during the day, going out at night - even for a quick pint at the pub - is still a big no-no. And you can forget about going anywhere with boys.
“My parents pretend to smile when I mention boys, but I can see that they are gritting their teeth and then they want to know everything about who he is, what he does, who his family is,” says one girl. “It’s just easier to lie. Why upset them?”
It sounds all too familiar. When my friends and I wanted to meet boys, we would pretend we were going to the library. After all, what self-respecting Asian parent was going to begrudge their children’s efforts to improve themselves?
As we grew older, some clever peers came up with the concept of bhangra parties. These saw hundreds of Asian kids across London bunking off school to attend day parties in West End clubs such as the Hippodrome. You would leave home in your school clothes, change into your clubbing gear in the toilets, then party away the afternoon. And when the clock struck 4pm, you made your way home before your parents cottoned on.
I thought all this had changed - but it hasn’t. I realise that while Asian parents might want their daughters to integrate into Britain, they are still not ready to throw out all the old rules - they are still worried about their daughters becoming “tainted” and being the subject of “auntie” gossip.
“But what about the way you look?” I ask, pointing to the girls’ sexy clothes. “They never see us like this,” one replies. “Are you mad?”
Do the girls ever feel guilty about their lies? “Yeah, of course,” Sapna’s sister, Poonam, replies. “We live in fear of upsetting our parents, but we have to get on with life. We can’t become isolated like your generation was.”
I ask the girls what penalties they will face if they get caught out tonight. “Mine would crucify me,” exclaims one. “I’d be grounded for ever,” says another. They start giggling again. They don’t seem too worried.
Well, at least that much has changed. In my day, the punishment for getting caught could be severe. For some it meant a one-way ticket back to Pakistan. For one unfortunate 14-year-old girl on my street, it meant a miserable marriage to a random Asian boy following a brief flirtation at the bus stop. Both families had been beside themselves when a “concerned aunt” told them about the liaison.
An hour has passed since I joined the girls. We are still outside Wembley station, doing the usual things teenagers do when they hang out - such as calling up their friends for the millionth time to check that they are definitely not coming.
Finally, it’s time to move on. We pile on to the tube. Some of the girls pull out bottles of vodka. Some of the boys light up cigarettes. It’s “teenage rebel” business as usual; but I am shocked. Maybe I am channelling my inner auntie, but they just look too Asian - not to mention too young - to be drinking and smoking in public.
By way of explanation, one of the girls cries out to me, “Even Asians run off-licences now; so why be hypocritical?”
The West End club is heaving when we get there. “Too many Asians!” Sapna cries, checking out the crowd. I laugh at the irony of the statement.
Poonam tries to explain what her friend means. “She thinks Asians get too overexcited when they go out, because they’re never allowed out. They end up drinking too much and being uncool.”
The air is thick with teenage hormones. With sex: the big taboo when I was growing up. In my time, even though one had secret boyfriends, sex was strictly off limits. Go too far and you risked even your closest friend labelling you a tart. I want to ask the girls how much that has changed - but they are too busy dancing.
I save the question for my visit to Sapna’s house the next day. It seems the subject is still very sensitive, for I am immediately ushered into the garden. There, the girls make it clear that while one-night stands are not right, having sex with a long-term boyfriend is fine. Obviously the concept of the virgin Asian bride is long gone. “You have to move with the times,” Poonam explains. “Sex is part of our culture now. Plus, there’s a lot of pressure from the boys.”
I ask her why the girls don’t feel that they can just say no. Her explanation is deeper than I expected. “The problem with us Asian girls is that we are insecure. We’ve been brought up by authoritarian fathers and have become too prone to listening to men. So when we meet a boy and they promise us love, we naively hang on their every word. If they ask us to have sex, and we know it’s sort of acceptable, we just say yes.”
“There are so many Asian pregnancies because the boys don’t want to use contraception,” adds Poonam.
All the girls are nodding at me. They say they are talking from their friends’ experiences. What happens to the babies? “They get aborted,” says Sapna. “No one knows; the girls just get on with their lives.”
I suddenly feel nostalgic. When I was young I dreamed of having the freedom these girls have found ways of enjoying. But I now realise how Asian cultural values helped us to define our boundaries. What is left for today’s Asian teenagers is a vacuum in their lives that they are struggling to fill. They are borrowing a little from western values, a little from their parents’ culture - and mixing the two up.
As I am about to leave, I ask them what they feel about their Asian roots. “We are proud of them,” they respond fiercely. “But the norm for us is to mix the cultures.” Poonam adds: “After all, we’re living here now, not back in our parents’ country.”
Her answer says it all. Today’s girls might enjoy unprecedented freedoms, but they also have to deal with the challenges they bring - something my generation never had to do. We thought we had been modern and happening, leaving the old values behind. But I now realise that, compared to this lot, we weren’t really moving on at all.