Politically INcorrect

I still cannot believe that despite living so close to Asia, Australians are still so ignorant of certain cultural and geographical information pertaining to Asia. One big one is that Aussies use the term 'Asian' to describe any East Asian person. The last time I checked, India was part of Asia... But no, in Australia, Indians aren't considered to be 'Asians'. Go figure.

So what trigerred off this attack? I am so absolutely and totally tired of explaining to people that Malaysians are not all Chinese! There are Malays and Indians and even a few other kinds of people who are Malaysian too. Get that right!!

So in the beginning, I found it amusing that despite sounding totally un-Indian or Sri Lankan (and sometimes even ohsoMalaysian), people still mistook me for being from India or Sri Lanka. And when I say "no I'm from Malaysia", they just look a little surprised and I leave it at that. We move on to talk about other things and all is good.

Today however, at one of my classes, this girl asked me if I was born in Australia... Yeah, coz I sound sooo Australian right? Mate? :p Lol. Obviously I set her straight by telling her, in a very friendly and polite manner, that I was Malaysian. Then came the usual 'look of surprise', but no, she didn't just stop there.

She had to say "But you don't LOOK Malaysian".

Wtf? Do Malaysians have only one 'look'? Ermm... This was where I started getting annoyed. Didn't show it of course, but I was boiling on the inside. And who can blame me?

So I asked her "What do you think Malaysians are supposed to look like?".

Well, I don't know if that was a good question to ask her or not considering my very annoyed state of mind because her answer just very nearly tipped me over the edge.

She said, "I dunno, Asian?".

Me: Gggrr... *no comment*

As you can imagine (or not) I was dangerously close to saying something mean to her. But I didn't. Yay me! :p