Are you Asian Chinese or… ?
Although I was born to Tibetan and Mongolian parents, back in the 1970s, when I was studying in Land O’ Pines, New Jersey, I was very often mistaken as being of Chinese descent. At that time, I suppose that knowledge on Asian cultures was still very foreign to Westerners… so being Asian usually meant that you were Chinese!
I think this is very funny here the stereotypes people can have a certain race or heritage. I thought it interesting to share this.
Tsem Rinpoche
Questions Asian People Are Sick Of Answering
“What kind of Asian are you?” Specific to East Asians
1. “Let me guess: Are you Chinese?”
If I say “yes,” you’re going to say you could totally tell.
If I say “no, I’m ____,” you’re going to say that that was your second guess.
2. “What ARE you?”
Are you asking me where I’m from?
“Yeah, where are you from?”
Texas.
“Nooo, like, where are you really from?”
Texas.
“Noooooo, like, where are your PARENTS from?”
3. “But what kind of Asian are you?”
A very jovial kind
4. “Can you tell the difference between the different types of Asian?”
Science says cheekbone heights determines the spectrum of Asian.
“Really?”
No.
5. “I heard they eat dogs. Do they really eat dogs over there?”
Why does it feel like I’m personally being judged for a cultural vice practiced by a tiny piece of the population.
6. “…have you ever eaten dog?”
Literally all the time. My mom’s dish you tried last night?
Woof.
7. “Are you related to [anyone with the last name Lee, Kim, Chen, Nguyen]?”
Yup, the 1.2 million Kim’s in South Korea comprise one big family.
8. This:
Believe it or not, some of us have both academic and social skills. Groundbreaking, I know.
9. “Are your parents strict?”
Only about racially ignorant presumptions of other households.
10. “Like, do you have to marry someone from your own culture?”
Only if Confucius says so.
11. “Do you get in trouble if you don’t get straight A’s?”
I’m only reprimanded if I ask dumb questions.
12. Specifically to females: “Are you attracted to Asian guys?”
I’m attracted to anyone who’s …attractive?
13. *Anything ever said on OKCupid to Asian females*
14. “What’s your REAL Asian name?”
I will tell you only if you promise not to attempt to pronounce it.
15. “Omg you speak fluently? How do you say ______ in Korean/Chinese/Japanese/etc?”
16. “Are you really good at karaoke?”
Wow, what a completely stereotypical assumption to make.
But yes, I am.
17. “Are you really good at ping-pong?”
18. “How are you guys all so skinny?”
‘Cause calories shoot right to our brains WHICH IS HOW WE’RE SO SMART.
19. “Has anyone ever told you you look exactly like [one of the few Asian actors in Hollywood]?”
“Harold” from Harold & Kumar? Brenda Song? Bruce Lee? Gong Li? Sandra Oh? What else you got?
20. “Wait — can you understand the other Asian languages?”
NO.
Because they are literally other languages.
[Extracted from: http://www.buzzfeed.com/tanyachen/questions-asian-people-are-sick-of-answering?bffb]
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This is epic.
Most of us will ‘kena’ at least once of the above conversations. It sounds weird but this cycle continues on and on, whether we like it or not. It’s like asking who’s nasi lemak is the best, Malaysia or Singapore? Adui!!!
Thanks Rinpoche for this. A reflection on ‘presumption and labelling’.
Questions you get asked as a Malaysian in America:
You actually like cornflakes?
Is Malaysia like near Hawaii or something?
You mean you get orange juice in Malaysia?
You speak good English.
Why do you speak good English?
Wow, you have TV.
Where?
But by far the best one is from a Nepali and Bangladeshi who rushed out of their rooms when I was cooking curry in my dormitory.
Someone’s cooking curry. You like curry? Wow you know how to cook curry?
🙂
Thank you Rinpoche for the sharing. Asian cultures was still very foreign to Westerners back in 1970. Hope it is fine now.
Some of the questions are funny but mostly racist. LOL! We have different languages just like they have. For example German, French and English is totally different. Although many of us asians are smart…but it doesn’t mean that all of us are smart for another example, I’m of the dumb ones. So yeah! HAHA
But germans, swiss and austrians all speak versions of german and can generally understand each other. Dutch is related to german and as a german i can kind of make it out when reading it, though not when it is spoken. The scandinavian languages are a bit further off, but still clearly related to german. People in a number of different middle eastern countries speak arabic, but i recently read that marroccan and tunesian arabic is generally not understood by people from other arabic speaking countries. And so on. I think most of the questions listed speak more to a lack of education, and a lack of thoughtfulness, than to racism. As a german i get asked similarly ignorant questions. I just try to educate.
Thank you for sharing this hilariously (rather racist) list of jokes. This is so unfortunately true for those who live in other countries. It is the opposite, however, in Malaysia. As a “white” looking kid, sometimes people are surprised I speak Chinese and also continually asks me where I am from. haha.
Funny. Stereotyping I guess only occurs when we don’t want to spend the time to get to know about others. So it is just much easier to generalise everyone 🙂
True story. Some time ago while in Europe, I remember introducing myself while meeting some people. With my slit eyes, flat nose and high cheek bones, I was an object of curiosity and someone thought this was a great way to start a conversation so asked, “Are you Japanese?”. “No” I said, “I’m Chinese”. That prompted a quick reply, “Oh I see, you’re from China! Do you know Kung Fu?”. With eyes rolled to the back of my head, I said, “No, I’m from Malaysia, but I know Taekwondo”. The smart guy looked confused and queried, “Oh, you mean you’re a Malay?”. I gave up.
hahaha, this is hilarious!!! I guess we can’t get away from stereotypes. As long as you do not have blonde hair, or not brunette, or don’t look like you’re from the west at all, you are immediately categorized as asian or chinese. That’s it.
I guess it’s just easy for people. Stereotypes are so that people can categorize, but I say what’s the difference? We all have two eyes, a face, a nose, mouth, ears, hands, legs, brains etc …we all practically have the same things. Just different features and colours, but overall, the same. So I say, we should just categorize all of us into one big group. Humans. 🙂
This is totally hilarious especially the question on ping pong and its photo… hehe…
Anyway, stereotype is a discrimination. Putting a label onto a particular ethnic is not too knid. Instead of focusing of the differences, we should embrace everyone… we will be happier this way.
Thank you Rinpoche for giving us the laughter of being Asian. Asian countries are rich in culture and historical background.
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing this hilarious posts.
This post is really funny ,it lights up the day !!!
The power of stereotyping reminded me on the wrong view that we hold strongly. The effect of it causes us to make assumptions & behave in a way that we hurt others & ourselves. Logically speaking, a son that steals doesn’t mean the whole family are thieves.
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing. I like this post, cheer up after saw this photo… hehe.. That isn’t any matter about different race, skin, color, language or religious , the main point is we can ” communicate” well with each other and friend with each other 🙂
Thank you Rinpoche for this post. It’s hilarious no doubt. Yet it makes me think…why do we make so much fuss about what’s only skin-deep? Beneath the skin, we ‘re all the same. We laugh when we are happy and cry when we are sad.We go for the things we like and reject the things we dislike. We love and we hate. These are the emotions that pull us apart. It would be lovely, if we can go beyond all of it and see that we are one.
Thanks for the post, Rinpoche, it fun ! rRgardless who we are, just do our part to fully utilised the precious human life to benefit others. i must always remind myself to do so, do it sincerely.
This a good and hilarious post. I don’t have many western friend but it sure awkward to encounter those situation. Anyhow if we respect different race and their culture then the world is peace. Thank you for sharing. 🙂
OMB. Hahahaha. So very funny. I think Asians too stereotype Westerners. Like dumb blondes, Southerners are racist, Jamaican are lazy, Black are street gangs or Heroes and something i cannot write on this blog LOL, Whites are supremely talented etc etc. Just our lack of exposure.
Thanks Rinpoche for this hilarious post.
Wakakakaka…
Thanks Rinpoche for refreshing us with this post.
Hopefully everyone can have a great laugh…
It sometimes seem funny and at other times, it’s frustrating. But at the end of the day, it stems from ignorance. Did they know they were ignorant asking those questions, no. So, we do not blame them so as not to be at that level. We show compassion by informing them of the various differences. Thank you, Rinpoche, for giving me the opportunity to put in my 2 cents worth!
haha 这种情形常常发生，洋人真的无法分辨中国人，日本人，韩国人，越南人。。。。也同等于我们无法分辨英国和爱尔兰或是美国等等，所以他们都统称我们亚洲人！！我们也只有统称洋人嘻嘻。。！！最重要大家开个玩笑而不是人身攻击。
谢谢仁波切的分享。Yes, of couse iam malaysia chinese. 在佛法世界就是没有种族分别和歧视。大家就是一种人类， 大家都可以成佛。佛法就是一种语言和沟通, 佛法就是平等和和平。就让我们大地可成为佛净土吧。以后的人就是问: Are you Asian Buddhism?……
Thank you for sharing this wonderful post about Asians. I personally am half and I can understand the same feeling as a “semi-white” in Malaysia. Everyone will ask what kind of white guy are you? Where are you REALLY from? There are so many of these people. It is not all one sided. Haha. Thanks for the laughs though 😀
Dear Rinpoche, this post is really funny. I’ve seen a few videos like these sort of racist situation before in movies and videos. I think some people are quite sensitive to these questions, but if someone actually ask me these kinds of questions I would laugh to death. I’m even laughing while commenting on this post.
Hahaha! Thank You for sharing Rinpoche, they are hilarious! I met an American when I was in Nepal, when we started talking he was like, wow your english is really good, where are you from? I wanted to give him a slap so badly, the way he said it was so sarcastic and his face was so proud. Anyways, I enjoyed myself a lot while reading through the article.
Thanks Rinpoche for the sharing.
The post is indeed funny, but at the same time, it reflects the race discrimination.
I think everyone should understand other races better before asking some questions that may irritate other people.
I can empathize. I’m half American Indian. I often hear: You don’t look like an Indian. Is your dad black? no, he’s Indian. Is he from India? No, he’s from Texas. Is your dad the feather Indian or the red dot Indian? O.o IF you’re half Indian why do you look white? (because my mom was white) Have you ever eaten Peyote? Do you know where to get it? Can I buy some from you? Hey can you speak Indian? I speak Cherokee, there are literally hundreds of Native American dialects and languages, no I cannot understand someone speaking Lakota.
Sigh.
The stupid. It burns.
This is brilliantly funny, it chase my bad mood away right away, all the moving images (I’m not sure with the technical term…) are so funny!!! The captions are so sarcastically hilarious. Thank you for posting this up for us to have a good laugh.
Haha, this is really so funny.
But actually, I do can tell what ‘type’ of Asian people are, but only the general ones like if a person is Korean, Japanese or Chinese.
I totally understand how irritating this can be, being a straits born Chinese, I even get discriminated by regular Chinese people just because my mother tongue don’t happen to be Mandarin, and just because of that they will call me all sorts of names the most common ‘banana’ which literally mean being yellow outside (chinese) but white in the inside (western). Really irritates me lol. But I’ve got over it… haha. I used to be so irritated and told them to go read up some history books to learn of my heritage.
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing this hilarious post that really can make people laugh. Its so funny but it is true.
Hilarious and brilliant. I get it all the time when i travel. It baffles non Asians that the Lee in Malaysia is does not speak the same language as the Lee in Korea. Thank you Rinpoche for the post.
This is brilliant! This is sooooooo typical of Westerners perception of us who lives in Asia, from Asia and look Asian. I shared it on Facebook and every Asian should read this, look at the pictures and just Laugh our heads off.
Thank you for the hilarious post, Rinpoche. Instead of getting annoyed, I think being able to laugh at the situation helps. Even in multicultural Malaysia, I get asked “What kind of Chinese are you? Are you really Chinese?” This is simply because I look very Chinese but cant speak the language. 🙂
Sharon, I know you are Nyonya… which is also Chinese mind you…
I get asked quite often ” Are you not Chinese?”, not because I don’t look like one, just because my linguistic skills fail badly there. My Chinese is a flop; only knows my Penang Hokkien dialect.