On being Asian

I was hard-assed, or so I thought I was in high school. Somehow I thought that wearing Doc Martens, flannel shirts, and sporting a punk hairdo made me tough, different and respected. But truthfully, I was already respected and widely accepted in a variety of groups in my high school – the geeks, the gangsters, the drama club, the rockers, the punks, the Whites, Blacks, Jamaicans, Hispanics, Jewish…all except Asians. My easy assimilation into my diverse group of friends had made me an outsider within my own. This was the group that didn’t require excessive primping in the mirror to get the black eye make up just right, or hiding the excess splotch of manic panic purple haze dye accidentally left on my forehead or getting the grunge look just grungy enough – I was already Chinese, I should’ve been accepted by default! But their rejection hurt me so much that it resulted in me being devoid of anything Asian except for the things I couldn’t erase; like my facial features and my family (despite how hard I wished them away).

One day, my drama club friends and I decided to risk the public bus ride home after school planning to stop by a store three stops further from our usual stop. We filed into it with what seemed like our entire junior class and were immediately shoved to the back. The bus was, as usual, rowdy and chaotic, and I, as usual, took on my typical silent, gruff, and despondent act and began muttering incoherently about the state of the government, the world, and my cheap parents whose weekly allowance had left me with only one jar of manic panic midnight blue. I mean, that would never be midnight blue enough with one jar! My friends stood alongside me, nodding every four to five seconds interspersed with “Yea, fuck that shit!” for nearly half the bus ride home.

It wasn’t until I was tired of my own innocuous ramblings that I looked up to survey the kids around me. There were 10 jocks in the front, 8 metal heads on either side, two heavy set black girls in front of me and just towards the side of me were 2 small and meek looking Asian girls overly accessorized in pink and all things cute, with a serious case of acne. Meek Asian girl number 1 (closest to me) had a walkman in her hands while meek Asian girl number 2 sat staring blankly into her folded hands. Suddenly, one of the heavy set black girls sitting next to meek Asian girl number 1 said to her:

“Yo, why ya face like dat?”
“Huh?” she asked in obvious confusion.
“I said, why ya face be all fucked up like dat? Too much pawk fried rice?”
Meek Asian girl number 1 removed her headset and a dark flush began forming under those zits while her friend shifted uncomfortably and continued to stare at her hands.
“Whatchoo don speakah no engleeesh? Didchoo eat too much pawk flied lice?”
The two fat black girls’ bodies began heaving spasmodically and began emitting shrill shrieks between wheezing which I took as laughter. A large lump began to slowly form in my throat.
“Girl, you should do sumfin ‘bout dat shit!”
The asian girl gave a weak smile and a shrug while her friend seemed to have successfully turned her folded hands into two very large patches of white skin.
“Yo, whatchoo listnin to?”
“Chinese music” The asian girl quietly replied.
“Lemme hear” The black girl said and grabbed the headset and walkman out of the girl’s hands and immediately began pumping her hands up in the air while squeezing her eyes shut and screaming;
“Ching Chong Chow!”
Her other friend continued spastically heaving between gasps of air.
“Awww shit girl, no you didn’t!”

The Asian girl began to pathetically plead for her walkman back adding that her stop was coming up. Coincidentally, it was my stop as well and I couldn’t wait to get off, vowing never to ride the bus home again.

“Aww, hey, I’ll give it back to you girl. Lemme borrow it – I like dis shit. I’ll meet you on the third floor tomorrow at fourth period and give it back, aiight?”
The Asian girl continued to plead and as the bus began rolling to a stop, both her friend and my friends began nudging us to leave. Her friend successfully began ushering her out despite her desperate attempts to grab for her walkman now being tossed between the two fat girls, while I stood there facing the fat black girl in a rage. Suddenly, I screamed;
“Yo, why ya body all fucked up like dat? Too much flied chicken!?”

I snatched the walkman out of her hands, and ran off the bus as quickly as I could, because I’m tough like that. Once the doors of the bus closed, I continued to scream at her through the window with all the possible racial slurs I could think of when I realized with utter horror that both my drama club friends were black. Unfortunately, my mouth just wouldn’t stop. When the bus finally rolled away, I turned and hastily shoved the walkman back into the meek Asian girl’s hands and faced my friends, still cursing under my breath. My two friends nodded their heads and said “Yeah, fuck that shit” and we walked to the store