Kung Hee Fat Choy, my friends.
Good fortune to you all.

No, I am not Chinese.
I just want to greet my Chinese friends a Happy New Year.

I may as well be Chinese though.
Some people mistake me for one when they see me.

It happened more than once
when some Chinese person would start asking me questions in their language.
Usually at Airports.
Or China town.

One time, when I used to teach computers at a College in Ottawa,
a student submitted his project to me.
And on his report, it showed his name and the title on the cover page.
And below that, it had the words:

Submitted to: Tyrone Lee

So I asked him, “Who the hell is Tyrone Lee?”
He said, “I didn’t know your last name. I figured you were Chinese, so I wrote Lee.”
And he added, “I thought there’ll be a good chance I get it right.”
Then he laughed. And I laughed.
I said, “No! You idiot.” I’m from Sweden.”
I told him that just to mess with him.
So I laughed. And he laughed.
But he stopped laughing after I gave him an “F.”

Oh and one more story.
When I was still in school, one of our classes was to build PCs.
One guy brought in this old one for us to check out.
They all gathered together looking at this thing.
“It’s an import.” I heard one of them say.
And then, I heard a couple of beeps and the whirring of cooling fans.
I heard someone calling my name.
“Hey, Tyrone.” Someone bellowed. “Can you help us figure this out?”

I go to their area, as they move aside to give me room,
I see what’s on the screen.
It was a whole bunch of Japanese Characters, sliding down like it was The Matrix.
I knew it was from Japan, because it was the only English word I saw on the screen.
The word Japan and a bunch of numbers.
And then one of them said, “Can you read that and help us figure out what’s wrong?”
“Aren’t you Chinese?” He added.

Now let me tell you something.
These guys are your typical loud, obnoxious Computer-know-it-alls
who think they are always better than everyone.
Not my kind of people.

I regained my composure and bent towards the screen.
“Sure.” I said.
Then I paused for a moment.
Pretending to read some and told them “I’m not too good, but..”
I continued, “This character means plague. Or Virus.” As I point to the screen.
And this one is “Green Giant Dragon.”
Then I said a whole bunch of words to make it believable.
Anyways, I left right after that. I was starting to blow it and burst out laughing.

People have also called me a bunch of racist, demeaning Asian names.
One time, I remember an old man who called me a demeaning Korean racist name, and even did the eye slant gesture.

I don’t know.
That’s just how people are.
Our immediate response to something that’s different from us is to put them down.

But anyway, my point to all this
is that I really don’t mind being mistaken for being Chinese.
Or any other Asian Ethnicity for that matter.
I think they are all cool. I really do.

We now live in a very mixed world.
It’s hard to know everyone’s ethnicity.
If you’re not sure what they are,
there is no harm in asking.
Just present it in a respectful way.

Thanks again for reading this blog.
Next time, I’ll tell you stories of
when people hear my name first before seeing me.