Through the Looking Glass

I look Chinese. I'm not being facetious when I say this. But I look very much Chinese. Bear with me, white people, let me speak in your terms. You know how sometimes just by looks you can tell if someone is European, especially eastern European? It's like that. And apparently, I exude Chineseness. Much more so than other people in my family.

Pretty much everywhere my mother has traveled, people have gone up to her and started speaking Korean, assuming that she too, is Korean. And my brother? Even when we were growing up in Taiwan, something about his penchant for dancing, singing, and talking made people ask, "Is he American?" As for me? Chinese. I'm not upset by this because I am Chinese and damn proud to be Taiwanese. But you have no idea how often people come up to me and start asking in Chinese if I'm Chinese. It happened again tonight. And no, white people, this does not happen to every Asian. This doesn't even happen to my parents (Dad: On the China Airline flight home, they kept speaking to me in English. They spoke to everyone around me in Chinese, and even after I responded in Chinese, they kept on speaking English to me. Isn't that the strangest thing? Moi: What? They always speak to me in Chinese. They'd speak to all the other kids in English but speak to me in Chinese!) There is something about the way I dress or carry myself that says Chinese instead of America-born-Chinese. If someone could point out what that something is, I'd be glad to know.