Am I Southeast Asian?
Am I Southeast Asian? I’m supposedly 100% Chinese but sometimes I really question my background because I kept getting approached by random SE Asians asking me if I’m one of them. And there were a number of occasions where people would automatically speak to me in English sensing that I can’t speak Chinese (Cantonese), which is untrue – I like to believe I speak it rather fluently.
I went to Macau today. As soon as I got off the ferry, I was approached by a woman (I’m going to guess she was Filipino) trying to talk to me. I have no idea what she was talking about because I was listening to my iPod. I waved her away thinking she probably want me to buy something. Shortly after I came out of the washroom, another woman came over to me. This time I took out one of my earbuds and see what she wanted. She asked if I’m Malay or Indonesian. I told her I’m Chinese, to which she responded “Oh really?…” then walked away. So I’m going to guess the first woman who approached me probably thought I was one of them too. Then later, I was visiting a Chinese temple (A-Ma Temple), another woman came up to me (she looked Korean/Japanese) and spoke to me in English, asking me where I’m from. I got skeptical and asked why. She said she was just wondering. She started to pull something out of her purse. It was at that moment a man asked that we move over because he was trying to take a photo of his son in front of the temple. I took that opportunity to leave without speaking to that lady again.
I don’t get it, I’m not even tan!
