Tuesday, February 28, 2006 @5:31 AM
There must be something wrong. Why no one believe me when I am telling them the truth? Do I look like someone who’s good in making up stuff? Can’t you just trust what I said?
I think I have this talent since I was a baby. I have this talent in fooling people around. Don’t believe me? Many people, friends of family, friends of acquaintance, or strangers met on the street thought that either my dad or my mom is non-Asian or Eurasian. In other words, they always think I were some Eurasian (with more Asian's than European's genetic make ups).
I was told many times by my grandmother about this. She’s the one who brought us up. My grandmother loved hanging out in her neighborhood. Since my dad’s always on business trip, her neighbors weren’t that familiar with my dad. So when I was a newborn till around 2 years old, my grandmother would bring me out when she’s chit-chatting with her neighbors. Those neighbors always asked my grandmother, “She doesn’t look like a Chinese. Is her dad Chinese too?” My grandmother always laughed about this story whenever she talked about my childhood. I laughed with her too thinking she must have exaggerated a little.
When I started schooling, I wasn’t really close to anyone in the beginning as you’ve already known from my previous mention. Anyway, after sometime when some friends became familiar with me, one of the first few questions they started asking me was, “Are you a mixed?” Oh that means a mixture of Asian and European I guess. “No, I’m Chinese, both my parents are Chinese.” That’s my answer. I was surprised being approached with this question so the first thing I went home was to tell the family about this. Everyone in the family was laughing. My dad told us that apparently one of his sisters looked like an Eurasian too. And he further assured us that I’m definitely his daughter, and of course my mom’s too. Those who’ve seen me and my mom before, they noted to us that I am her clone! No…Hehe…Tracing back to my ancestors, we know that all 4 generations up till my greatgrandparents, we all are Chinese.
Many years have passed and this question hasn’t been directed to me that frequent anymore as I age. However once in a long while, I still get the same question. I remember when I first started my job; one of this ex-coworkers of mine asked me the same question. But she didn’t ask me on the first few day of my new job. She actually only asked when she knew me a bit longer, like a month after I came to work. I told her the same answer, without thinking much like I always did when I was a kid. But this time, I decided to satisfy my curiosity. What made people doubt that I wasn’t a Chinese? So I asked her so. She explained that she suspected I wasn’t one due to my fair complexion and some features.
Few years back I was doing an internship during my summer vacation at one of a routine diagnostic lab back home. This manager of the lab walk passed me one day and stood around for a while. I didn’t pay much attention to her and just assumed she wanted to check on the lab technicians. She walked out minutes later and then she came back and this time she stood next to me starring at me. I looked at her…
Me: Is there anything wrong?
Manager: Did you dye your hair?
Me: No, why?
Manager: Are you sure? It’s not black. Did you have your hair highlighted?
Me: No…It’s all natural. I’ve never dye or highlight my hair.
Manager: But your hair color is brown!! *with a very not trusting look*
Recently I went to a new hairdresser to have my hair cut. She was looking at my hair and we were discussing how I wanted my hair to be done. She paused and asked me… “Did you dye your hair before? It's not black!” What? Am I that good in even tricking a professional hairdresser? I just have to repeat my same and only answer to this hairdresser, “I’ve never done that. I’m not going to change the color unless it’s turning whitish. I like my hair color because it’s natural and I don’t want to damage my hair.”
Are you familiar with the MBTI profile? I’ve gone through the whole set of test before arranged by the HR department of my previous company. Subsequently I found another online test. I am an ISTJ from both tests. Yep, I’m an INTROVERT. I looked at the description of an Introvert and I think I fit into that category. There were a few occasions that this was brought up and I just mentioned briefly that I am an introvert. Again, I received some strange staring. Last week, NK and I were chit-chatting. Somewhere during the chat, the topic that I was an introvert was being brought up. He instantly responded, “No you’re not!” We spent a few minutes arguing about this. Geez, why would I want to lie to you about this? Introversion isn’t any better than extroversion. It’s just a type of character. No, I’m not angry. I just find this hilarious and NK is definitely not the only one who doesn’t believe I am an introvert.
I guess I should be thankful to be gifted this innate skill in tricking people huh. This is a unique skill; I can just trick people without doing anything. Isn’t that fun? Hey, you better watch out now. Don't be tricked by the playful Jade!
