June 7, 2012

  • I'm a Big Bad American; Is That So Hard?

    An interesting thing happened today. I went out to buy candy and dinner, and as I was walking, I passed by a young lady in a car parked by the road. The car's window was open. The lady leaned out the window, and called at me. . .

    "Ching chong."

    The young lady was not terribly young. She appeared to be twenty-something, and she was certainly not a little child. So I was very taken aback. I'm not too surprised by this sort of behavior among children, but I don't expect it from an adult. I was strongly reminded of people tapping on the glass at a zoo. Was she prodding me for an amusing reaction?

    So when I got to the store, I was rather crosser than average. I wandered around the store, and a gentleman who works there asked me if I was Buddhist.

    Unlike the lady, the gentleman was not ill-intentioned. He was genuinely trying to be friendly, and I appreciate that. All the same, I began to wonder if I was a strange curiosity for people, and so I was a bit short with him.

    "Are you Buddhist?"
    "No."
    "Christian?"
    "No."
    "Then what are you?"
    "I'm a student."

    I'm actually no longer a student, but I still count as a student for the IMC, so it seemed a reasonable answer.

    "No, I meant, Buddhism is a religion."
    "I know that."

    And then, a few minutes later:

    "Where are you from?"
    "I'm from Florida."
    "But where are you from?"

    I have this conversation often. I meet someone, who is trying to be friendly, and they ask me where I'm from. And I know they mean what foreign country, but my first answer is always that I'm from Florida. Unfailingly, they persist, and then I'll say that my parents were from China. It never really struck me as terribly odd before, but today it annoyed me. It annoyed me a lot. For some reason, this is an ok thing to ask me, because I have black hair and yellow skin, and so I have to be foreign. I can't just be an American from Florida. Strangers can demand my family history.

    The same way strangers in cars can yell ching chong at me.

    I held my tongue and refrained from asking which part of Africa he was from. Cultural standards aren't his fault.