Two years ago, I was so so so desperate to be considered "white". My whole life up till now, has been a journey of trying to figure out where I fit in and belong. I remember back in primary school, I tried to change my name because I wanted to be ordinary, I wanted to be like everyone else who had a 3-letter Mandarin name, my worst nightmare was having to introduce myself and having them laugh in response to my hideous name. That was when I was 7. When I was 13, I was so obsessed with trying to be "white". I figured if the Chinese-side of me didn't want to fit in, I might as well give the Caucasian-side of me a go at trying to blend in. Even up till college, if anyone immediately recognises me as Chinese, I would feel so offended. It's as if I was just waiting for someone to come up to me and treat me like I'm a "white" person.
Back then, was I really wrong to want that? We live in a world that look up to white people like they're some sort of specially gifted race. White people as a whole have better features than any other race; superficially speaking, they have pretty much won the goddamn lottery. And the fact that we live in a world that's driven by looks and impressions, it makes them seem even more worthy than everyone else. I have lived among Asians my whole life, I've seen how we react when there's a white person in the room. We literally worship them.
Think about it. We dye our hair a lighter shade because we want their chesnut brown hair. We wear coloured contact lenses because we are so sick of our boring dark brown or black eyes. We imitate accents from any American TV show because our own is just too painful to listen to. We invent fake eyelashes because we want longer lashes like them. From fake lashes, to nose jobs, to lip injections. Everything they do, we just follow along.
As an Asian, you'll know that having even just an ounce of white-ness in you, you'll suddenly be considered so much cooler than everyone else. Till this day, an Asian woman in a relationship with a White man is still something worth bragging in any Asian community, but not the other way round. A white person living in Asia is considered an expat while any other racial person living in a pre-dominantly white country is considered an immigrant. Why is that? Why are we so obsessed with white people?
To be entirely honest, one of the many reasons I decided to move to the UK was because I wanted to somewhat regain the caucasian side of me. I thought perhaps living here would change the way I sound, or living here would change the way I behave, maybe living here would once and for all prove that I'm white again. But the second day I arrived, I witnessed this scene that I, till this day, won't be able to forget and has ever since changed my perspective completely on wanting to be white.
I was on my way to school and it was a Friday morning. I had to walk past the back of this building to get to the main road, it's usually pretty quiet and that morning I saw two black persons (one male and female) in what seemed to be a heated discussion. The first thing I thought was how to avoid them, because my immature brain had me thinking that I need to evacuate every time I see a black person. But I couldn't just turn and head the other way, it would have been awkward for them and me. So I went past them and pretended like I wasn't eavesdropping on their conversation. What I assumed as compared to what actually happened were worlds apart. The black guy was upset, angry even, because he was discriminated, and he was complaining about it to his female friend. I remember he said "Why do they treat me this way? So what if I'm black? I'm still a local, I was born in the UK!"
I didn't get to hear the rest of it because I'm not a creep.
And that changed everything for me. I no longer looked at white people with envy like I used to. I no longer had the same respect for them like I used to. I no longer wanted any part of me to be like them.
This racist situation I encountered didn't even stop there. I believe it was two months into living in Salford that I was being catcalled one evening. I was wearing jeans, my coat and a long scarf, like any other normal person would during freaking winter. So I was on my way back, baring in mind this was about 4 in the evening, it wasn't dark but it was slowly starting to. I had my headphones in (thank goodness) and these bunch of guys walked past me, I couldn't tell if they were drunk or just plain stupid, but they whistled at me and said "Konichiwa bitch" repeatedly, REPEATEDLY, until I was further away enough to not hear them. I was frightened, obviously, but I remember feeling more raged with anger because not only was I catcalled, I was fucking insulted for being Asian. It got me thinking, if it was someone else, someone white perhaps, would they have done the same? As a female, it's tough enough to live feeling defenceless especially in situations like these, but to have to feel sorry for being Asian as well? Fucking hell.
A couple of weeks after this incident, my dad came to the UK for a business meeting but took a few days off to see me. When he came, I told him about the situation I saw between the two black people but for some reason, I didn't want to tell him what happened to me because I didn't want him to worry. And after these series of incidents, I came to the conclusion that any white country will always be racist, or at least will have the hardest time learning to tolerate other races because their land was monoracial to begin with. Unlike Malaysia or Singapore, we were always taught, from a very young age, the traditions and customs of other races. We always knew how to accept each other because as a nation, we have always been multiracial. I'm not saying racism doesn't exist in those two countries, it does but it is not as severe, at least that's how I view it from my perspective. But surprisingly when I said this to my father, he tried to disagree with me and said, with no supporting evidence at all, that white people aren't racist.
I've thought about this for quite some time now, I've even spoken to my white friends about it and we agreed that white people can't see racism because they have never experienced it. Have you ever seen a white person being discriminated for being white? White privilege is so obvious that even we're fooled to think that what's white must be what's normal. It's total bullshit. White supremacy is everywhere, especially in Asia, that we've all calmly accepted it to be the way it is. Why are we so embarrassed of being ourselves, why can't we seek to be more diverse instead of just blindly following white traditions, white perspectives and white opinions?
In a time span of less than ten months, I have changed completely from being this white-girl wannabe to just being me, regardless of what I'm made of. My dad will always be my dad and my surname will always be Walker. But truthfully, that doesn't count for anything because I like the fact that my name doesn't correspond to how I look, I like the fact that I'm pretty much Asian inside out, I like the food and the humidity of Malaysia, I won't trade any of that to living in a country that marginalises people based on their race.
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