| So it's been a while, but I have a couple good stories: So during the last week of classes and finals week, as projects and papers were being turned in, the content of the days' activities lightened up and gave me a chance to go out on the town of our dear little State College. I ventured to the Saloon with a large crowd of our recently graduated AACF seniors, and proceeded to have a good time with them. Now whenever I'm out having a drink or two (or more) with people I know and care about, you could say I sometimes tend to take the attentive role of "mother duck." This is not to say that I do not enjoy myself, but I like to make sure everyone (mostly the girls) is accounted for. During out little outing at the Saloon, I happened to notice some guy hanging around our tables. He was a short, young looking white boy going for the "I don't care what I wear" surfer look. Long, shaggy hair and plaid shorts with some vintage t-shirt to boot. At first I thought he was a classmate of one of the other girls in our party, but after a while we all realized that no one knew who he was. Therefore, we determined: Another drunk Penn State boy trying to hit on the Asian girls. Granted, I think most of us are used to this by now. Most of us young, Asian girls in our prime. This concept of "yellow fever." I've experienced it in guys from many types of ethnic backgrounds (white, black, Middle Eastern, etc.). The plain truth is, some guys just have certain preferences. We all do when it comes to the opposite sex (short, tall, blue eyes, dark hair, personality, whatever). Nothing wrong with that if it does not reach beyond a certain extent, right? Going back to my story, I was getting antsy to move to a different location, since I had planned earlier in the night to meet up with some other friends at another bar or two. It was later in the night, and I wanted to get moving. I accompanied Lynn and Ching to the bathroom, since I figured I should go before walking the next distance and facing eternal lines in another dirty bar. On the way to the restroom, we met an Australian and faced the graffiti from countless bar tours. On the way back to the tables, Ching was unfortunately intercepted and cornered by the random surfer boy mentioned above. Now, Ching, being the sweet, polite, too-nice-to-say-no girl that she is, was stuck. I, on the other hand, was definitely in a let’s-get-down-to-business kind of mood, and didn’t feel like explaining myself to a drunk boy going nowhere fast. Therefore, I grabbed Ching’s hand and somewhat forcefully pulled her away from surfer boy, not even giving him a backward glance. As we walked away, Ching sighed with relief, and exclaimed “thank you!” as we headed back to our tables next to the door. But our group, being a larger party full of somewhat indecisive people, took a while to get ready to leave. “Like herding cats” as my mom likes to say. So while I waited for everyone to gather their belongings and move towards the exit, surfer boy found me and tapped me on the shoulder, his drunk breath curling my nose and his swaying body causing me to inch away, until he said to me: “So what do you have against white people?” I balked. I was almost speechless. If y’all didn’t know by now, my exterior, though Asian (Korean, yellow, insert slang here), is fairly deceptive. I was adopted by homegrown white Americans, hailing from Ireland and Norway. Never did I experience being in a group of people where the Asians made up the majority in a social setting, until I arrived at college. Call me a “twinkie” (yellow on the outside, white on the inside), call me whatever. I know where I’m “from” and how I was raised are two different cultural experiences. And I definitely know I have nothing against white people (LOVE YOU MOM AND DAD!). So I look at surf boy, and fortunately for him, I am in a great mood, and don’t punch his lights out or kick him across the room (using my stellar Tae Kwon Do skills, since I happen to be an Asian who knows martial arts, look at me, a walking stereotype). Instead I calmly tell him that he shouldn’t assume things or put words in my mouth and what in the world about what I did told him that I didn’t like white people. The boy then tries to say something to the extent of “well, I got the feeling…” in which I again try to explain that he’s making assumptions, and that I had a boyfriend of almost 3 years who was white, and for some reason I don’t even mention that my parents are white. What an ignorant dumbass. I have nothing against white people. But I DO have something against drunk members of the male sex who try to hit on girls who do NOT want to be hit on. The End? Probably not. But more stories to come later. I should probably get back to work! |
