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Other posts you may be interested in:

1. Not Enough Foreigners Learning Chinese, say Officials
2. A Sub-Culture of Pride: Why the Chinese Are So Patriotic
3. The Chinese in America: A Narrative History
4. On Talking With or Without an Accent
5. A Portrait of Chinese Americans

• Julie
  I've never been to China, and it's been a long time since I've visited Taiwan, but I have been asked "Where are you from?" quite a bit by both Asians and non-Asians.
  
  A while back I decided to stop taking offense at this question. The answer is complicated, and frankly it was because I didn't want to deal with it that I used to get upset. Here's what I typically say in response.
  
  First, I always say I'm Chinese. My family's history in Taiwan doesn't go back far enough for me to consider myself Taiwanese, and besides I do have a ton of extended family in China. Then I go on to say I was born in Taiwan and grew up in the U.S. Sometimes people will ask if I've been back recently, and I say no. If the conversation suddenly goes Mandarin on me, I make polite apologies for my bad accent, and the other party always assures me that my accent is fine.
  
  It's a script that gets played over and over, which can get tiresome certainly, but as far as I'm concerned it's just one of many oft-repeated scripts we follow in our adult lives, usually beginning with "What's your major?", and besides, how else do people even begin to get to know each other?
• Efren
  Akrypti: I totally, totally feel you on this. I'm monolingual myself, so it's doubly frustrating for me to talk to many Filipino immigrants because there is such a weird inferiority/superiority complex for them, particularly if you're a Fil Am who's born in the States. Throw in the whole BS about colonialism, and it leaves people like me stuck. The Filipino news that's broadcast here in SF always has Filipino politicians trying to speak in English even when their English is totally incorrect, but they're given a lot more credibility for speaking it. It makes it worse that I'm not Tagalog and Tagalog/Filipino is not my, or my parents' native Filipino language.
  
  Those of us who are monolingual are supposedly stuck up because we're fluent in American English--and yet we throw it all up in their faces because we can speak it. But it's the only frickin' language I speak, so wtf are we supposed to do, just keep quiet?
  
  The funny thing for me is that for me, I feel most comfortable being in Hawaii, because there are so many Filipinos there who are from my parents' regions, and so I fit in as being part of the majority, and I'm treated exceptionally well there because I look like the majority and can understand the languages they speak--though I totally sound white compared to most of them, which doesn't seem to matter. Even when I insist that I'm only a visitor and don't have family there, they still treat me like family. Funny thing is that the white people who I've talked to who do live in Hawaii are totally conscious about their race identification and are acutely aware of their minority status, and if anything, it opens their eyes to see how other minorities live in the US.
• jeffat8asians
  Great post, Akrypti.
  
  Efren - I know how you feel. My Tagalog, in addition to not being very good, is heavily accented. and most Filipinos immigrants would rather not hear it ("it doesn't sound so nice when you say that") and give me a hard time for not speaking it very well. But do they bother teaching their own kids? Rarely. Do they bother setting up Filipino language schools? No. But somehow we are morons for not learning it. Even when I do understand, I get hassled. My sister-in-law was over for dinner tonight, and I commented on my wife' s Tagalog conversation to her. My wife said, "he understood!" and then promptly switched to Ilokano. That feeling that you can't win can be very frustrating.
  
  It's weird how Filipinos choose what to speak to me, though. One of my cousins speaks to me almost all in Tagalog, as does my son's basketball coach. My wife speaks to me in about 30% Tagalog and %70 English (that proportion switches when she is mad at me), while the parents of my kids classmates usually speak to me English.
  
  I feel at home most of all here in the Bay Area. North San Jose/Berryessa is very comfortable for Asian Americans - I blend in very easy. In some local Chinese restaurants here, they give me a fork and spoon when I go there - just fine by me! Hawaii wasn't very comfortable for me as I am not of Ilokano descent (my wife does fine because she speaks it even though she totally doesn't look Ilokano). I can still remember her relatives there laughing at me when I didn't eat malungay right (I started chewing on the pod and didn't open it up - my parents don't use malungay in their cooking).
• Xxxtine@work
  This is totally interesting because it's a completely new facet of what it means to be Asian-American/ Canadian. Growing up, my parents are ethnically Chinese from the Philippines but because of government rule were not considered to be Filipino citizens and instead Chinese citizens. I've literally seen the government docs the Filipino government insisted the Chinese be photographed and catalogued like criminals. So they always knew they were Chinese and insisted that upon me while growing up in multicultural Canada.
  
  Funny thing is, the 'Chinese' that I ended up going to school with, did not consider me nor my parents Chinese, nor did the wait staff at the restaurants in Chinatown. As if it was difficult to comprehend that Chinese people actually migrated to different parts of the world just like they did and adopted/ integrated different cultures and languages. Kinda makes me think about education.
  
  My aunt in the Philippines - the matriarch of my mom's family I found out was bad-mouthing me indirectly to my cousins saying how I thought of myself as 'Canadian'-only and that I've completely rejected my being Chinese. I ended up explaining the entire thing to my cousin, about how it's different growing up as a minority and not seeing one's culture everyday.
  
  And in conclusion to my rather schiophrenic comment; I was at a party were there were documentary filmmakers from all over, and a Korean filmmaker I was speaking to said, "Your English is very good." I responded with, "It better be, I grew up here."
• anita
  Akrypti - this is a great post and very interesting - I have never been to China but I can totally picture those conversations. How frustrating and annoying. In college I met a student from mainland China and he was very friendly to me until I said I was Taiwanese and then I got a cold look and he turned away and stopped talking to me.
• Asianmommy
  Wow--that's so frustrating! I didn't realize it was so extreme. I'm Taiwanese and don't speak Mandarin. You're right--Chinese people are completely baffled by this.
• John
  Great post - in fact, probably one of the best ever on 8Asians.
  
  I didn't know you were fluent in Mandarin. Then again, I've only met you like once and traded emails only in English (how's your writing and reading? - mine is almost non-existent).
  
  Yes, Taiwan is not China! But you are right - better not get into an argument in mainland China, or you might be arrested for promoting Taiwanese independence (especially as we get closer to the Olympics starting).
  
  As for the mainland Chinese thinking you *are* Chinese, that is just basic egocentricity. Once ethic Chinese, always Chinese. I think this is a basic feeling for most overseas Chinese in Greater Asia / Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Thailand, etc.) , but not necessarily for native-born Western educated Chinese (Europe, North America). Hell, my mother still calls Caucasians in the U.S. "Americans" and she's been living in the U.S. for almost 40 years.
  
  As for "Asian American" supremacy attitudes that the mainland Chinese perceive - I really think it is more frustration than anything else. They see the potential for themselves. Since Asian Americans look like Chinese, but are sooooo much richer than the average Chinese, I can only imagine that they are privately jealous seeing a "rich" English fluent expatriate who has more freedom and social mobility than he or she might ever have in their lifetime.
  
  As for what if you were some hick little middle-Americana town like any other Joe Shmoe white folk? Well, we are colored by the shades of stereotypes and expectations of a multi-cultural society. Ever go to a Chinese restaurant in the U.S. where there are no Chinese staff? You kind of wonder if the food is going to be any good. It doesn't surprise me that Asians learning English would prefer to study from a "white" American.
  
  Plus, most Chinese's impressions of Americans I imagine have to be from television, and there aren't exactly a lot of Asian Americans on American television... I also attribute this to why Chinese and Asians have a very negative image of African Americans - not a lot of good images of African Americans on American television.
• John
  I've reference this before on 8Asians and relevant to the Taiwan issue above.
  
  "How I Became a Taiwanese-American and why It Matters"
  http://www.taiwandc.org/twcom/65-no6.htm
• jen
  no wonder people were staring at me in beijing.
  
  they couldn't distinguish between a "chinese person who wants to make everyone else feel bad they can't speak english" to "korean american visiting beijing for the first time speaking to her english-speaking companion who doesn't speak korean".
• Xxxtine
  I suppose if I visit le motherland ... instead of speaking le English, speak le Francais instead
• Josh Chau
  I respect the Taiwanese mindset that Taiwanese people are not Chinese. My grandfathers fled China to the Philippines to escape the poverty and persecution. In the Philippines people of Chinese descent refer to each other as "our people" and the language as "our people's language". In the Philippines, calling those descendant from expats "Chinese" sounds . . . cumbersome and invokes baggage of a past life left behind.
  
  But I'll admit that when I followed my father to FuJian for his first visit since he left at 1 year of age (he's now 62) we spoke of it tearfully as "going home". When we stepped foot off the plane and caught a glimpse of "home" he got misty and I had to have some private weepy time in a bathroom stall.
  
  While visiting I attended an intensive language program for Mandarin and spent most of my day cursing in English because I wasn't used to Chinese city life (I grew up in northern Florida). When speaking English (when I'm stressed gains a southern twang) I too received dirty looks that disagreed with comments about how my command of the local dialect (Min Nan) made me so Chinese.
  
  I also was drafted to help at an English school via a phone interview in English. After I arrived and sat down the instructor exclaimed, "Josh zai na li?" (Where's Josh?). I said, with more southern twang than I should have used, "Ahm raaht here." (BTW, there's no better way to make Chinese people speechless.)
  
  At the end of my trip I understood that I came home to what I wanted to be an ideal and that ideal could never be. Simply put I wasn't Chinese enough to be Chinese. The point I seek to make is I view "going home" to China as a living embodiment of the old adage "You can never go home again" for those of us removed from it.
  
  But you make also a good point in that Asian Americans (born in America) are not treated as American in America. I'd like to read your thoughts on this topic as I have gotten into discussions with my white American friends insist that I am American the same as them.
• charvey
  I enjoyed the post. I live in Vietnam, and have experienced on the flip side Asian ideas of what it means to "be American" or "be Vietnamese." I was speaking to a Vietnamese and mentioned a mutual friend as "another American" when I was swiftly corrected. "No, she's not American." My friend is of Vietnamese descent but was born in America, talks like an American and acts like an American. I consider her American. But this Vietnamese person didn't. It became clear that the Vietnamese only consider people of European descent to be "real Americans" because the Vietnamese idea of nationality is indistinguishable from ethnicity.
  
  There was an interesting discussion on my blog about it some time ago. Check it out at http://chrisfharvey.typepad.com/charvey_in_viet... .
• Jessica
  I find it interesting that you would be offended when a native Chinese person considers you as their own.
  
  To me, it's very refreshing and warm. That no matter how bad my Chinese is or how little I know of the culture, I will always be accepted as Chinese. I don't even have to work at it, and I know they will see me as Chinese. It's a wonderful feeling.
  
  Personally my experiences in China were great (and for the record, I too am from Taiwan).
  
  I simply tell people that I grew up in the States---so please don't mind my mandarin---and they bend over backwards to help me out.
  
  ***
  
  RE: The Taiwanese issue
  
  I tell them that I am Taiwanese, but that I'm also Chinese. Just like someone from Shanghai is both Shanghainese and Chinese.
  
  ***
  
  And I do think it's an ABC conceit that's causing these issues. I mean all our lives we try to be accepted as "Americans" and yet we're not.
  
  Then when someone eagerly accepts us as their own we want to argue semantics with them? Please... even I'm starting to get annoyed at Chinese "Americans" now...
• veg28
  I'd have to agree with Jessica you should be trilled that the Chinese are willing to accept you as Chinese. Americans have such myopic and naive view of this situation. In Korea, Japan and China people will tend to associate you by ethnicity call this egocentricity if you like but that's what they are accustomed to to seeing all the time. I'd much rather be accepted as Chinese even though I'm an ABC than a second class American citizen, hell civilized Europe does this all the time just ask how the Arabs citizens in treated in France or how about the myriad of British citizens collected from the British empire are treated or lastly how the Scandinavians treat their new immigrants.
• jozjozjoz
  Jessica,
  
  Not to belabor the point, but it's not "[j]ust like someone from Shanghai is both Shanghainese and Chinese."
  
  The point is that Taiwan IS NOT part of China, whereas Shanghai is.
  
  Taiwanese is simply NOT Chinese; Taiwan is NOT a part of China.
  
  That's the rub for most Chinese, who have been brainwashed into believing otherwise.
  
  My family is Taiwanese/Taiwanese American. I do not have ANY connection to the People's Republic of China. My ancestors moved to and established roots in Taiwan from what is now called China about 600 years ago...during the Ming Dynasty.
  
  When Europeans emigrate to the United States, they often claim they are "American" not even hyphenating (i.e., German-American, Italian-American, etc) after a couple of generations. After 600 years, I think that my family (as can many other Taiwanese families) can appropriately be referred to as "Taiwanese" and NOT AT ALL "Chinese."
• Big Red One
  Brainwashed? Under what assumption do you call this brainwashing? Let me rephrase this: what educational system does not brainwash their own youth in bias of something or another?
  
  All my relatives are in Taiwan, but my ancestors are from the Republic of China/KMT mainland. I have relatives in Mainland China. Sure, ROC and PRC are two different entities, but how could one respond to the fact that Taiwanese is not Chinese?
  
  From the perspective of aborigines, I guess there is a political disagreement, but hell, that's why we have those people in what we call the Green Party, but that's a different argument altogether. Remember, Taiwan = Republic of China.
  
  Hell, when someone on the streets calls me 'chink', I'm not going to correct them and state that I'm Taiwanese.
• Francis
  that's exactly what i think
  i m a cantonese chinese, my race is han. i can speak cantonese and mandarin, my homeplace is Toishan(Hoisonn/Taishan) city, Guandong(gwong dung) province
  
  i really dont want to get into any political debate
• Confuse_Us
  I've been fortunate enough to travel outside of the U.S and have had similar experiences of people doubting my "American-ness". Regardless of where I've been (the Middle East, Latin America or Europe) I often get the same "...but you don't look American..." or "...but you have Asian eyes....." comments just about everywhere.
  
  At the same tiime Akrypti's labelling of the Chinese attitudes as ignorance....
  
  "The native Chinese hold the same thought as mainstream white America: that you’re not really an American unless you’re white. What I never knew before was how pervasive the ignorance really was. "
  
  ....... is illogical and unreasonable. Why would you expect the Chinese to be more aware of the nuances of American society than Americans themselves? If Americans have the attitude that Asian-Americans aren't really American and through their media representations, export this attitude to the rest of the world then how on earth are the Chinese(or anyone else) supposed to know that it's not the case?
  
  Furthermore, it's completely irrelevent how a non-American views my nationality. Educating the Chinese, or Arabs, or Africans on the "American-ness" of Asian-Americans isn't going to help change American attitudes to the same.
• John
  Confuse-Us - you make a good point:
  
  "Why would you expect the Chinese to be more aware of the nuances of American society than Americans themselves?"
  
  jozjozjoz - as I had mentioned before, Chinese can be used in two different ways - ethnic (Han) Chinese and Chinese, as a citizen of China / People's Republic of China. I think most Taiwanese would say that they are ethnic (Han) Chinese.
• charvey
  "The native Chinese hold the same thought as mainstream white America: that you’re not really an American unless you’re white. What I never knew before was how pervasive the ignorance really was. "
  
  I wouldn't say this idea is "ignorance" at all. In pretty much most of the world outside North America, Australia and other immigrant nations, nationality is pretty much synonymous with ethnicity. Chinese (and others) equate "being American" with being of European descent because that's the model they know and understand. I believe it has absolutely nothing to do with America exporting this idea through its media representations.
  
  I'm an American of Euro descent, or "white." If I had been born in China and grew up like any other Chinese person, would the Chinese ever consider me "really Chinese?" Not in a million years! Yet, they would consider someone of Chinese descent born and raised outside of China, who can't even speak the Chinese language, "Chinese." This isn't wrong, it's just natural -- most people naturally equate ethnicity with nationality because, in the vast majority of the world that's the way it is.
  
  America, Canada and a handful of other immigrant countries are exceptions to the rule. Historically, the vast majority of Americans have been of Euro descent. The idea of being American is tied to belonging to a certain ethnicity in many Americans' minds and certainly in foreigners' minds because that is the model they know.
  
  This is changing as the ethnic makeup of America changes. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, America experienced huge waves of immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe and Ireland. The mostly English-descended Americans at the time really looked down upon the newcomers and didn't consider them "authentic" Americans. For example, at that time "Italian-Americans" were considered not really American and suffered real discrimination. That changed as those ethnicities assimilated into general American culture. Now the same thing is happening with Americans of Asian descent, one of the newer immigrant groups to arrive on American shores.
  
  I know of no other country (well, Canada maybe) that is as welcoming of people from all ethnicities and backgrounds as the USA. Yes, sometimes people say "Where are you from, really?" I know this is offensive, but I believe it's human. I've heard the same thing asked of naturalized white Americans who have funny accents. This will continue to happen for people who are noticeably "different" from the majority until ethnicities are mixed evenly throughout all countries of the world.
  
  Just my $.02.
  
  charvey
• Francis
  well, i m a chinese but a lot stangers think that "my sister and i are latinos" often.
  
  u know what is the different between hua ren and zhong guo ren (cantonese: wah yean and jhon gok yean)?
• jackie
  This was a very, very good post. I totally agree with you one-hundred percent.
• aibo
  Ignore those people who try to define you according to how they see the world. This is the unfortunate state of the world now, and I'm not sure it can be corrected because it's so hard to get people to see things from other points of view. Maybe with the Olympics and China's continuing openness more people will acknowledge that being an ethnically Chinese person can span such a vast spectrum of identities.
• Dave
  There's a strain of tyranny amongst China and its citizens.
• LM
  "If you’re white and speaking English in public in China, then that’s okay. Nobody looks at you funny."
  
  That's totally not true. If you're white, everybody looks at you funny ALL the time, regardless of what you're speaking.
  
  Chinese are "tolerant" but extremely condescending to caucasians, who they assume are all rich but kinda dim. For those of us who've spent much of our lives in China and are fluent in Mandarin, it's just as bad to have our fluent Mandarin answered by incomprensible Chinglish. And some, even after registering, will make crude jokes about us right in front of our faces.
  
  Not all, but a substantial enough few; most Chinese are well-intentioned but just ignorant.
• gameover
  Growing up, it never even crossed my mind that someone would doubt that I was American. I'm definitely not a banana, but no one here in the states has ever even questioned that I was American (at least not to my face). Then I visited Taiwan, and I suffered something like an identity crisis. Maybe it's the homogeneous society and the posers who may pretend to be American. Or maybe they mean no disrespect but just define everyone by their ancestry, not their nationality or place of birth. I guess I could blame it on my Chinese being halfway decent. But it was an eye opener..
  
  I haven't been to China so I don't think I've faced what you have. I've seen the flip side in Taiwan where they ask me what I consider myself and I say Chinese and they all go bonkers. I've learned my lesson, I just say chinese-taiwanese. They can't argue with that. I wouldn't have any problem with Mainland Chinese insisting I am Chinese because really my grandparents all fled to Taiwan from China.. So sure, generations of my ancestors are from China and that should make me Chinese. I just hope they still feel that way in 30 years when China is the next superpower.. Still, even if I put myself in their shoes, why would the average joe even care about Taiwan reunification or independence? There should be more pleasant things to talk about..
  
  I speak English all the time in Taiwan and no one ever stared. Maybe you were in a smaller city with little or no foreigners and it's just not everyday that they hear English? In fact, I commonly hear English being spoken.. Maybe it has something to do with the kind of places I go. But I don't think it'd be that different if you were living in some hick farm town in Iowa and some New Yorkers come into town with their designer clothes and Long Island accent, people would look but I don't think they would think they're being rude and flaunting their status.
• globalcitz
  You write in a slightly degrading manner towards those of Chinese descent describing your conversations as if being Taiwanese allows you a "sense of superiority" you describe white americans having.
• KingAngantyr
  Wow, the more I hear about ethnic groups in the US, the more I come to the conclusion that all US ethnic groups have a large minority of racists. Maybe it is a European thing, but in Northumberland we do not have as much ethnic tension and it has been ''taboo'' to call any ethnic groups ''a race''. We don't have much "you white guys still Asian women'' thing mainly because most Asian are pretty intergrated and it is common to see yellow guys with white women in Newcastle and Indian guys and girls with non-Indian partners.
  
  All this ''race'' tension is ridiculous. If white men want to date yellow women, let them, if yellow men want to date whiet women, let them, and so on and so on. Love has no ethnic boundaries.
  
  And in Northumberland, we general accept that people of Chinese descent can be English so we only rarely have "oh your English is good" nonsense. Infact the heaviest Northumbrian accents I have heard belonged to a Sikh of Indian descent (and like all Sikhs I have known and met, he was a great guy) and a woman of Chinese descent.
  
  A.