A Question of Color

Very rarely will you hear a person identify as Malaysian only--most identify as Malay, Indian, or Chinese. Those of mixed ethnicity have various names for themselves--Aunty Letchimi's daughters call themselves Chindian.

It's not uncommon to hear ethnicity identified when someone is being described, either. It's always "the Indian aunty who sells drinks at market" or "the Chinese uncle who sells chicken."

An eerily solemn family photo from my parents' vow renewal ceremony, about 6 years ago.

My family, with some of us being fair-skinned and blue eyed, and others of us tanned and dark-eyed, have sometimes bewildered those who attempt to describe us either via ethnicity or nationality. I remember my family being told, "You must not be Americans--you are too skinny!" But we don't look Dutch or German either, though most of us are tall, we're not quite that tall.

My mom in particular has been found to be a conundrum. I distinctly remember that once I was attending a drama club meeting when the school's security guard walked in the room and said, "There's a Eurasian mom at the gate asking for her daughter." I looked around at my fellow drama club attendees, and realized, "Oh, that must be my mom!" It was.

Just weeks ago, someone who had just met mom told her, "I can tell you're Eurasian. You know how I know? It's the accent." It's true that after 11 years abroad, she's lost a lot of the tell-tale American accent.

Angel is a new mystery for the community around us. He blends in better than I do, but many people guess that he's not a local. In the elevator a few weeks ago, an aunty asked him, out of the blue, "Are you Malaysian?" When he replied, "No," she said, "Oh, Pakistani." He clarified that he was American.

Some years ago, one guy asked him if he came from Oman. He's most commonly identified as coming from somewhere towards the Middle East. Angel made his own wrong guess the other day, when he asked a guy standing in line behind him at the post office what a sign in Bahasa said. The guy said, "I don't know!" Angel was surprised, because he'd assumed the guy was Malaysian. So, he asked him where he was from, the guy said, "Chile"...and I'm sure you can guess, from that point on, the conversation continued in Spanish. So, he made a new friend.

In this part of the world, you get used to being asked about your heritage and where you came from. When you look obviously different from everyone else, it makes people curious. Some in my family blend in better than others, but those blue-eyed little girls, they have certainly had their day in the spotlight, with strangers frequently asking for pictures with them. In September, I was out with my sisters and mom when a family asked if they could take a picture with Sarah. After Mom said it was okay, they added, "Well, how about with the whole family?" We all huddled into one spot for a photo.

Living here so long, you come to take the questions and the requests for pictures as signs of care and love. This isn't America, where we're pretty much content to not know anything about anybody we pass by. This is Malaysia, and if we see anyone who looks interesting, we'll stop and stare, and then we'll go over to have a chat and say hi and ask them all sorts of personal questions. The conversations make life fun, and make you feel as if it's possible to turn strangers on the street into friends within your community.

{This is day 24 in my 31 Days Series: 31 Days of Growing Up in Malaysia}