ScientificNinja said:
The memories are bad because that was a period of left-wing intellectual elitism that I didn't much care for...
Okay then, that makes sense. Had I been in your position, I'd probably feel the same way as you do now. To be quite honest, I couldn't give a fuck whether someone considers me Asian or not, but your initial post gave off an arrogant sense of ownership over the term that I had to question. I apologize for any bitchiness and shamelessly attribute it to my Chinese girlfriend's insane mother (who, after FIVE YEARS, still does not know about us because her daughter is so terrified of how she'd react).
This actually reminds me of a funny story. Although I'm currently studying abroad, I regularly attend a university in Southern California (UC San Diego) in which Asians - defined by the school as everyone from Pakistan eastward - hold a simple majority in the student population. After the end of finals one quarter, a few buddies and I decided to blow off some steam by sharing a bottle of vodka. As I had been studying Chinese that year, I fell into the habit of shouting random phrases in Mandarin on every occasion I drank a bit too much. That night, I stumbled onto the balcony, and at the top of my lungs yelled "我喜歡喝白酒!!" - for those of you not fluent in Chinese, that means "I like drinking liquor!!"
I heard a few shouts from downstairs so, naturally, I thought they needed clarification. Forgetting that I and the rest of the school understand English, I scoured my brain to find every Chinese word I had learned over the past six months. I told them my name in Chinese, that I like to eat dumplings in Chinese, that I love them in Chinese, and some other things that I don't remember (in Chinese).
Up come three Korean dudes to the door of my fifth floor, on-campus apartment. Apparently, from five floors down, they had noticed I was brown. And since they, themselves, didn't understand Chinese, they assumed I was speaking some Asiany language in an attempt to mock them. They were also very drunk.
One of the guys tells me, "Hey yo, this is an ASIAN school... you gotta respect!!" Being too drunk and happy to start a theoretical conversation on what exactly being Asian means, I disregard the fact that they're Korean and continue speaking to them in Chinese. A Taiwanese girl had to come out and translate for us. So there we were, an Indian guy speaking Chinese to three Koreans, with a Taiwanese girl acting as the filter.
Me: "可是... 我喜歡韓國人!!"
Taiwanese girl (also drunk): "HE'S LITERALLY TELLING YOU HE LIKES KOREAN PEOPLE"
And then we all went back to my place, continued drinking and playing Wii Sports, and all was merry. I couldn't make this shit up.
If you don't mind me asking, which school did you attend? My girlfriend goes to Berkeley and, surprisingly, has yet to face any of that bullshit.
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