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Message: <blockquote data-quote="PsyzhranV2" data-source="post: 7874037" data-attributes="member: 7015332">In my experience, it's not harmful, but it's definitely annoying. I'm saying this as a Chinese-Canadian man who used to practice Taekwondo since grade school but am currently on hiatus due to lack of time. I'm also saying this as a man that was privileged to grow up upper-middle class and in a school environment that was surprisingly devoid of the usual, stereotypical classroom annoyances. I never got hostility thrown at me specifically for my martial arts practice as a kid,  but I definitely got quite a bit of unsolicited questions that pried too deep. I'm sure others have had it worse than me. The issue with the Monk is that when it comes to how tied to fluff certain classes are, it ranks among the hardest classes to dissociate from its stereotype. Other than the Sun Soul which is just anime (and a pretty lacklustre take at it too), all of the Monk subclasses as well as its base class features...Actually, I'm just gonna link an article on the subject that says it more eloquently than I have the time and patience to. Teasers in the link text:<a href="https://jamesmendezhodes.com/blog/2019/10/31/asian-representation-and-the-martial-arts" target="_blank">So the monk mostly draws on Chinese sources, except culturally conflated with ki and ninja stuff from Japan. No other character class has any cultural signifiers like it, not even the barbarian or druid. The barbarian isn’t actually from a foreign land, they’re just angry. The druid is a wilderness magician who resembles a Celtic religious leader only in name and sickle proficiency. There’s one racialized class, and its race is “Asian martial artist.” Which Asian martial artist? All of them.</a>...<a href="https://jamesmendezhodes.com/blog/2019/10/31/asian-representation-and-the-martial-arts" target="_blank">Asian martial arts stereotypes over-emphasize the delicacy, finesse, and philosophy of Eastern combat—the Dexterity and Wisdom rather than the Strength and Constitution, we might say. Of course, actual Asian martial arts exhibit the same range of grace and force, refinement and brutality as combat everywhere else in the world. This trend may also explain the list of “monk weapons” in the Player’s Handbook. </a></blockquote>

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