So I really dug this video created by a very funny guy with the name of Ken Tanaka. He's a white guy adopted and raised in Japan! Anyway, if you haven't seen the video, check it out here:
What Kind of Asian Are You?I laughed. I was born in Chicago, raised in New Jersey, went to school in New Jersey and New York City and now work in California. So I'm what people call a solid ABC - "American Born Chinese." In my travels around the US, having driven twice across the country, people are generally pretty nice to my face. But once in a while, you do encounter eyebrow raising incidents which tend to make one do facepalms inside ones head. The following is a TRUE STORY. As I said in the premise of my blog, I DO NOT MAKE ANY OF THIS UP!
In one of my cross-country drives, I had to do a pitstop in Kansas. If you've ever driven thru Kansas, you would know it to be the most grueling state to drive thru. This is because you suffer from driving dejavu every five minutes because the landscape NEVER CHANGES. Kansas looks about the same from one part to another. It is a long flat state full of those long flat boring plains you see in tornado videos and it is the most tedious and longest mother-effing state to drive thru. IF you do make the attempt, plan to lose at least 10 fracking hours or more of your life. Kansas is about as central as you can get in the United States, so suffice it to say, the people of Kansas are not the most metropolitan. (read: they don't have as many minority people as other states)
I took the pitstop to help keep myself awake. Walking out of the ladies room, a mousy brown-haired white gal looks at me and says, "Gee, sorry to bother you, but can I ask you a question?"
Nodding my head in puzzlement, I stop and turned around. She says to me, "You see, I don't know anybody of your kind. So I'm just curious what it's like."
Having never encountered such a question, my brain slams shut on itself. I stutter, "well, I woke up this morning like most people, ate breakfast and got into my car to drive...like everyone else."
"Really?" she says, "I mean, how is it for you? Is it good?"
"uhhh, yeah, I guess. People are people, you see."
"Oh, that's interesting." (really? I say to myself. wtf?)"So," she continues, "you have a good life?"
"uhh, yeah. I have a good life." Then I start to walk out still thinking WTF? in my head.
Turning my head, I say to her, "Have a nice life."
WTF!
Another time I was driving around San Francisco (which if you don't know, in the main metropolitan areas, is about 80% Asian) Anyway, a guy drives past me yelling, "Go back to your own country!"
The guy was obviously Middle Eastern.
WTF!
Then another time I went into a movie theater and while in line to buy a hot dog, the lady in front of me turned and glared at me and said, "We'd be in better shape if it weren't for you gooks."
All the people around us froze.
I gave her the evil eye and said loudly, "WHAT DID YOU SAY?"
She calmly replied, "If it weren't for you gooks, we'd be in better shape."
People start to gather around.
Again, I said, "WHAT DID YOU SAY?
She said, "You heard what I said."
"What the hell gives you the right to say that to me?" I yell.
At that point I lunged at her and was blocked by some guy the size of an NFL linebacker, who turns to me and says, "It's not worth it."
I let her go inside. And then asked for the manager, who promptly took two bodyguards to find the woman. He asked me if I wanted her tossed out the building. Which I considered but then thought I should be the better (wo)man and said, "no, ask her if she would give me an apology in exchange for not being thrown out on her ass."
She apologized. I told her she needs to get the right race. For me, it should've been "We'd be in better shape if it weren't for you chinks."
So damnit, that old problem of we all look alike.
WTF?
That's incredible. And reminds me of this horrible scene on muni several nights ago. I entered the train just before a slight Asian woman with 'presumably' a pack of recycling on one of those rickety little folding handcarts. All was compact and neatly contained. But this big black woman just starts loudly debasing her, swearing, the whole nine. Then yells "Speak english!" Though I clearly heard the woman use the word 'fuck'. She knows english!
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry I didn't show some sort of solidarity with the poor little woman. Interceding would have been plain stupid but how can I signal that this behaviour is not okay in our society?! My big takeaway was simply that racism is a chain and someone felt slightly higher up than the other, and went for the jugular. I'm sorry for whatever created that monster, too. But when one was in all likelihood a victim at one point, you'd *think* she'd empathize. You would think...
It gets worse.
ReplyDeleteMy wife was born in Japan and came here at the age of five. She acts and speak like the average Southern Californian.
Years ago when my brother was dating and first married his first wife (a woman from Upstate New York) the woman was confused by my wife's Asian face and often would not speak directly to her as if my wife did not understand English. The woman would say, "Tell Jo such and such" and then expect someone to speak to Jo in Japanese despite the fact that Jo spoke better English than the woman did.
My wife must have a pretty genertic Asian face because for years Korean and Chinese women would approach her and say, "Are you Korean?" or "Are you Chinese?" She's say, "No. I'm Japanese." Then they'd make an ugly face and walk away.
Jo's aunt, who never immigrated to the US used to tell her, "I can tell in a second that you weren't raised in Japan just because of the way you walk. You walk like a Yankee."
Sometimes you just can't win.
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