About a year and a half ago, I learned that I was an ethnically mixed Asian. Sounds cool, right? And, it is, for the most part...until you start to understand how racist Asians can be against other Asians...
I was walking around Infocomm (an Audio/Visual trade show in Vegas) and an Asian man and woman at one of the booths came up to me and addressed me in Mandarin. I've learned the hard way (in China) to not respond to this with the Mandarin that I know, because I happen to be in the perfect disguise to lead people to believe that I'll be able to fluently continue the conversation. Instead I responded with, "I don't speak Mandarin." The man quickly asked, "Are you Chinese?". I replied, "Actually, I'm mostly Korean and Japanese, and a little bit of Chinese.". The woman changed her expression to a look of pity and, after a brief pause, the man said to me, reassuringly, "Don't worry, you're very pretty." -- and handed me a pen from the company they were representing.
Thanks. ?
I wasn't worried. I acknowledged my mixed ethnicity proudly because I grew up in America where, although it has been brought to my attention that a lack of ethnic purity is looked down upon in Asia, I always thought it made you a cool kid here. Growing up, I was sort of envious of mixed kids.
My encounter in Vegas made me realize, though, that I have an opportunity to make a small dent in the stigma around mixed ethnicity in Asian culture if I continue to talk about it proudly.
I keep the pen in my purse as a reminder.
