On my first day at school, the principal pulled me into her office to personally greet me. Radiating with smiles, she asked about my trip in, about my host family, and how I was feeling. She asked where I was from and I replied that I was from the United States but had been born in Korea.
Clapping, she exclaimed that the previous volunteer had been Filipino. “She also had eyes like this,” she said. Squinting hard, she pulled at her eyes from the side.
My jaws may have dropped. I don’t remember. “You look alike,” she continued.
When I looked up the previous volunteer later, I saw that she is a beautiful young woman of half-Caucausian, half-Filipino descent. While I’m flattered by the comparison, needless to say, we don’t look much alike.
And then classes started. Below is a very typical conversation that I had with my students during my first week at school:
Student: Are you from China?
Me: No, I’m from Korea.
Student: Are you from Japan?
Me: No…I’m from Korea.
Student: Are they not the same?
Me: No, the are very different countries. Just like how Colombia, Bolivia, Para —
Student: Do you eat cockroaches?
Me: No!
Student: Rats?
Me: No.
Student: Dogs?
Me: …well, okay, yes, but it’s not very common!
Student: (gesturing with legs and arms) Do you know Kung Fu? Karate?
Me: I used to practice Tae Kwon Do, which is a similar —
Student: Ching chong ching chang! What did I say?
Me: …they are not real words.
Student: Do you speak Mandarin?
Me: No, I only speak Korean.
Student: Can you understand Japanese?
Me: No, they are completely different languages.
Student: (More eye pulling) Why do you all look alike?
Me: …Okay, I have to go to class.
Multiply this by 500 students. The same set of questions in every introduction for the first few weeks.
I underestimated how fascinating I would be as an Asian in Cartagena, and even Colombia. While they are more-or-less used to gringo tourists, Asian tourists haven’t found their way here yet. Consequently, I am stared at wherever I go: the mall, the grocery store, the buses. It’s the first time in my life that I’ve been considered exotic for being Asian. One time, as I was trying to get directions from a tienda owner, two girls came over to gape and point. They came so close that I stopped talking, thinking they were going to help me with directions. But they walked away shortly after without speaking to me.
Men and children jab each other, snicker, and point when I approach them. I can usually read their lips from a distance: “Hey, look at that chinese girl”. Sometimes they chirp “China, china!” or “ching chang” as I walk by. Sometimes they stop me to ask the usual questions — which is their first time asking but my millionth time answering: “Excuse me, where are you from? But where are your parents from? What’s your name? But is that your real name? Do you have a Korean name? That’s so pretty! Tell me something in Korean. You all look look so similar.”
It’s amusing the first few weeks, and annoying the next few months. It turns into something else entirely when it’s the same questions, same reactions, same commentary every single day for 11 months.
One day not too long after I’d arrived in Cartagena, the sun was hotter and I was more tired than usual. A little girl saw me on the street and stopped. Bowing, with a fist pressed against her palm, she articulated very clearly:
“Nihao.”
I came home and screamed in the shower.
The well-intentioned girl greeting me in Chinese was the straw that broke the camel’s back (or should I say the grain of rice that tipped the scale?). Before Colombia, I had always been more sensitive to race-related comments than the average person. Perhaps because I had too many cases in which people put me in a box. Or because I had a below average tolerance for strange comments. It sounds like a personal problem, and it is. But given that this had been a pet peeve, dealing with it everyday in Cartagena was like living with an open wound during my first few months.
…although that open wound has since been turned into a nice, calloused scar, for better or for worse.
Anyway, that’s why I went nutso in the shower. Not because I didn’t know these majority of these folks didn’t mean harm with their off-color comments, but because I was physically tired of reminding myself that on daily basis.
After I allowed myself that moment of craziness, I asked myself (I suppose prolonging the crazy, as I was still talking to myself), “Why does it bother you so much?”
As in, why do such comments bother me in general, whether it is in Colombia or in the States?
I thought about it for the first time in my life. Then, I realized that the root of what actually bothered me was people choosing to be ignorant.
In the U.S., we have enough diversity around us — and also the means to access and be exposed to diversity — that we are, at the very least, made aware that diversity exists. When people in the States make similar comments, often it is a manifestation of ignorance that had been allowed to fester, out of either laziness or lack of interest. Why that bothers me (and whether it should) is another topic. For now, let’s agree that it does.
Here in Cartagena, they are not necessarily saying I’m Chinese because they are too lazy to consider other possibilities. For most, it’s the extent of the possibilities as they see it. While the comments look the same on the surface, what actually bothers me, the decided ignorance, doesn’t exist.
While this diagnosis did not cure me completely (it’s tough shrugging off gut reaction, after being conditioned for 16+ years that such comments are “racist”), it helped me cope with the daily comments early on. Because I was able to react to the root of the comments, rather than the comments themselves.
More specifically, that was when I decided to cope by engaging.
With my students, after weeks of pained smiling, I decided to take advantage of their fascination with my background by incorporating it into my English lessons. The great thing about teaching a language is that you can use the language to teach any content. So for a month, my lesson theme was Korea.
I made a video/picture presentation called “What do Koreans Do?” to teach present verbs, and had students write sentences like “Koreans eat…”, “They speak…”, and “The Korean boy watches…”. I taught them present progressive with clips of K-pop music videos and Korean drama. I would ask, “What is she doing?” in the middle of the Korean drama and students would explain the action, such as “She is crying for the 50th time” (I joke but that would have been an acceptable answer). I ended the series with a lesson on Korea, Japan, and China, to teach them interrogatives, affirmatives, and negatives. I shared similarities and differences among the three countries in regards to their religion, food, language, and political system. After each category I’d ask something like “Do Korean and Mandarine look the same?”, and they would reply — through their own realization — “No, they do not look the same.”
If I have enough energy, I try to do the same thing in one-on-one conversations. When people tell me all Asians look the same, rather than just smiling awkwardly, I respond that that would be similar to me believing Colombians, Peruvians, and Mexicans all look alike or that they must be from the same country. When they ask if we eat rats, I ask if it would then be accurate to assume that all Colombians eat ants (a delicacy in certain regions of Colombia). When they pull at their eyes to describe my eyes, I explain, in a non-confrontational way, that that gesture is considered impolite in the States. Just to prevent discomfort for the next foreigner.
It’s not easy. Frankly, I’ve had too many days since my “enlightenment” in which I was too annoyed by the commenting, staring, and pointing to say anything other than, “No soy china” before sulking away. And sometimes their comments gets downright ugly and actually rude and racist.
But I have to get over it, as should anyone in my position — i.e. someone who is privileged enough to eventually return to and live in a place of diversity. Because it is more productive to react with education rather than emotion. The goal is to get at the root of the problem. If they continue making such comments, I’d rather that it is because they chose to not know better, not because they never had the opportunity.
A month after my Korean-themed lessons, I had boys watching K-pop videos to learn dance moves. For better or for worse, I also got a few girls addicted to Korean dramas who have now watched more dramas than me. And, my personal favorite, when a student shouts “China!”, his friends around him immediately shout, “No, ella es COREANA.”
It goes to show my diagnosis correct, I think.
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