Confessions of a Teenage?! Drama Queen

Chinese?

When I was a kid, I hated my family name. The girls in my school were cruel that they usually made fun of my family name because I was probably one out of the five students in the whole batch with a Chinese Family Name. Students in all girls schools can be pretty mean sometimes. Eventually when High School came the name taunting stopped. Probably because we became more mature?

Today, everytime I tell people my last name, their next statement usually goes, "Chinese Ka?". Then I go on with my usual explanation that "No, I'm not. Fake ako. Malabnaw na dugo ko. I don't know how to speak Chinese."

You know what, sometimes I wish that I was Chinese. So that I'd be able to give a Yes-I'm-Chinese-Strict-ang-parents-ko-Bawal-ako-magpakasal- sa-Filipino type of answer. I want to experience having a shop in Ongpin. And being "on the lookout" everytime fearing that you might be kidnapped. Talking (in Mandarin or Fookien) to Chinese clients about our chinese lineage and eventually closing a deal because of that. Talking in another language at home. Thats one of my frustrations. I wish I knew how to speak or understand the language. So that I won't bother to read the English subtitles whenever I watch Meteor Garden DVDs and the like. Sometimes, I still experience these (not the fear of being kidnapped because I look like a normal "Indio"). I still have chinese looking relatives though.

Well, come to think of it. I'm happy with being a fake-Chinese. I'm not constrained in doing the traditional. I have freedom to choose what I want to do. I feel "safer" knowing that I won't be kidnapped. My last name might be Chinese, but I'm still a Filipino.

One thing I love about being "Chinese" is the food! And not just any chinese food, chinese food like that in Gloria Maris-Greenhills or Annapolis Seafood Palace type of food. Yum!

posted by ami @ 2:05 AM