Actually, I think I look like myself

[kate_nepveu]

This afternoon, when I was walking towards the little convenience store downstairs, I passed a man who said something to me. I didn't quite catch it, but it seemed non-threatening, so I mumbled "Hi" and went into the store. As I was contemplating what I wanted for a snack, the man came back in. He said that he'd said "Hi" to me in Chinese (he didn't specify a dialect), but realized that my face wasn't Chinese, it was Korean, and he wanted to apologize for the mistake.

I automatically kicked into Small Talk Conversation #18 ("you know, it's funny, about half the time people think I'm Japanese, and the other half Korean; yes, I was born in Korea but came to the U.S. as an infant when I was adopted; no, I don't speak the language."), and then he went away and I bought my snack and went back to my office.

Being greeted in an East Asian language happens to me, oh, every year or so. It always makes me rather uncomfortable, but for some reason it wasn't until today that I really pinned down why:

It's a manifestation of one of the two major stereotypes attached to people of Asian descent in the U.S., namely "foreigner." (The other is "the model minority.") I wasn't wearing anything more exotic than a business-casual short-sleeved shirt and skirt, I hadn't spoken, I wasn't with a tourist group . . . in short, there was absolutely no reason to think that I was something other than your average native-born U.S. citizen who only speaks English and maybe high-school Spanish. If I'd been a redhead, he wouldn't have greeted me in Gaelic, or if I'd been black, he wouldn't have said hello in Amharic or Swahili or whatever. But because I was Asian in appearance, he assumed he knew something about my cultural and linguistic status.

I'm not precisely offended. He was obviously trying to be friendly, and probably thought he was being culturally sensitive as well. (I was considerably more vexed when an opponent in a case, a pro se prisoner, called me by my first name in legal documents.) But Small Talk Conversation #19 is "I'm lucky, being Asian on the East Coast, at least, is much easier than being black, I've hardly ever had problems." And this is true. (A couple comments in high school, but they wouldn't have liked me anyway; two behind-my-back utterances as I was walking down New York City streets that I found disturbing, but that didn't go beyond that.) But not having problems isn't the same as not having felt the effects of racial discrimination, and now I've found a way that I have.

Comments

[ex-greythist387.livejournal.com]

I've had what you term Small Talk Conversation #18 numerous times (except that people think I'm Chinese because I'm half Korean, I wasn't adopted, etc.)--but I'm most interested by this:

for some reason it wasn't until today that I really pinned down why

Does relative diversity of local populations have anything to do with the timing? That is--I'm not sure how to phrase this--is there something about the East which has minimized/insulated/quieted possible reactions?

To me it seems like a delayed conclusion, hence the question. I've lived in California most of my life, where local, university, and state politics have made repeated fusses about Diversity and model minorities. There's a relatively large percentage of Asian Americans in CA, spread across four generations. Instead of calming people down (critical mass, as in Hawaii), it's keyed up many Asian Americans about Their Heritage and how their experience is Different. Whether or not one identifies with that vibe, at any rate--which owes partly to anger at the "model minority" thing--it's difficult not to ponder it here.

You and I are about the same age, I think (it's hard not to notice things about long-time posters to r.a.sf.w, and I've mostly-lurked since 1993), which doubles my curiosity about the timing....

[kate_nepveu]

Oh, this has happened to me infrequently for years, and I've intellectually known about the Asian stereotypes for quite a while--I think I'm just slow in making the connection!

But yes, I think that being Asian on the East Coast is probably much different than than on the West.

[ex-greythist387.livejournal.com]

I suppose it must be, but in what ways?

(It occurs to me that this question would be more appropriately aimed at someone who's spent time living in both areas.)

[redbird]

Idle thought: do you speak a language other than English? What would happen if you said "I'm sorry, I don't understand" in German or French or Spanish or...? Just to play with people's assumptions a little.

The people who run the shop downstairs from me are pretty good at guessing what language to address their customers in, but the set of choices seems to be just English or Spanish--which may just be the set of languages they know well enough to do business in. I don't know which is their default, and haven't been in there when, say, one of my Russian-speaking neighbors was shopping. (I'm thinking of a woman who knows enough English to say things like "hello" to us, but addresses her young daughter in Russian.)

[kate_nepveu]

Not well enough to pull it off, alas, even if I remembered next time it happened.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

What would happen if you said "I'm sorry, I don't understand" in German or French or Spanish or...? Just to play with people's assumptions a little.

To me, it would seem perfectly normal for a person looking like Kate to answer in French, by virtue of the colonial history of some parts of the east of Asia, and for pretty ignorant values of "look like".

[kate_nepveu]

This is probably why I don't get more comments on the disparity between my appearance and my last name (French-Canadian).

[orzelc.livejournal.com]

It would seem sensible to you, but then you're an educated person, and know something about the colonial history of some parts of the east of Asia... I wouldn't expect all that many people to think of that right off.

To drag in a different comment, I suspect that the reason Kate doesn't get more comments on her last name is just because "Nepveu" looks so improbable that it might as well be Chinese...

[hangingfire.livejournal.com]

I had an eerie sense of deja vu reading this; I'm also adopted Korean, and have experienced a few weird interactions as a result. Recently I had the clerk at a Japanese market talk to me at length in Japanese, although I think that all things considered, I prefer that to the guy I met once at a bus stop who said, "You speak real good English. Where you from?"

[orzelc.livejournal.com]

It could be worse...

When I was in Japan, I shared an office with a Korean post-doc. One day, we went to lunch at his favorite local restaurant, and when we sat down, the woman running the place came running over with a big smile, and chattered animatedly at him for a good five minutes. He smiled, nodded, and said "Hai" ("Yes") a lot.

After she left, I asked, "What was all that about?"

"I have no idea," he replied. "I don't speak Japanese, either."

[turnberryknkn.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing.

Growing up in the Midwest, nobody ever did that --rather, they'd often comment, in surprise, that I spoke English without accent. And there was nth million iterations of the same question:

"Where are you from?" Detroit.
"No, I mean, where are you really from?"

[kate_nepveu]

I've had that too, though infrequently and more subtly.

I went on into Small Talk Conversation #18, because I knew what they *meant*, but I think I'm going to stop that next time it happens.

[(Anonymous)]

Interesting story. I run into this sort of thing sometimes from a completely different perspective: big ugly white galoot speaking language (Mandarin) that people aren't expecting me to speak. I'd never had the following experince before, though, to wit:
The vast majority of my firm's clients are Chinese (or Americans of Chinese descent, we get both). I was helping a lady this week, and she'd brought her thirteen-year old son along. After ten minutes or so of conversation in Chinese, in a lull in the conversation, her son suddenly blurted out "are you Chinese?". Having seen me, I'm sure you can figure out why I burst out laughing.

Trent

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

One of the many things I really like about Montreal is that when I went to apply for my medical card, the person looked at my name, didn't recognise it, and asked which was family name and which was personal. Which, as a default thing to do even when the person in front of you is a pale Celt, strikes me as a very comfortable value of courtesy.

Weird anecdote

[hms-yowling.livejournal.com]

About the malleability of perception, or perhaps of my own perceptions' malleability.

Grew up, NY suburb, had friends/acquaintances/schoolmates of various Asian heritages, none of whom spoke with an accent and I have no clue whether they spoke anything other than English.

Later, while in college, I spent a summer canvassing for Greenpeace. Went to Greenwhich Connecticut and spent a day canvassing there. Apparently there were lots of young Japanese execs who'd rented homes there (this was mid-80s). Many, many times during that afternoon, I knocked on doors to have them opened by non-English speaking Asian women to whom I was unable to explain the wonders of Greenpeace, or why they should write Greenpeace a check.

The next day I was working my other job, standing behind the register at an upscale food emporium as bleary-eyed people bought their coffee. A young Asian women walked up to me and I found myself surprised that she spoke English.

One day. In a single day, my brain had made this totally new weird connection/assumption. I was kind of shocked (and shocked out of it).

Not that this contributes anything to the conversation. Just found it both weird and, obviously, memorable.

Re: Weird anecdote

[kate_nepveu]

I wonder if this is related to the tendency that some people have to pick up accents of people around them?

It's fascinating how conceptions relating to people can be both so mutable and so entrenched.

Re: Weird anecdote

[hms-yowling.livejournal.com]

Interesting about the accents since I do that too. (Worked as a "mother's helper" for a English family while in high school. By the end of the summer I'd acquired an accent and I really hadn't been trying to.)

At any rate, thanks again for the reading list. I followed a comment on

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Interesting about the accents since I do that too. (Worked as a "mother's helper" for a English family while in high school. By the end of the summer I'd acquired an accent and I really hadn't been trying to.)

At any rate, thanks again for the reading list. I followed a comment on <user-id=>truepenny</user-id>'s journal and found my way here. I'm always bizarrely thrilled to find people out there who've read many of the same books as I have. I haven't managed to find too many of those people IRL.