race oddity

2009-09-28 12:37 p.m.

I'm not petite. I don't have a small, saccharine voice. I don't have pretty handwriting that is simultaneously adorable and annoying. I don't line my eyes all around with a half-inch of solid kohl (and this really does nothing to help the Asian Situation, so I don't know why they do it). I'll never join VSA and marry a 5'6" boy of moderate success at a computer company.

This is a short list of seemingly petty characteristics, but it's what immediately comes to everyone's mind when they think "vietnamese girl". Admit it.

It's terribly awkward for me in my Vietnamese langauge class everyday. If we were a wrestling team, I would outclass everyone twice or thrice over. My professor never has to ask me to speak up as he so often does with everyone else. If an outside observer looked in, he would certainly wonder what I was doing in there.

Whenever people first meet me, they can never quite put their finger on what ethnicity I am. Vietnamese is almost never even a guess, much less the last one. I've successfully tricked people into believing I'm british or irish, even - and without doing the accent. Though, I wonder if that's more of a testament to how stupid these people are.

It can't be genetics. There are plenty of parents out there with identical circumstances: northern Vietnamese catholics who had to immigrate over during or after the war. It can't be nurturing. My parents did just as much, if not more, to instill vietnamese pride and culture in me. It's been a long and hard fight, but they've succeeded as I'm a pretty traditional, obedient kid.

There are plenty of other "white-washed" asian kids, or as my professor called it, "stained yellow on the outside but bleached inside". I'm a particular brand though, I think. I've never met anyone else like me, not to give myself undue credit as "unique".

It doesn't really bother me, but it is intriguing. I don't know how my parents expect me to ever find a decent (in their eyes) vietnamese husband when I'll always be taller than any prospects I find. Literally looking down on him wouldn't be the only problem. Our personalities would be downright incompatible. Every morning at 9 am, I sit with technically "my people" and I just can't relate.

This isn't some dramatic identity crisis. I really don't care that much. I'm just curious, is all. Five years from now, then it'll get serious, and I'll have to wonder what's wrong with me when I can't find someone like me to marry. For now, I'll just cross my arms, content to be left out of the circle.

After all, "I would never want to belong to any club that would have me as a member".

I know, "Annie Hall", groan, yawn, skip. It's still a good quote though, just overused. At least I was never her for Halloween.

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