Cultural Confusion
The doctor walks in when I am nursing, does a double take, and stammers.
Oh. Eh. Sorry.
She mutters my son’s name as she is leaving.
No, wait! That’s us.
Oh! Oh. Um. Eh. Alex? Yes? Wong?
Yes?
I stop nursing and sit my son up to see her.
Yes. This is my son.
I understand that multiracial couples are still a minority, and that whites/Asians (or Orientals, as they are called here) are even more rare, and even more rare than that are white women with Chinese men, but lady, you work in a city of 7.5 million people, you can’t possibly be surprised by now.
***
We put Alex to bed last night as always. We read Goodnight Opus, and then I said goodnight to my boy, and Andrew said goodnight in Hakka. I tried to repeat it, but messed up, as usual. I try to get Andrew to speak Hakka as much as he can to Alex. I know 11 words total, and one of them is ‘fart’, so it’s all on my hubs. It’s weird, I think I am way more RAWR about Alex learning Cantonese than Andrew is. I guess I don’t want Alex to ever blame me for not learning it, ie. ‘I don’t have a connection to half my culture because of you!’. Trying to avoid teenage angst now, I guess.
Baby is actually taking a nap in his bassinet, trying to snarf down as much food as possible and type two handed before he wakes up. 🙂
almost witty 1:18 pm on April 12, 2011 Permalink |
Our first element is surprise!
Sue Wegrzyn 3:33 pm on April 12, 2011 Permalink |
And a fanatical devotion to the pope….
OK – I feel dumb – what is Hakka?
almost witty 3:46 pm on April 12, 2011 Permalink |
Hakka is a sub-division (dialect, if you will) of the Chinese language … the main one that my parents speak.
@Mosh 1:25 pm on April 13, 2011 Permalink |
Hang on, didn't Andy just tell me off a few weeks ago for using "Oriental"? Isn't it "South East Asian"?
Or was that the other week and the politically correct rulebook has changed yet again? I'm on the point of giving up and just saying "gooks". (please note sarcasm, people – I'm sure Andy already knows how I mean it!)
[P.S. OpenID login doesn't seem to work on here]
almost witty 2:36 pm on April 13, 2011 Permalink |
To be fair, that wasn't me so much as one of my more politically-active Chinese-American friends. If you're speaking to a British audience, you can use the word Oriental, even if it is a tad old-fashioned.
@Mosh 2:44 pm on April 13, 2011 Permalink |
Ah, memory failure on my part. I thought it was you I was arguing with before! I'll settle for being old-fashioned as I am, indeed, old.