You Look Chinese

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

We spent this weekend in NYC, attending a nice wedding and visiting with relatives. My wife’s Thai by birth but American by choice, with much of her heritage on one side coming from China. Both of my kids are born in the USA and American, of course. The wedding was for one of my wife’s cousins, and she was marrying a nice Taiwanese young man. Most of the guests were Asian and my kids had a very good time playing with their cousins and newly met friends. We stayed at a decent hotel at a great location, Koreatown, which is just next to the Empire State Building, just south of Times Square, etc.

On Sunday my daughter wanted to go to a salon and get her haircut. So her Mom and her Aunt Sun (who is Korean and married to another of my wife’s cousins) took her to a boutique in Koreatown, where the stylist, who apparently was tres Harajuku, with bold yellow and blue makeup smeared across her whole face. The Girl has very thick hair, and the stylist thinned it out and the end result was something like this. Very cute, maybe a little trendier or more “Asian” (whatever that is) then one might normally see around here. It’s a simple, fairly easy to take care of style which should work well with our long, hot summer.

So, yesterday at school, a boy I’ll call Chad, in no effort to hide his real name, was teasing my daughter “You look Chinese!” This apparently bothered her a little, since she’s more of the type to want to fit in than be unique, but not enough that she was in tears or anything. I asked her if she said anything to the teacher (who is caucasian with a Filipino husband, fwiw) and of course she didn’t.

So this morning, before she left for school, we had a little chat. I told her that being Chinese, or Thai, is nothing to be ashamed of, that there are a lot of very smart Chinese people and China has a rich history of invention and innovation. So if Chad says “You look Chinese”, she should say, “Why thank you!” and take it as a compliment. And if he keeps pestering her she should tell a teacher.

Frankly, it’s more than a bit likely that the boy is flirting with her, in his own Neanderthal way, but who knows.

2

I have heard “you look Chinese” (or Filipino, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, etc.) almost every single day of my life. When I was a little girl WAAAAAAAAY back in the 60s, a group of neighborhood kids got together and told me that I was obviously a Vietnamese war orphan who had been adopted. In third grade, another group of kids routinely called me a “Chink.” As a teenager, it was simply assumed that I was Asian of some stripe or another. As an adult, I have had Japanese people tell me they’re SURE I am at least part Japanese and adopted. People in MY OWN FAMILY have spread rumors that my mother must have had an extramarital fling with someone Asian.

There is nothing whatsoever wrong with being Asian, but when you’re not and ignorant people use that to torment you, it is bothersome.

I’m 40 now, and it’s only been the last few years that the phrase, “you look Chinese” hasn’t bothered me. (My standard response now is simply, “Yeah, I get that a lot.”)

3

I’m a plain old American, but I guess I have an unusual look- it’s hard for me to tell. Anyway, I have had Indians and Hispanics mistake me for one of their own with some regularity. In high school, some girls told me I looked like a bean (?) and an owl.

I find that “Thank You” is a pretty good all-purpose response. It can be lighly tailored to suit the situation!