"Hapa is a Hawaiian term used to describe a person of mixed Asian or Pacific Islander racial/ethnic heritage."
-from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hapa
So this one time at band camp, during one of our longer water breaks, a group of woodwind players were sitting around chatting about our family and inevitably the topic of "the strange behaviour of our grandparents" came up. An Asian saxophonist then described one of his grandmother's incredibly Asian habits, which I want to say had something to do with serving rice at every meal, and I piped up with how my grandmother does exactly the same thing and proceeded to launch into a story about it. I was no more than sixty seconds into the story when the saxophonist stopped me with, "Wait...you're Asian?!" When I responded with a "Yeaaah?", he then turned to tap a clarinetist on the shoulder and informed him of my ethnicity and then the clarinetist turned to me to say, "Wait...you're Asian?!" Other band members began to overhear the little commotion and then before I knew it a train of "Wait...you're Asian?!"'s had started and continued even after our break had ended and we were running to our positions on the field.
This was the first time I had ever encountered such a reaction, and seeing a football field full of about a hundred or so band geeks sequentially crying out "Wait...you're Asian?!" was pretty strange yet highly amusing. The only other time I've ever experienced something like this was when my younger brother started high school (we both went to the same school) two years later. Quite a few people were pretty convinced that I had suddenly gained the ability to turn into a boy at will but that's a story for another day. Anyway, I discovered that I wasn't the only one to encounter such a reaction about my "half 'n' half" ethnicity. One of my cousins told me that this scenario generally happens to him:
Person My Cousin Knows: "Wait...you're Asian?!"
My Cousin: "Yeah, what'd you think I was?"
PMCK: "I thought you were Mexican!"
My Cousin:...
At the time, I had never had an exchange exactly like this (although I did have a few friends who later admitted that they did wonder if I was Mexican and/or French), but while I was studying in England this past year, I had one exchange that ran something like this:
My Super Philosophical Junior Dean: (after I finished telling a story about the Asian side of my family) "So you're half Japanese then?"
Me: "Yup. On my mother's side."
MSPJD: "Ah, that makes more sense. See, I thought you were Native American."
Me:....*where on earth did he get that from?*
I was later informed that my soft leathery fringe boots, feather earrings and braided headbands might have helped my Junior Dean reach that conclusion.
Anyway, growing up with a Japanese mother and an even more Japanese grandmother while not looking Asian at all (it’s amazing how many people have asked me if I’m adopted) has certainly added many interesting (to say the least) aspects to my life and has in all likelihood coloured my perception of the world. Don’t ask me to explain how being a “hapa” does this, because I really don’t think I could. All I know is that whenever I meet or run into another “halfer,” there always seems to be this breath of relief and an unspoken “You understand” sort of thing. I suppose you could call it a “halfer thing.” And not too surprisingly, we’re able to recognise or spot each other pretty easily. To put it another way, when I first met this one half Thai, half white guy, he told me “I know you’re a halfer, because it’s like looking in a mirror and seeing myself…only as a girl.”
Well, to get back to the point (if there even was one), this blog isn’t specifically about being a “hapa.” As I said before, my ethnicity has had a lot of inadvertent influence on my life, and so I think “hapa” is one of the better terms to sum me up. And thus, this blog is about a “hapa” and her random adventures, nonsensical thoughts and just general silliness. Make sense? I hope so, because I’m not entirely sure I understand this last bit.
So if this sounds at all interesting, feel free to read on. If not, well, I recommend flying a kite if the weather permits you to. It’s quite a lot of fun. =)
Note: I know the word “hapa” used to be (and might still be) a derogatory term. I don’t use the word in the derogatory sense at all. I simply use it to mean the definition above (a person who is half Asian or Pacific Islander).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
