Oh Brother...

By Edwin Tan 2012 (c)

So this tends to happen quite often when we first meet people. After they enquire about our names, they usually ask us where we come from. Australia is never a sufficient answer, so they need to know where we were born or what our "origin"/"background"/"nationality" are (which could all be answered with "Australia/n" anyway. But saying Australia isn't good enough. Coz I have chinky eyes and he has dark skin.

So we tell them where our parents were born: Malaysia. Coz you know, Malaysians are just one ethnic race of people and people seem to be happy with that answer.

Then they go on to say that we can't possibly be brothers coz we look totally different. Hence the cartoon above. However, the ethnicities we've been called have been known to vary. I usually get Korean, Japanese, Chinese and Vietnamese. Winston gets called Indian, Peruvian, Latino, Nepalese and Torres Strait Islander.

We then usually get interrograted as to the true "background" of our parents.

Yep, nice to meet you too.

I wish I could say that I've gotten used to it, but yeah, it's still a tad annoying answering all those questions. It's sooo much easier pretending to be a fob and not know English.

But anyway, I dont' get why they could possibly think my brother's Indian...

Oh right. Nevermind.