Monday, March 03, 2008

All Look The Same?

I hear about racism all the time. Its all over the news. Last week I read a report on how four white students in South Africa at a university made a video of black housekeepers being mocked and also served them stew laced with urine. I was just disgusted but mostly saddened by how cruel some people can be.

This situation made me think back and remember a time when I had to deal with racism. I was visiting Toronto, Canada with my friend, Maria, just weeks before I came out to Saipan. I was walking around town minding my own business and stopped to admire the view of the CN tower. Out from no where a Caucasian Male comes up to my face and says that "all Chinese people should die". That "we don't have any business being here". That we are "filthy". It happened so fast. He just laughed and walked off. I was left there stunned and tongue tied. I look back and sometimes think about what I should of said as a come back. One of them was "I'm not Chinese you idiot!" j/k I'm kind of glad I didn't say anything to him. Whatever. I'll have to forgive him and his ignorance.

Saipan is a melting pot of different cultures. The cultures range from Vietnamese, Chinese, Filipino, Thai, Indonesian, Chamorro, Korean, Japanese,and more. Since living on Saipan I have learned more about each culture and its values. We're all very different in amazing ways. I think I've even come to recognize which asian is which. Most people say that we "all look the same". Click here to take my test and see how well you do at identifying the different asian races. Tell me your score on a comment. I want to know how you did. I got 10 out of 18.

10 comments:

Tamara said...

I thought I would get almost all of them right. I scored 10 also. I enjoyed the test so much I created a mini version of my own on my blog. Take my test! :)

Lil' Hammerhead said...

Wow, I blew that one bigtime.. I got 8. 1 better than the average:(

wa wa wa waaaaaaaa.

Enlightening test.

Sean said...

I got an 11. I feel like I could have done even better but I got lazy near the end.

Angelo Villagomez said...

I got bored, too. Just christmas treed it.

I think it is easier to tell East Asians apart when you see them in person. They dress differently and have different mannerisms.

Marianas Eye said...

Perfect post for the project!

Yasha said...

Wow what a shame. I scored 6 out of 18! Guess Asians do look alike to me. And I'm Chinese Malaysian. LOL.

KelliOnSaipan said...

My score was hopeless, might as well toss in the towel - as rated by the test. Bad me, I only got 4 correct.

Dave said...

I scored 7 - which is average - not great - considering that random guessing should score you 6.

Anyway, I watched this wonderful video today by a remarakable French Israeli singer Yael Naim - I hope it puts a smile on your face like it did to me. There is a positive "Let's all get along" message to it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YUxbDEPFiM

Riki said...

wow i'm terrible...only 6! i'm better with kids i think...:)but seriously, great blog

Anonymous said...

And I though I was starting to get the knack of it!......6!