What kind of Asian are you?

[geri_chan]

I found yet another fun Asian-themed video on Jamie Noguchi's blog. (Jamie is the author of the Yellow Peril webcomic, which I've mentioned several times here on my own blog.) The video is titled "What kind of Asian are you?" and is similar to the Things Asians Hate video. Those of us who are Asian-American have probably heard that question before--I know I have, and I wish I'd been able to come up with a response as hilarious as Stella Choe's! To be fair, no one's asked me that for a long time, but if it does come up in the future, I'm keeping this video in mind. ;-)

Comments

[lawless523.livejournal.com]

That is hilarious! I don't know what it says about me, but it took me a couple of times to get through it because the whole "clueless white guy thinking he's flirting with the Asian girl" is so uncomfortable to watch even though this has never actually happened to me.

If I were her, though, I would have pointed out that I'd just asked him the same kind of questions he asked me instead of saying that it was a Korean thing.

[geri-chan.livejournal.com]

I fortunately haven't gone through the "clueless white guy thinking he's flirting with the Asian girl" thing, but I have had people ask me, "So where are you from?" which is close enough. The video did cause me to cringe a bit at first since it hit so close to home, though I ended up laughing out loud when Stella turned the tables on him.

I'm sure if it were a real situation, she probably would've pointed out the hypocrisy, but I kind of suspect the clueless dude still might not get it and would just say something like, "Well, that's different." Though to be fair, I have seen well-meaning but slightly clueless people "get it" and apologize when confronted with their unconscious sexism/racism/etc.

[lawless523.livejournal.com]

I probably would have found the video easier to watch if it weren't so obvious that he was flirting with her. I can more or less understand "where are you from" type questions, although that phrasing is annoying -- the real question is "what's your ethnic heritage?" It's a question I never get, though. Around here, it's so multi-ethnic that no one asks it of strangers, and I tell people I know before they ask me about it. In fact, the only quasi-ethnic question I've been asked is if I'm Jewish. :D