what are you?

I did this exercise with my kids yesterday, asking them to give three answers to the question, "Who are you?" Very few of them mentioned race, although that's usually my first or second answer. Chinese-American, I always say, emphasizing the American. Usually have to convince people that I grew up in the states; the Bulgarians never believed me. Now, strangely, I am still confronted by questions about my race. I'm getting "Korean?" more and more recently; am I turning Korean? I still haven't opened the monster thing of kimchi that I bought at the beginning of the year. Hm.

This racial questioning happened in the states a bit, and god knows I do it too, but people are more pc there, so they are less likely to hazard a guess. The Chinese do not have this compunction. They know that my accent is off, but they're not sure why, so it's very likely I'm from another country. It's so strange to move to a country where I finally look like everyone else, and still get my race questioned. Yabasayah?