a question of Asianness

If you meditate long enough lots of thoughts pass through your mind and if you sit in a café long enough you hear a lot conversations go on.

As I was writing my paper a couple days earlier, I overheard this conversation amongst Americans. Amongst this group of Americans was a Chinese American. As I struggled to write and as their conversation progressed I heard one of the American ask the Chinese American to speak Chinese. At this point I had to laugh to myself and thought back to how many times in my younger days was I asked this question.

In the past when I was asked this question I would oblige the inquirer from time to time, but it would irk me that they would ask me. Do not get me wrong, I am very proud of my heritage and culture and flaunt it when I can. It is just the fact that it still surprises me when my ethnicity/heritage/culture is called into question. At the same time I am glad to know that people refuse to stay ignorant of other cultures and want to broaden their scope of the world.

From this instance I will ever more proudly flaunt and uphold the traditions of my people. 華人萬歲!!!