Your genetic appearance identifies you as much as your name does. Your facial structure, skin colour and hair colour all tell other people what your racial origins are. Unlike your name, these cannot be permanently altered. This may suit some people but if you were brought up in a society contradictory to your racial heritage, issues can arise – especially when people make assumptions about who you are based on their first impressions of you.

Society likes to think they are multicultural. They like to think they are tolerant to all cultures by making an effort to understand them better. Unfortunately, this can also be lead to a downfall of tolerance – especially when one culture attempts to exert dominance over others it comes in contact with. I believe there is no such thing as the modern definition of multiculturalism. Sure, people can prove they are tolerant to other cultures by learning about them but that, in turn, places each culture into different categories, effectively separating them from each other. To be truly multicultural, one needs to break down this barrier completely and treat people for who they are, not what they are. After all, why should someone of Asian descent be treated any differently to someone of Mediterranean descent?

It shouldn’t make any difference what culture the person grew up with. Yet, those attempting to promote multiculturalism make a point to doing so. The problem with knowing about someone’s cultural heritage is that once that fact is known, they are more likely to be treated based on that knowledge and not everyone likes to be treated as such. The best way to defeat segregation in the community is to treat a person by the citizenship of the country – not by their nationality.

As you can imagine, being born in the UK and having Chinese parents can be quite challenge when explaining to other people who you actually are. Most people I have encountered treat me based on my nationality rather than who I am as a person. I have had people ask me what Asian country I was born in and these assumptions can become quite taxing. I used to give people a brief history about my childhood until I realised that I was still giving them an opportunity to classify me as an Asian despite my birth country. Now, I just tell them I’m from England. There have been instances, however, when it becomes out of my own control.

It hasn’t always been like this. Up until the late 1990s, I rarely had any issue with my racial appearance. The people I encountered and socialised with took me for who I was – not what I looked like. There was no question of my origin or who my parents were. In 1997, however, that all changed when a middle-aged politician by the name of Pauline Hanson made her maiden speech in the Australian federal parliament. She would later go on to run the One Nation political party which promoted anti-immigration, nationalism and social conservatism. Now, I’m not one to care too much about politics of any sort – or at least, I didn’t use to. However, the speech she made and the interpretations the public made from that speech changed my life forever. I must admit that even then I wasn’t too bothered by what her speech entailed but she did make one assertion that caught my attention. She asserted that Australia was in danger of being "swamped by Asians" and that these immigrants "have their own culture and religion, form ghettos and do not assimilate". In essence, she was quite correct, although I’m not sure “ghettos” was quite the word to describe the various sections of the Asian community. However, this also caused the general society to become more suspicious of non-Westerners in general and, as a consequence, I was categorised as such because of how I looked. Almost everyone I meet now wants to know where I am from.

On the subject of not assimilating with Australian society, all too often, I have been given the evil eye by disapproving Asians when I am out shopping with Paul. We used to think it was a generation gap until we noticed that it wasn’t just older Asians giving us the look. It was the younger generations as well. It then dawned on us that these Asians were having the same thoughts my parents had when I informed them I was moving in with Paul. He wasn’t Asian so why should we be together?

Half the time, I believe they are jealous of my relationship with Paul. Having grown up in the Asian culture, I know enough about it to inform me they seem to have a certain arrogance to themselves. The threat my parents made in an attempt to keep me home still rings strong although these days I treat it with absurdity. They believed (or at least tried to make me believe) that my relationship with Paul would bring disgrace on the extended family and ruin its reputation. That said, Asians in general want to be accepted into a certain society but refuse to change their way of living in order to adapt to it. In turn, they believe that their offspring should only be coupled with others of the same race.

The odd thing is it’s not just the Asians who disapprove of our relationship. It seems that the older generation in general have a problem with the relationship. I still clearly remember one elder Caucasian woman saw us together and felt the need to tell her friend that seeing us was just “sick”.

When someone looks at you, you hope they have some maturity to take you for who you are. I’d like to think people see me as a normal person and not pigeonhole into a particular race. However, I have noticed that is rarely the case. One of the very first cases of being pigeonholed into a culture based on my appearance was a middle aged young woman I met briefly in the elevator at work.

I had never seen her before in my life and I doubt she knew anything about me. In fact, we barely spoke two words to each other before she made an assumption that made me want to snap back at her with retort. She took one look at me.

“I can speak Japanese,” she proclaimed proudly.

Admittedly, I’ve never met anyone who greets someone else by telling them they know how to speak a particular language. It was bad enough that my Mandarin was rusty after years of not speaking it but for someone to assume I was from a completely different culture was insulting to say the least.

“That’s nice,” I replied. “I can’t.”

I think my response stunned her somewhat but, before she could reply, the car arrived at the floor I was working on and I exited.

Over the years, I have developed a rather cynical approach when it comes to certain scenarios. I was at a rehearsal for a stage play a few years back and one of the actors, Mark, asked if I was from the Philippines. I have been asked if I’ve come from China or Korea before but this was ridiculous.

“Do I look like I’m from the Philippines?” I retorted, rather annoyed at the assumption.

One would think that if the person being asked returns with that question in that particular tone of voice, a sensible person would backtrack and realise the question might have been too insulting. I’m not too sure exactly what was going through this guy’s head at that present moment but his answer both surprised me and annoyed me even more. His answer?

“Yes.”

 Now, I know for a fact that you cannot label a person of oriental appearance as being specifically from a particular country. Trust me, I’ve personally worked with at least three persons who hail from the Philippines and I look nothing like them. I just wanted to punch his lights out.

“She’s Chinese,” another actor, Deirdre, chimed in having heard half the conversation.

At least she had the nationality right but I still wasn’t going to that get the better of me.

“Actually, I’m English,” I corrected her, to which she laughed thinking I was trying to be funny.

“It’s true,” Paul installed, who could see things could turn nasty. “She was born in England.”

This surprised Deirdre but she instantly accepted the fact when I told her of my birthplace. I guess, being Irish herself, she was happy to have another person from the UK as an associate.

I later found out that Mark was waiting for his future Philippino bride to arrive in Australia. Paul and I then realised his fascination. To coin a phrase used in the movie Gran Torino, he seemed to be an “arsehole with a fetish for Asians”. As Paul pointed out when we returned home, Philippinos have a very different facial structure to that of those of Chinese descent which made us wonder if the person had even seen his bride-to-be yet.

Not everyone with some fascination with other cultures are quite so forward. In fact, not all people I meet make any mention of my race but the décor of their abode have been enough to tell me what they think of Asians in general.

I vividly recall encountering a musician selling a keyboard stand to Paul who proudly announced that he bought all his instruments cheap from Japan. That in itself wasn’t quite so bad. What made me uncomfortable being in his residence was the yearly calendar hanging up in his kitchen which featured an Asian girl for each month dressed in … well … practically nothing. Paul didn’t notice the calendar until after he had made the purchase and told me when we got home that if he had seen it earlier, he would never have bought the stand of him. Admittedly, I hadn’t seen the calendar myself until halfway through the purchase but by then it had been too late. As Paul later pointed out to me, it must be extremely difficult for me to be in the position I am and with every second Caucasian man we met having an unhealthy fascination with females of oriental heritage.

*              *            *            *            *

In case you’re wondering, we have also met Caucasian men who have had relationships with Asian women. In almost every case, these men have either been married and divorced or separated after a certain timeframe. In one particular encounter, the man had divorced his Asian wife and seem to take interest in me, asking me what nationality I was.

“I’m English,” was my usual defensive answer knowing full well what his intentions were.

This stumped him for a few seconds but soon recovered.

“Which part of England?”

This surprised me briefly but I knew where he was going with the question. To give him the answer of London would be been far too easy for him. Anyone could name England’s capital city and get away with it. To name any other city on the other hand …

“Watford,” I proudly replied, which promptly shut him up, and glanced at Paul to find his eyes twinkling in amusement.

*              *            *            *            *

One would think that, if anything, one’s family would have a greater understanding of being uncomfortable with one’s race. This is not entirely the case. My mother-in-law is of the generation where one can make jokes about another’s race in good nature. The sad thing is that Paul has often informed me that she can be extremely racial intolerant (especially towards me now that I have married him) and not all her jokes are good natured. During our regular visits to her house over the years, she has attempted to subtly make jokes about my Asian heritage, using phrases such as “running all the way back to China” and “beautiful skin those people”. One of the most noticeably insult jokes she has made to date is to ask if I had “yellow blood”. She said it in such as way that if I had said anything about it, she’d be able to use the excuse that I didn’t have a sense of humour. She has often told Paul in my presence that I was a “very closed” person and that I needed to open up to her. We have often wondered how his mother can justify her actions and still expect me to be open-hearted towards her.

I am often shocked by the description some Asians have given themselves in order to be accepted into the Western society. It is almost as if they are using it as an excuse to being who they are. One male nurse I worked with once described himself as being “brown on the outside and yellow on the inside”. He later explained that he had grown up in Malaysia – hence he had darker skin than many of his Asian counterparts. This annoyed me for several reasons. Firstly, he used colour to describe what he was. Saying he had brown skin wasn’t the embarrassing part. It was the fact that he had chose to use yellow to describe himself as an Malaysian Chinese. I’m only hopefully that particular phrasing was his ignorance of a Western insult to those of oriental descent. Secondly, he had said those words in front of colleagues who knew my upbringing and that of my parents. Like him, my parents are Malaysian Chinese and hence my appearance reflects that. However, unlike him, I don’t consider myself Asian and that phrase had the potential to allow colleagues to place me in the same category. Thankfully, those who did hear his description also knew my stance on the Asian culture.

There are others who use the nationality purely as an excuse to do certain things in public. Paul and I once went to a mobile phone shop and was served by a young woman of Asian descent. Her customer service skills was moderate and she was extremely helpful in answering our questions. In fact, we wouldn’t have taken any notice of her nationality had she not pulled out her own mobile phone. On the phone cover was a very colourful Anime design. Paul, being an artistic individual himself, made mention how decorative the cover was.

In reply, the woman said “I allowed to have it because I’m Asian”.

I think at this point I took out my phone (which had a cover with the TARDIS from Doctor Who on it) to show how much I kept away from all things Asian.