The Perks of Being An Asian Daughter

From the very first glance of my face you could tell right away how Asian I am. It even bewildered me when someone said the exact opposite. I took it upon myself that whoever said otherwise had something going wrong with their eyes (because this particular eyes, yes, these two seemingly never-can-be-opened-eyes, are screaming Asian). Heck, my face screams Asian.

I've been raised in an asian family for my whole life. The asian custom is no stranger for me. And yes, the most magnificent moment of the year comes up every Februrary where you simply open your palm up and wait for money to rain. Yes, when my older relatives died we burn a lot of paper (a miniature house made of paper to be exact) because we believe it'll be brought to heaven alongside them. Yes, I even have a weird fashion of never wanting to sleep right in front of a door or a mirror. We're so superstitious, I've got to give you that.

Rich in culture is a word i'm definitely going to use. Damn proud about it, of course I am. We held on to that tradition generation after generation. Okay, got to admit though, that my biggest sin is not being able to talk chinese. My chinese limited to exactly these phrases only :

- "i can't speak chinese."
- "i'm an indonesian."
- "i don't know."
- "i don't understand."
- an even more polite way to say, "i don't understand." (Different versions of phrases just to express my stupidity to a native chinese, ain't it wonderful?)
- "what are you doing?"
- (in which i can only reply to) "i'm watching television" or "i'm doing my homework.
- numbers. (I'm pretty good at this. Proves to be useful whenever i want to buy anything)
- "how much does it cost?"
- and the most stupid conversations that my grandmother always holds with me every evening by the phone : "is your father home?" to which i can only reply: "not yet." Stupid is how i cannot say "yes he has" with Chinese, thus switching back to Indonesian instantly.

Being Asian, people quickly prejudiced us. Being Asian means you're smart. Being Asian means you're rich (in Jakarta I've heard that a lot). Being Asian means you're selfish (now this is so common. The general knowledge of people in Jakarta is how Chinese care only for their money and gaining profit). Being Asian means you're so good at certain subjects.

One thing that i can assure you is how such things aren't proved to be true. That and also the fact that i pissed us off.