Once upon a time, I was still insensitive of the fact that the world itself could be so closed minded. Ever since I moved to America, kids commented about me being Asian. The comments were simply just comments at first but it grew to something more over time. How am I supposed to do with where I come from? I walked, I talked, I listened like anyone else for the most part. So why is there a need to rule me out?
With vocabulary composed with barely there words, the year I came to America was the hardest. People asked me the same question over and over. Are you Chinese? They spoke without thinking that something they say may affect another person. The same question followed me from year to year, haunting me. The question proceeded by comments and soon teasing. I spend months worrying about what others thought about me. Whenever I talked, I felt so uncomfortable with my accent that I even began to cut down on my words. My embarrassed continued with me to the next years after that, not knowing how it affect me so much.
The three words question made an impact on me. Simply being categorize as a specific ethnicity, especially a wrong one, bothers me. Most people assume that all Asian are the same. They mistaken all Asians as Chinese due to the way we look. The fact that some don’t even care about what they are saying annoy me the most. Why ask if you don’t care? If you bothers asking, at least make an effort of saving it in your brain rather than drifting it right through the express exit lane.
Throughout my school years in America, the question still followed. Not much has change except me. The world is still closed minded but perhaps to a lesser extend and has more acceptance. I discovered a lot of lessons for me and myself. It doesn’t matter what others think of you as long as you yourself know the truth. People who assume something are ignorance of the facts that everyone is unique. We may look or act the same but we are who we are.
Anyone can look or act or talk the same way. It is not where we came from that could be judge. People should bot be judge by the cover of the book. It’s what we are thinking that made a different not where we came from. No one can really do the act of ignorance except show them toward the knowledge that may make a different. The knowledge that everyone is not the same just because of their races. To now, the question, “Are you Chinese?”, still trail me. Whenever anyone ask me now, I just smile and say no. I know who I am and what is important. And that is all that matters.