Saturday 9 June 2012

She so cultured!

By Edwin Tan (c) 2012

Yeah, so as most of you know, this tends to happen to me quite a bit. Highlights of this particular encounter include:
  1. How she waved her hand in front of her face in a circular motion when she said "your background" (see Panel 3 above) in order to clarify her initial question was alluding to my ancestral heritage i.e. my chinky eyes and yellow skin
  2. Her stressing of the point that she had attended a "travel expo" that afternoon (see Panel 4 above) and was now "like all cultural and stuff" (same panel). This may be interpreted as an attempt to convey her in-depth knowledge of other cultures i.e. 'Wow! Asians are totes exotic! I love sushi and pandas!' 

So, I've been criticised in the past for posting the "same old" types of cartoons. They're cartoons that apparently encapsulate the same old, stale ideas - you're Asian and people remark about that, everybody's racist, big whoop, haven't you posted about this before? Can't you post something new?

To them, I say, I'll stop posting these types of cartoons when I can walk into a Melbourne restaurant and not be asked where I'm from, where my parents are from, what I think about Australia, what's the exchange rate for the Korean won, what's my background, is it the year of the dragon this year, would I like chopsticks (in an Italian restaurant), so does that make me Malay, do I speak Malay, ching chong  ling long ting tong.

Until then, I'll continue to draw these boring cartoons. And I'll stop only when things like this cease to happen:    


By Edwin Tan (c) 2012

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

"Where are you from?"
"Australia"
"No, where were you originally from?"
"AUSTRALIA"
"but where were you born?"
"AUSTRALIA!"
"Oh... Where were your parents from? China?"
"Well, maybe if you go back another generation or two."

Yep, everyone who looks Chinese should be fresh outta China right? Couldn't possibly be from Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Singapore, Malaysia or AUSTRALIA.