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