About a year ago I went out for dinner with a friend of mine and met one of her friends and his cousin. We had Korean BBQ and in the course of paying I accidentally took $10 from her friend and underpaid. So I wrote him through MySpace and said,

“stalked you through K to tell you that i definitely stole $10 from you at our korean bbq dinner. i confused the math A LOT. next time i see you i will give you $10 or equivalent in meats.”

His response really rubbed me the wrong way, even though I know he was just trying to be funny, and apparently he is a wannabe comedian:

An asain that is bad at math! what is this world coming to. Pretty soon porta ricans will not be tricking out honda civics and the French will stop loving Jerry Lewis. Please stay withing your stero types. It is confussion when you don’t.

P.S. I will take the $10 dollars in meat.

I think he got the message that I wasn’t too pleased because I didn’t write him back and I ignored his friend request. We’re totally fine and friendly now, so this is “water under the bridge,” or what have you. But for a week or so after he wrote me I was debating writing a snarky response about his atrocious spelling and how I am indeed very good at math and how his attempt at humor was pathetic, in the end deciding that it would make things awkward for my friend and our mutual friends if I came out of the gate ranting at this guy.

I wish I had addressed things somehow, so that maybe he would reconsider writing that to the next Asian (or French or Puerto Rican) person he meets, and so I would feel like I took action aside from just hoping he would disappear or be given a talking-to by someone else. I’d be interested to hear what other people think would have been an appropriate response.

I eventually saw him again, gave him back his $10, and I know now that he’s a good guy. If he thinks I’m an oversensitive ice queen, I guess I don’t mind.

On this blog I am chronicling a particular kind of experience. I hope to connect with people who have shared this experience, or who are interested in examining the ways that race comes up in conversations between strangers, distinguishing between what is “acceptable” and what is “objectionable”, and lastly, how a person can deal with these situations, i.e. respond verbally, laugh it off, get angry, or accept it. It’s not a phenomenon unique to one race or culture; people of all colors show their biases toward/curiosity about/ignorance of people of all colors every single day. I know I make snap assumptions too, partly because the human brain is always trying to categorize people and things, and some of that categorization is informed by personal experience. I do try to maintain an awareness of my biases and piece together their origins.

As is probably clear, the way I process people’s reactions to me as a Chinese American woman ranges from amusement to irateness, and what I personally want to come to terms with through this blog is the exchanges that make me irate. I’m sometimes too caught off guard to respond to the person, and it’s not my nature to tell people off, and ideally I would want to make people aware of their assumptions/stereotypes without resorting to much confrontational language at all.

The experience I’m referring to, which on a small scale is interactions with strangers in which the stranger addresses my race, is on a larger scale the effect over time of a constant stream of such interactions. For me, I have become terribly sad that I am regularly assumed to be a foreigner in my own country; no matter how I speak, or dress, or where I live, the color of my skin is still foremost what some people see and process about me. Then I am also disheartened by assumptions made about Chinese people living in America (i.e. that we live in our specific ethnic enclaves and don’t speak English well). And I am most exasperated by the fact that most of these interactions are between me and a man, oftentimes in the form of a man saying something to my face right as he walks by (ni hao, konichiwa, hey china doll, etc), or saying something as I walk by him, or approaching me when I’m alone. Catcalls are one thing; a race-related comment said at close range can make me feel preyed upon.

And don’t get me started on comments that are tied up with sex and reflect the exoticizing of Asian women.

I don’t want to be the PC Police with everyone, including my friends who sometimes say things that rub me the wrong way. I am simply trying to meet kindred spirits and see new perspectives, not demonize people or places or cry victim or come off as morally superior.

A closing thought. Now that I’m in Hong Kong and, to borrow a term my cousin coined, an “undercover tourist,” it’s a different ballgame. If someone assumes I’m a Hong Kong native, I think, “Cool! I blend in!” And when people ask where I’m from, my reaction is, “Well, you guessed right, I am indeed not from here.” As I know I don’t “belong,” I am not nearly as sensitive about “Where you from?” However, if someone came up to me and said “Konichiwa” salaciously, or something dirty in English, I wouldn’t be too pleased.

I suppose it is often about the person’s intentions, and when I figure out tactful ways to respond verbally to these things, I will of course gauge whether something is said mockingly, out of ignorance, or (sadly) in an attempt to be funny. There’s a big difference between the guy who wants to practice some Chinese words with me at the deli, and the drunk asshole at the bar saying loudly to his friends, “Remember that time we went cruising for Asian girls?”

True story. Le sigh.

From fall 2006-fall 2007 i had an incredibly stressful job based in Herald Square. It was stressful because the office politics had gotten out of hand. My co-workers and I had a very unhealthy relationship; there were upsetting gender roles, passive-aggressive emails, power struggles, issues of respect for each others’ strengths, and on top of that I was dating one of them on the sly. A terrible combination of things.

One day I was sitting in the little area of tables and chairs by the Macy’s flagship store, and I was crying. One of my co-workers had just taken me outside to tell me that I was being a bitch and that others agreed with him and that I was being condescending to his ally, the project manager. I shouldn’t have started crying, but I did, and he suddenly felt bad and left me there.

A few minutes later, a very friendly and sweet black girl came and sat next to me and asked me why I was crying. She told me she worked at Banana Republic and was on her break.

She eventually told me to cheer up and not let the bad guys see me crying, that they were the ones who had problems and that it sounded to her like they were dating or something. But early on in our exchange she said, “So… are you Chinese? Japanese?”

Yes, Chinese.

Then, “So… you live in Flushing?”

I know I gave her a look then, but I was feeling too vulnerable to be very annoyed. I was really glad that she was talking to me and trying to be comforting. But I hope she doesn’t ask all Chinese people that as a rule. Yes, there are a lot of Chinese people and a large Chinatown in Flushing but not all Chinese people in New York live there!

I had a bit of a deja vu moment while walking around Tsim Sha Tsui in Kowloon last weekend. There are a lot of South Asian guys who hang out around there and ask if you want to buy watches and handbags. One said to me, “Where is Kowloon Hotel?” I told him I didn’t know. Then a familiar exchange began.

“Where you from — Japan?”
“No.”
“Korea?”
“No,” I said, and kept walking. It was pretty amusing.

I’m Chinese, you asshole! We’re in Hong Kong!

in the subway cars there are signs that read, “please give your seat to anyone in need”. according to the accompanying symbols, people in need include:

those who are pregnant

and those being mounted by midgets.

I realize that last post sounded pretty aggro, and I did feel a little worked up while typing it out, but really it’s more that now that I’m out of New York I feel relieved in certain ways, and able to properly vent about some of these things because they are (maybe) behind me.

I’m sure that while I’m in Hong Kong I’ll encounter people who are curious about my background, and maybe some who will make comments I find offensive that I haven’t encountered before. But I feel different here, like I’m from America AND from Hong Kong, because so many of the traditions here are so familiar to me. My dualing identities (Chinese and American) both have advantages here.

So in the vein of the last post, I was thinking that if I return to New York I could make T-shirts that say, “I’m not exotic. I’m a fucking person.” Or something similarly standoffish. And maybe the back could say, “My English is better than yours.”

I live in Hong Kong now. I left my apartment and life in New York and took two suitcases and a duffle bag with me. (I got a grant to work here for a year.)

About two weeks before I left, when I was home taking stock of all the things in my apartment I don’t need, a very pungent-smelling guy (it was a very hot day) knocked on my door trying to get me to sign up for a service to lock in my utility bill rates. I couldn’t tell if his accent was African or Caribbean but I didn’t really feel bad about that after our exchange. The only good thing about my opening the door was that his smell drew the mosquito who had been feasting on me for two weeks into the hallway.

He wanted to see my bills and I told him no, I was moving. He said that I should still show him because I could take this service with me to my next place. (Total scam, in my opinion.) So I told him I wasn’t just leaving the building, I was leaving the country.

“Oh, back to China?” he said excitedly.

WTF!!! I didn’t want to say yes, because I was pretty offended that after our short interchange he still didn’t think I was “from” America. I mumbled something about seeing my family. I guess I didn’t want him to think he was right, even though I was indeed going “back to China.”

As a friend of a friend said, I don’t look like a FOB and I don’t talk like a FOB. (She said this after I told her that a stranger in Fort Greene asked me if I spoke English before he started to ask me for money.) There’s nothing wrong with being a FOB, and it’s not even like I’m super proud to be American, but I’m just tired of people thinking I’m OTHER, not FROM here. I was probably more American than him, and spoke better English than him, and he may not have even been an American citizen. I just don’t know what more I can do, besides speaking English properly and understanding American social norms, and dressing like an American, to make people stop assuming I’m from another country. I know that New York is chock full of recent immigrants, but for God’s sake, Americans come in all colors. Why can’t people in New York grow up!

This is part of why I want to live in the Bay Area again. No cabbie there is going to ask me where I’m “from,” and people aren’t going to say “Ni hao” or “Konichiwa” to me as they pass me on the street. Some of it may just be interest, like “I’m not from this country and am curious as to what country you’re from,” but after 9 years it had stopped being quaint and funny.

Now that I’m in Hong Kong, I’m soooo happy to have a break from some of those conversations. It had just gotten to a point where those sorts of exchanges had intertwined themselves with feelings I’d had of being an outsider in New York, of just being different from everyone else. It was all very unhealthy and frustrating. Bye bye, New York.

On an amusing outing to my boyfriend’s favorite possibly Mafia-linked dive bar, I caught the attention of a large and imposing patron who may or may not be the bar’s namesake.

He told me I was beautiful, etc., then announced he wanted to buy me a drink, which made the bartender point out my oblivious boyfriend who was at the jukebox. The man decided he was going to buy us both drinks, which seemed fine to me. He raised his glass and said something like, “When I look at you, I see a beautiful Chinese girl in an American establishment.”

Um. Thanks? In the end I guess I can’t complain about getting free drinks for being a beautiful Chinese girl in an American establishment.

It was a bizarre June. Sorry I’ve been silent. But here’s a quick plug for some stuff worth checking out.

I’d heard about the Museum of Chinese in America but had never visited. I plan to check it out in the next few weeks and am even more excited that it has gotten a state-of-the-art makeover in a new building designed by Maya Lin.

I won’t be living in New York once it has its grand opening on September 22nd, but I’m still interested to go on a Thursday (for now it is only open that day and admission is free) to see the few things they’ve already unveiled.

Here is a story about the museum and its vision for the future. On Saturday, the museum will host the first Asian American ComiCon, an event brought about by Secret Identities, the comic anthology and now organizing force focused on Asians and Asian Americans in comics. I think it will be awesome, so register to attend if that’s your thing.

I’ve been meaning to write about interesting interactions I’ve had with other Asians who assume I’m something other than Chinese. Whether at a Korean deli or a Chinese nail salon, I usually enjoy these exchanges. But sometimes they definitely get awkward (more on that later).

Here’s a relevant story from a contributor:

New York City, NY

Greeting me as in reference to my race often seems endearing or humorous. The latter is when someone greets me in confusion to my actual race. I get this a lot.

The race people often confuse me for is Japanese or Korean. One of my stories comes from one afternoon. I walked out of a [Japanese] bookstore. From the corner of my eye I noticed an older woman approached me. She greeted me in Japanese and handed me a flyer (in Japanese) and discussed the program she was trying to promote. It was a workshop of some sort. She went on and on without the right moment for me to save her from her trouble. Finally, I said, apologetically, Thank you, but I did not speak Japanese. I should have added I was also not Japanese, but she went on as to where I was born (Here, in the US, I said) and then why my parents never taught me Japanese.

My parents are Chinese, I answered.

I only know a few simple phrases in Japanese and if I could have said them correctly to the woman – I would have really thrown her off.

A week later, that same woman was about to approach me again, but this time I lost myself into a crowd of pedestrians.