What type of Asians are you? What type of Asians am I? Or rather am I Chinese?Of course I am Chinese. I am proud of my ethnicity. Whenever someone asks about my ethnic origin. I always pronounce it out loud, "I am Chinese from *a country's name*."
However I have one very interesting observation after residing and traveling in different continents and meeting up with a diverse ethnic and nationality of people. What is this interesting observation then? Almost all non-Chinese people, Europeans, Hispanic-Latinos, Africans, Middle-easterns and others and some time even other Asians think that I came from China, especially when they found out that I am Chinese. Conversely, Chinese people from China and Taiwan that I have met thus far, none have thought of me as Chinese. Some assumed I were some Eurasian. Some thought I could be some Asian minority. But whatever it is these people always spoke to me in English and had no doubts until I started replying them in Mandarin. Then many would respond, "Oh wow, you speak Mandarin. Are you Chinese?"
Just two days ago while I was having lunch at the department's kitchen and was talking about something casual as part of a lunch chat, this technician from former Yugoslavia joined in the chat and asked, "So how is it in China? Do you see many foreigners in China?" I looked at her and looked around the people dining at the table. There were two more Chinese sitting there but none of them were from China. Knowing that this technician is from the same lab as those two other Chinese, I was pretty sure she was referring the question to me. I paused for a few seconds. She was looking at me waiting for an answer. "I don't know. I have only been to China once. I am not from that country." She was astonished. "Oh really?! You are not from China?! Where are you from?"
This is not the first time. I guess non-Asians especially those from a more homogeneous country do not seem to be aware of the fact that Asia is a large continent that consists of many different ethnic groups. Some of them tend to associate a particular ethnic race with a country. Some even equate Asians as Chinese. And many of them assume that if you are Chinese, you must be from China. Well, I would not say you are wrong about that. But to be precise, Chinese is not only referred to people from China, but more so as a race itself as well. There are Chinese people who had moved out of China decades or even up to a century ago (if I passed my History) and settled at a particular place with their descendants since then. After several generations, some still uphold and maintain all or partial cultures of their own whereas some began to practice an integrated hybrid culture. One good example is the ABCs (American born Chinese or to a general definition Chinese who were brought up in America) where Chinese people from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong or other parts of the world emigrated to the United States.
Regardless what ethnicity we are, we all should just pride ourselves on it yet at the same time do not go overboard. Respect our own culture as well as others.
@@@ Addentum@@@
All right folks, I knew the forwarded message (that I had removed from this post) was meant to be a joke. :P I hope those who were reading it did not take this seriously. Yet I was also trying to share another message here that regardless of what ethic group we belong to, we should be proud of it and at the same time respect other ethic groups. :)
♥ every page of my imagination
