where i am really from

Five brief conversations from the last three weeks:

1. Black men in freight elevator watching a kung fu DVD. One says to me, I bet you could do that, can't you? I put up my dukes, everybody laughs. I leave, bike away.
2. White man at street festival says, Konbanwa! Where are you from? I say, Are you kidding? I'm American. He says, But really, where are you from? I say, Give me a break. He says, Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to offend. Japanese women are just so beautiful. I tell him to leave me alone, I'm not even Japanese. He says, Korean? Chinese? Eventually he leaves me alone.
3. White man, IT tech from my office building, comes into chambers to fix co-worker's computer, and on his way out the door says to me, Hello. I say hello. He says, So...China? Where are you from? I say, Please, I don't like to talk about these things. He says, No, I just want to know where you're really from. I say, Please, it's just something I don't want to talk about. He says, Come on now. I close the door on him, saying, Please, have a nice day, thank you for coming.
4. White man standing in front of Bank of America. I bike by. He stops me, and says, Hey, do you know where there is an ATM? I say, Are you kidding me? You are standing in front of a Bank of America. He says, Oh. Are you Chinese? Where are you from? I say, You're joking, right? No. Then I ride ten feet away from him to lock up my bike. He lingers in front of the bank, and says, Can I ask your name? I say, flatly, No.
5. Two white men standing behind me at McDonald's in O'Hare. All flights are canceled due to a downpour. I am eating the soft serve I just bought. They say, Excuse me. I say, Oh sorry, and move to the left, thinking they are trying to get past me to the cashier. They say, No, no, excuse me, where did you get that ice cream? It is a McDonald's soft serve with a McDonald's wrapper wrapped around it, and I am standing directly in front of McDonald's. Oh, I say. From McDonald's! It's the best thing that's happened to me all day! They say, Ha ha ha! and so do I. A few seconds later, one turns to me and says, How do you say "hello" in your native language? "Anyeong haseyo"? I say, You say "hello." I speak English. I am American. They say, Oh, you're American! I walk away, the pleasure of the soft serve extinguished by the conversation, muttering, My English is better than yours, assholes.
   

I am posting this primarily to remind myself why I need to live in California for a while.

These are trivial, hackneyed, universal and well-documented irritations, and not very interesting to read about. Perhaps they are not even justified; the people saying these things seem to mean well; they are only curious; I would rather they be curious than hard; we must all be curious about each other. It's not like anyone is arresting me, strip-searching me, or erasing off my camera my vacation photos of New York landmarks because of my appearance.

But it is boring and irritating to receive comments like those above. Though I generally love talking with strangers, I dislike conversations that begin with the most obvious thing about me. Somebody might want to talk to you because you have voluminous buttocks, but if they want to make conversation with you, they should not begin with "Hello, how much water could your buttocks displace?" Instead, dating coaches suggest that one wear an interesting article of clothing - a Danzig t-shirt, dreamcatcher earrings, a loud belt - when going to bars so that strangers have an entry point for making conversation besides your voluminous buttocks, even if ultimately that is what they find most compelling about you. Race is not an interesting article of clothing; race is buttocks! This analogy is imperfect.

When a stranger opens conversation with my race, this tells me a few things about him. First, he comes from a place where Asian people are uncommon. Second, he doesn't have many Asian friends. Third, no Asian person has successfully communicated to him their uncomfortable feelings of otherness resulting from having had their race and nationality probed. Fourth, he is curious and forward. None of these traits are deserving of my contempt. But often they come packaged with contemptible problems: he hasn't thought about how Asian-Americans might feel just as affiliated with America as he does; he has a narrow idea of what Americans look like. A better person would sit through the painful opening salvos of the "Where are you really from?" conversation to get to the more interesting bits of human interaction - stories about divorces, pig races, and absurd business ideas - and maybe educate a heretofore clueless American about race in the process. But I find it so difficult to be that better person.

I live in Illinois, where only 3.4% of the population is Asian, but my expectations for others developed in California, which is 12.9% Asian, near San Francisco, which is 33% Asian. So I cannot begrudge these kindly cabbages their curiosity about my background, but it is so tiresome. These complaints are inspecific, so let me offer some precise tips for the person dying to know about another's ethnicity:

1. Gather at least twenty facts about a person, or converse for at least fifteen minutes, before inquiring about their race. Race-neutral conversation starters include: It's raining walnuts!; How do I get from Cleveland to Louisville?; Would you rather have a vomiting problem or a diarrhea problem?; I do improv comedy; You look like a zombie.
2. Don't say "Where are you from?" when you mean, "In what part of the world do people have slanty eyes like yours?" The former implies that slanty-eyed people cannot be from America, which is a faulty premise, upon which conversation cannot be built. The latter is direct.
3. Don't say "In what part of the world do people have slanty eyes like yours?" because it is too direct. Even if a person indeed has the epicanthic fold, it is still distressing to reduce her to the metonym. Say instead, "What is your ethnic, racial, or national background?" You may sound like a Census analyst, but better a social scientist than a bumpkin.
4. If your primary interest in another person's ethnicity is to satisfy a creepy fetish you have regarding that person's ethnicity, it's best that you restrict yourself to communications via the Internet, in chat rooms which you must pay to join, with receptive strangers, late at night, in Canada.

Please! Ask me about my ass!