![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
So, I've been mulling this over in my head for a few hours, and I'm curious.
Today, riding the bus home from work,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shadawyn and I (for the uninitiated, she's a college friend/co-worker of mine, and half-Korean -- as opposed to me, who is full-Korean) were talking about some stuff that she'd discussed in her own LJ earlier, about how the sci-fi/fantasy community is apparently considering starting a mentorship program to encourge "minority" writers. We were debating the pros and cons, including a brief tangent to the apparency that it's not really the "white writer community" that seems to prevent Asians from becoming writers but (speaking only from our own personal experiences) the attitudes of our OWN communities, because while writing, especially genre-writing, is all well and good for a hobby, it's not world-changing, immediately and fantastically lucrative, or anything like that. My parents still sort of think of writing as a "silly little hobby" of mine that I'll eventually outgrow.
But that's neither here nor there -- back to the story: so we were talking about this, and as we hit downtown Seattle and the game traffic, we reach a certain stop. And this guy comes up to us, clasps her shoulder and leans down, telling her with a gentle smile and a friendly tone, "You're a very pretty white girl. You're not a minority."
And then he wandered off the bus. Nothing in his attitude or tone was the least bit rude or condescending, or even mean, but just ... what.
She and I were really more boggled by the situation than anything (and I mean, granted -- compared to me, she does look fairly Caucasian, but I am apparently the amazingly Chinese-looking one*; I have yet to have anyone -- even other Koreans -- guess my nationality correctly XD;), but just.
It was SO WEIRD. And I can't figure out if I should be offended by this or not, because every time I think about it again, I end up laughing a bit helplessly and shaking my head.
* This weekend, I went to the International District -- Seattle's Chinatown, pretty much -- withzinjadu and sigelphoenix. We saw what was essentially a musical protest; people were talking down the street with a stereo on a little red wagon and even a costume-dragon. When we crossed paths, this little old lady walked right past sigelphoenix -- who is, what, Burmese? but is also very classically Asian in appearance -- and handed me the flyer in Chinese. I didn't quite have the heart to tell her I couldn't read a damn word, since, uh, my kanji-reading skills are all for the Japanese readings. 8D
But it was funny because she turned back, looked atzinjadu, considered for a moment, then handed her the same flyer in English, and hurried off after her protest/parade. And thus we realized that it was a protest in the first place, since the flyer boldly declared it was a protest against the Chinese Communist party.
... Feyfey, I'm starting to think it's not YOUR fault that we kept running into all those weirdos as we walked down 50th. D:
Today, riding the bus home from work,
shadawyn and I (for the uninitiated, she's a college friend/co-worker of mine, and half-Korean -- as opposed to me, who is full-Korean) were talking about some stuff that she'd discussed in her own LJ earlier, about how the sci-fi/fantasy community is apparently considering starting a mentorship program to encourge "minority" writers. We were debating the pros and cons, including a brief tangent to the apparency that it's not really the "white writer community" that seems to prevent Asians from becoming writers but (speaking only from our own personal experiences) the attitudes of our OWN communities, because while writing, especially genre-writing, is all well and good for a hobby, it's not world-changing, immediately and fantastically lucrative, or anything like that. My parents still sort of think of writing as a "silly little hobby" of mine that I'll eventually outgrow.But that's neither here nor there -- back to the story: so we were talking about this, and as we hit downtown Seattle and the game traffic, we reach a certain stop. And this guy comes up to us, clasps her shoulder and leans down, telling her with a gentle smile and a friendly tone, "You're a very pretty white girl. You're not a minority."
And then he wandered off the bus. Nothing in his attitude or tone was the least bit rude or condescending, or even mean, but just ... what.
She and I were really more boggled by the situation than anything (and I mean, granted -- compared to me, she does look fairly Caucasian, but I am apparently the amazingly Chinese-looking one*; I have yet to have anyone -- even other Koreans -- guess my nationality correctly XD;), but just.
It was SO WEIRD. And I can't figure out if I should be offended by this or not, because every time I think about it again, I end up laughing a bit helplessly and shaking my head.
* This weekend, I went to the International District -- Seattle's Chinatown, pretty much -- with
zinjadu and sigelphoenix. We saw what was essentially a musical protest; people were talking down the street with a stereo on a little red wagon and even a costume-dragon. When we crossed paths, this little old lady walked right past sigelphoenix -- who is, what, Burmese? but is also very classically Asian in appearance -- and handed me the flyer in Chinese. I didn't quite have the heart to tell her I couldn't read a damn word, since, uh, my kanji-reading skills are all for the Japanese readings. 8DBut it was funny because she turned back, looked at
zinjadu, considered for a moment, then handed her the same flyer in English, and hurried off after her protest/parade. And thus we realized that it was a protest in the first place, since the flyer boldly declared it was a protest against the Chinese Communist party.... Feyfey, I'm starting to think it's not YOUR fault that we kept running into all those weirdos as we walked down 50th. D:
