Answer #3: Being Asian

I'll clear the air right up front. I'm not pure Asian. I'm half-Filipino, half-American. I could get into all the European ethnicities to which my dad owes a chromosome or two, but it would take entirely too long and your attention span is probably tenuous enough without me giving you actual reasons to click that neat little X in the top corner.¹

Even though I'm half-white and half-Asian, I don't look particularly like one or the other. I've had a lot of amusing guesses² as to what I was, and most of the time I'd be lucky if they were on the Asian continent altogether. My friend Conor, ever the gentle one, has said that I'm doomed to live out my life rejected by both. But the odd thing is, I'm actually not horrified by the thought.

I was raised around white kids, in white neighborhoods, one of a very small Asian contingent at a predominantly white high school. My university is a bit more ethnically diverse, but the ratio still swings heavily in favor of those who eat mayonnaise. For all intents and purposes, I'm a white kid. The only differences are that I fear not the rays of the sun, and I'm able to take ethnic umbrage when it suits me.

I've often joked at how bad I am at actually being Asian when it counts: my DanceDance Revolution skills are lacking, my ride of choice is not a Honda Civic, and my math grades would typically be more useful for spelling the word "coccyx" than "Alabama." But beyond the superficial, jokey things based in stereotype, sometimes I do feel a genuine disconnect with my Asian roots when I try to dig any deeper than the food. When I first came to college, I saw that there was an entire club for Filipino students. I got the necessary information for the first meeting, made a few jokes about chicken adobo with the people handing out flyers, and went on my way. Awesome, I thought. Time to reconnect with my roots.

When I went that night, I stayed for about two minutes. Those one hundred and twenty seconds told me everything I needed to know about them and about me. They were wonderful, inviting, and inclusive. They knew good food when they tasted it, and they were a really friendly sort. They also stood on almost zero common ground with me. They talked about Jollibee burgers, quoted comedians I'd never heard of, and used words with consonant combinations I'd thought were hitherto impossible. It was not for me.

But it's not like I'm a seamlessly integrated part of the caucasoid community, either. Before I realized what I was saying was odd, I used to let slip little neologisms unique to Filipinos (for instance, in my house, lights "open" and "close"). Also, I was able to milk the hell out of my half-ness when I was applying for colleges.³ Instant essay topic about how delightfully confused I was to have all these contradictions laid out before me, doubtlessly with some contrite, cliched title.⁴ Not my best work, but it was a college application. Nobody ever does their best work on those because they're too busy carefully wording sentences to be vague enough that a "Find and Replace" command will allow them to make it one-size-fits-all.

The truth is, I'm not delightfully confused. I'm not really confused at all. I spend less time worrying about sunburn, get to pretend I'm exotic, can realistically pass myself off as not being able to speak English when I don't want to talk to panhandlers, eat spicier food than most of my friends, and all I have to do in exchange is occasionally weather some mouthbreather's question of, "No, where are you really from?" Sounds like a fair trade⁵ to me.

What the hell is Paul doing here? Being Asian Being white, but with the added privilege of being able to tell racist jokes without people gasping.

-PK


¹ No footnote here. I just wanted to make you scroll all the way down the post...Wait, where are you going?
² Stranger: Are you Inuit?
Me: No.
Stranger:...Are you sure?
³ Amusingly, my dad had ethical problems with this, while my mom did not.
⁴ For example, "The Best of Both Worlds," or "East Meets West," or "My Genomes Are Like Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris Dueling to the Death, and Chuck Norris is Sort Of Winning."
⁵ The kind of fair trade where both sides amicably agree to a deal, not the kind of fair trade where farmers lie about how intimately children were involved in harvesting their crops so privileged white youth will drink their coffee.