Posted 7:38 PM by Duke

All look same:

I am horribly, horribly offended when white folk mistake me for another Asian guy. And I don't think I'm being irrationally defensive. It signals a serious issue - Asians are simply seen as a single, indistinguishable mass.

It's ok to call me by the wrong name, since we all look the same, anyway.
It's ok to call me by the wrong name, since we can't think independently, anyway.
It's ok to call me by the wrong name, since we are all the same, and our names are all synonymous.

No. In fact, hell no.

At a rather large wedding I attended this weekend, a high school friend's parents welcomed me, calling me the name of another Asian boy who hung out with us back in the day:
"Thomas, it's so good to see you again."
I stared blankly at her. My date leans over and hurriedly whispers something in her ear.
"Oh my goodness. Duke, how are you doing?"
"I'm fine. Thank you." And running in my head is, "Thomas is fine, too. I know because he's my brother, even though he's Chinese and I'm Korean. We're actually the same people- good at math, horrible leaders, and orchestral geniuses. And here's a little secret: ethnicity is something us clebber Asians made up to confuse you stupid whiteys. We really do all speak the same language, we just say they're different to make you feel bad for the whole Japanese internment camp and Chinese railroad thing.

It irks me, it really does. To her defense, she hasn't seen me in a few years, and maybe a face or two gets blurry. But the same problem happens in my business fraternity. There's a Chinese guy with whom everyone confuses me. But there are a few problems. He's easily 6'0" and I'm hardly 5'10". He outweights me by at least 40lbs. We dress differently, we talk differently, and we carry ourselves differently. But at least once a meeting I'll get a goodly, "Hey, George." Or sometimes I'll just be walking around campus and some random stupid white person will come up to me with a hearty greeting, with a completely wrong name. I'll stare at him and he'll quickly realize his error. We'll part our separate ways. But before he leaves, I'll give him a fortune cookie and a Zodiac placemat for him to take home.

And on some levels, this could explain my reluctance to hang out with a strictly Asian crowd, much less an AZN crowd. As I re-read Eric Liu's Accidental Asian over winter break, I realized I had unconsciously followed his dubious lead. Where Asians are stereotyped as followers, I have been a constant leader. Where Asians are good at math and study unceasingly, I am a philosophy major with a slight alcoholic streak. Rather than playing an orchestral instrument and the piano, I took up the trumpet. I have consistently tried to distinguish myself, refusing to get lost.

And then something totally stupid and unnecessary occurs. And back I am at square one.