Every few weeks a relative stranger will say to me: "Where are you from?" I know what he or she's asking, but I play stupid. "What do you mean?" "I mean, what's your ethnic background?"
Here we go. Sigh. Tonight's version was, "You're either Japanese or Korean, right?"
Nope!
"So what are you, then?"
I bristle at that phrase. So what are you, then? Animal? Vegetable? Tuberous root? Why is it okay to interrogate me about my ethnic origins? And why do people even care about that?
Anyway, because I have what my friend Colleen calls, "brought-upsies", I will answer politely and say that I am mostly of Chinese descent, which brings on a flurry of more questions: Really? You don't look it. Chinese and what? Where did you get the freckles from? Do you speak it? Why not? Were you born here? Will you walk on my back? Do you play the piano or the violin?
Back to the original point -- why is it okay to ask me what I am because I look a certain way? I certainly wouldn't think to ask it of anyone.
No brought-upsies from those types, clearly.
As an aside, you would not believe the amount of snow that has fallen in the past ten hours or so. It's up to my knees, people.
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2 comments:
Oooh, I also hate questions like that! I usually answer "Ottawa" and change the subject.
You must ask Jen about this topic -- she has endless hilarious stories about "So what arrrrrrre you?"
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