A piece submitted to my literary magazine this year. Too offensive?

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If I were to have a conversation with God before I was born, I’d imagine it go something like this: he’d tell me what was in store for me when I’m prancing around on the planet o’green-and-blue. And then I’d decide whether or not it worth going there. And I guess in the end, I would be somewhat satisfied, cause I wouldn’t exactly be here writing this if I hadn’t.

So when you get over there, you’ll be somewhat intelligent.

Oh yeah?

Not a bad athlete, either. You’ll be a bit on the short side though.

I shrug. I can’t have it all.

But I can assure that you won’t be as ugly as a baboon.

Sounds good to me.

And you’ll have a sort of knack at writing…and be a little obsessed with fictional characters.

So far, so good.

But you’ll get to root for one of the greatest teams in college basketball, Duke University.

All right I’m cool with that. I think I’m about ready to get on out there.

Wait, one more thing.

Yeah?

You’re gonna be Asian.

I shrug again, but I’m not bothered. Yet.

So what does it mean to be Asian in America? It means start getting used to the stereotypes because they will haunt you for the length of your existence on Earth. It means having to deal with your classmates in elementary school tease your funny looking slits-for-eyes during gym class. Not to mention they start throwing a chain of nonsense at you, like, “ching chong chang cheng chung (one “ch” for every vowel). Personally, I’ve never been able to translate that into Korean, but maybe some other Eastern culture will have better luck with that.

And then you have people who like to associate any Asian kid when they’re at a point where they don’t know your name with two principle parts:

A: Chinese

B: Your gender

(Often, the word, “the,” is placed in front of Principle Part A)

Using this simple formula, we can deduct that I, myself, have been dubbed on numerous occasions as, “the Chinese girl.” So the next time you really wanna piss an Asian person off, please, go ahead and follow the Asian Labeling Technique.

All right, so no one in America cares whether or not we’re Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, cause we all look the same to them.

This isn’t exactly the worst of an Asian’s problem anyway. There are little things like friends turning their heads in disgust when they get a whiff of our native food. Then there’s having your parents babble questions and orders in Korean when you’ve got the basic language vocabulary of a two year old. When your parents start chasing down every Korean kid of the opposite gender who’s in a three year radius to become your future husband, it’s pretty bad. Luckily here at Port Jefferson, we’ve only got population Asian people: seven and a half. Not dealing with that too much.

When you’re Asian, there are two, very important things in life. We’ll call them M&M. Everyone knows that in these two subjects, Asians know best. And if you haven’t figured out in this span of two sentences, I will happily reveal them to you now.

M&M, my friends, stands for Math & Music.

All right, you gotta wonder how this happened. All the good and intimidating kids on Mathletes, Academic Team, and Science Olympiads are Asians. They’re always skipping two-three grades in math. They often have crazy parents (mothers) who make them practice violin two hours everyday and they eventually end up as first chair in their section at LISFA. Asians are good in math. Asians are good in music. Asians are the biggest nerds on the face of the planet, or at least in America as far as we’re concerned. Cause in America, we are the planet.

You know when you’re Korean when your parents read about some super nerd who has no life and got in the paper for scoring highest in the SATs and ask why you can’t be more like him. (taken off some crazy website)

I’ve never heard a truer statement in my life.

My English teacher was talking about how a Kindergartener was playing in the fifth grade orchestra. I asked him if the kid was Asian. For some reason, he seemed quite offended and said, “usually, I would have to talk to you about that.” But he wouldn’t this time. Why? Because one, I’m Asian. I’m making fun of my own race here, and there’s not much he can lecture me about. Two, because I was freakin right. What kind of parents would be crazy enough to accelerate a five-year-old’s musical talent up to par with kids twice his age? Asian parents would!

All right, so even though I’m always using the Asian stereotypes to judge, I spend a lot of time fighting them. Makes me a hypocrite, I guess. I can’t run away from all of them, though. I’m in tenth grade, but in twelfth grade math. I’ve played piano for ten years and even violin at one point. I’d imagine my academic standing is pretty high. So when a person passes me in the hall or sits next to me in class, that’s what they see. The Asian. The nerd. One so conscientious of her grades that she’d sell her soul to keep em high.

It doesn’t exactly surprise me that people initially think me uncoordinated. Although I never faced much of that playing soccer, I’ve seen it happen in tennis, basketball, and at track. At basketball, it’s like, “there’s a short Asian girl on the court. There’s no way that girl can dribble or shoot anything but bricks.” There’s no way an Asian could possibly be good at sports. That’s just absurd. Aren’t they too busy practicing cello and discovering math theorems?

So I prove em wrong. I show there’s a little more than M&M. Truth is, I hate math. It’s my least favorite subject. Math homework gives me headaches. Math class puts me to sleep. Math tests make me want to jump out the window. And piano… ten years is quite a scarring experience. English is my favorite subject and I love writing. I’m rather decent in sports. I can socialize well if I want to. I’ve gotten a detention before. I’m an “annoying, brazen hussy” and “definitely don’t fit the stereotypes of my ethnic group” according to one teacher (perhaps more?). Most of my friends think me to be Scottish.

But I can’t change my face. I can’t change my ethnicity. And I certainly can’t stop going to Korean church. I started going there just recently and realized what an outcast I am to both words. Because I can’t speak Korean, I’m seen as a “babo,” translated into “stupid.” So to Americans, I’m too smart and to Korean, I’m too stupid. The girls there are nice and friendly but I’d appreciate it if they’d stop linking arms with me and I’m really disturbed by the old ladies who always want to hold my hand. I’m like an alien, crashing into a land of strange people. Meanwhile, the Asian girl is always sort of a loner among Americans because of subconscious forces forming a glass wall where you can look but never cross. The Korean kids aren’t compelled to get to know me and neither do the Caucasians. You can imagine that this is rather frustrating scoring points with guys of either race because they just aren’t interested.

You know when you’re Korean when your parents think church is a social event. (Also from the same website)

And they’re still looking for my fiancé there.

Ultimately, Asians are just seen as weird. Everyone’s either intimidated or freaked out by them. So I get the nerd label, the musically inclined label. So I’ve got to prove every time that I’m athletic and worth being on your team. So I’ve got to show that I’ve got a personality and I can talk about something other than math equations. Every time I meet someone new, I’ve got to get over that Asian stereotype wall and show em the real me. The quirkiness. The intelligence. The straight-forwardness. The athleticism. The short-temper. The loner. The leader. I’ve got it a little harder than the average American because I’ve got an extra word and hyphen in front of the “American” part.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

You know you’re Korean when your parents have never kissed you.

Can’t say that one’s historically accurate. But I found it kind of funny.