Back home in the States, one of the most common questions I
get (got?) was about my ethnicity.
Almost directly after asking for my name, I get asked a lot about my
heritage. Amused, I almost always ask
the person to guess because I am interested in what other people think I look
like (based solely on the fact that I get asked this question a lot). Without fail, most people guess a combination
of things and usually that combination includes an Asian guess. Commonly included have been Japanese,
Chinese, Filipina, and even Eskimo (they were serious). After a lifetime of responses I have
concluded that no one in America can tell the difference between Asians. Just kidding. But seriously.
One of the best things about America (and there are ever so
many), in my opinion, is the diversity.
Earlier I had said that barang
meant “foreigner.” I was actually kind
of wrong about that; directly translated, barang
means “Frenchman,” but Khmer people use it as a general term for
“Western-looking person.” When people
call me a barang, I say “No, I’m
American,” because if I am going to be referred to as a foreigner with a
nationality, it is going to be as the kind of nationality I have,
thankyouverymuch.
When I first arrived in Cambodia I was so offended when people
said this to me, and considered it extremely rude. I think this is largely because something
like this is entirely unacceptable in America (we call it “racism”). But in a homogeneous society where everyone
looks very similar (i.e. has the same stature, generally the same face shape,
eye color, hair color, etc), it’s easy to spot “outsiders”: they are simply
anyone who does not look like everyone else in the country. Growing up in the States, no matter where you
are from, though likely more so in cities, exposure to different types of
cultures is inevitable, and along with those cultures comes diversity in faces,
skin color, language, food, and other aspects of daily life. Moving to Cambodia was a shock in the sense
that instead of walking outside and encountering 7 different types of people in
a 5 minute walk down the street to 4 different choices of food types, I
encounter one culture, one food type, and one face type on a daily basis (what
I wouldn’t do for some Mexican or Greek food right now, trust me.)
In the beginning, when I didn’t speak a lot of Khmer, I
couldn’t understand what was being said to me after the initial surprised look
upon seeing my face. Now I know that
mostly what Khmer people say to me upon meeting me is moak doyk Khmer, or something like, “Khmer face.” It happens All. The. Time.
It’s an interesting experience because not only am I not
Khmer, I have no Asian ancestry that I know of, nor does anyone in my family
ever get this kind of response (in America).
However, Khmer people think that I look Khmer or Chinese, and Thai
people think I look Thai. This generally leaves me in an awkward place; I am
not Khmer, and do not speak fluent, correct Khmer, but I am not wholly a barang (in Khmer eyes) because I have a
nationals’ face but barang skin. Sometimes though, I am mistaken for a Khmer
person and often blend in. I am quite
literally stuck between two worlds.
Let me recount some interesting (but not singular) instances:
I was at Amber’s house in Kampong Chhnang working on
the ANC Project, and I met her host mom who immediately commented on my
Khmer-looking face (Shocker). Later that
day, during the evening meal, she gestured to my hands and told me I had Khmer
hands because clearly I worked with them.
Then she gestured to Amber’s hands and told me her hands were American
because clearly she did not work with them.
She made me laugh but she also revealed what she thought
about Americans: mainly that we don’t work like Khmer people do. Granted, manual labor has never been one of
my after-school or summer jobs, and I don’t work over a stove all day (or ever)
like a lot of Khmer women, but I like to think that I and my brethren work very
hard. Also, I wondered, what is it that
we’re doing here? Vacationing?
When Diana visited we were in Thailand for a few days and
during the last day we went to see a golden Buddha. While there, a Thai man commented to Diana
and I that we had the same face (we get told that we look alike A LOT). We nodded, as we generally do. Then he proceeded to tell me that I had a
Thai face.
Really? Did Diana? No.
How does that even work?
The same thing happened at my site. When my host mom and grandmother met Diana
they told me that we looked a lot alike but that I had a Khmer face and Diana
did not. Great, because that makes
complete sense.
Having been asked a lot about my heritage in America, and
having been told that I look Khmer and Thai and Chinese in this part of the
world, I have come to realize that the questions are asked (or stated) with
different intentions. In America it’s
more a curiosity; a question designed to pinpoint a facial feature, perhaps. My ethnically ambiguous face doesn’t stand
out in a place where diversity is the rule rather than the exception. It’s interesting (beauty does that to people)
but in the sense that it’s a small-talk conversation topic and not much more. In Asia, Khmer people telling me that I look
Chinese means something else entirely.
Khmer people telling me I look Khmer when they learn I am from America
means something else as well. It’s not
simple curiosity here in a place where everyone has the same face; it means something. And not being from here, I don’t exactly know
what that something is.
On my toury ride from Kampong Chhnang, I met a Khmer lady
who (Shocked again!) exclaimed immediately upon looking at my face that I had
such a Khmer face. I nodded and told her
that I get that a lot. She asked me
where I was from and I responded that the States was my place of origin. She paused before telling me that I didn’t
look American, I looked Chinese and Khmer, more Chinese than Khmer though. “No, I’m American,” I said to her, to which
she responded, “Kom jooh” (I don’t
believe you). This was new. I considered her for a moment before asking
her what, exactly, did Americans look like?
In a voice that clearly confirmed my status as an imposter, she told me
that first and foremost, Americans were beautiful.
I pretended not to be insulted.
Then I filed that tidbit away in my memory for when someone
back home had a pity party. Now now, I could reason with them, a source in Cambodia has told me that you
are beautiful, and other such stuff.
She went on to describe Reese Witherspoon and other
such celebrities that may have descended from the Vikings, all of them with
eyes as blue as the ocean and flowing golden hair – generally towering over the
rest of the population with an impressive Thor-like build.
I was at first a little concerned. When I imagine home, “home” being the United
States of America, which I have traveled and lived in many different cities in
different parts of the country, I never imagine one type of face or body
type. Usually a few different friends
and family come to mind and with them, every different eye color, hair color,
body type, skin color, language and religion I can possibly envision. Americans have the reputation of huge egos
and maybe getting fat, yeah yeah, but typical “blonde hair, blue eyes” was the
best she could come up with? How
disappointing. It was at that point that
I realized just how much of a difference there is between “looks” at home and “looks”
in Cambodia. In America, “beauty” has a
rather broad definition and is focused a lot on the body – the media and
whatnot are forever commenting on “thin” this person “fit” and “healthy,” or
“overweight” such and such. In Cambodia,
people comment a lot on faces. There are
the “fat” and “skinny” identifying words or whatever but people don’t really go
on about my “fat” body; they love talking about my face.
During another random incident, I was in the health center
of my village, sitting in the ANC room with some of the midwives when a woman
came in and sat down next to me, speaking rapid Khmer to the staff. They spoke for a few minutes, she left, came
back, and sat back down. After another
minute or so, she looked at me, did a double take, and exclaimed, “Ah! Barang doych Koray!” or something of
the sort, pointing out that I was a foreigner and then telling me that I looked
Korean. I told her I was American. After that, the midwives studied me, trying
to decide if I looked Korean or not. I
got a 50% “yes” on that question.
Well that was new too. -Ish.
Flying from Phnom Penh to Beijing, I sat next to
this adorable older Chinese couple. They
both had US passports, which I noticed – as did a lady who sat behind us. This lady thought that they were my
grandparents and probably that we were going to see my ancestral home or
something. I thought this was hilarious
(I played along – have you learned nothing about me yet?). Actually, (I talked to them a bit) they were
US citizens, but had lived in a few different places around the world and spoke
better Khmer than English. We proceeded
our conversation in Khmer and via my terrible Khmer, the grandmother taught me
a few words in Mandarin - of which I remember exactly one. That was pretty cool. Anyway, the lady thought that I was their
grandchild, of Chinese descent, whereas the couple knew I was not Chinese, and because
I was speaking rather rapid English to the lady behind us, thought that I knew
her instead. What a tangled web we
weave, am I right?
On the flight from Shanghai to Beijing I sat next to two
American ladies conversing in French. Not
thirty minutes into the flight, one of them turned to me and asked, “What’s
‘Mickey Mouse’ in Chinese?”
At that moment I was suddenly hit with two simultaneous
thoughts. The first thought was an immediate
worry that the face I see in the mirror (at least once a week) is not the face
that the rest of the world sees, a notion which (despite endless inquiries
about the ethnic ambiguity of my face throughout my life) had never occurred to
me before. The second thought was that
“Mickey Mouse” in Mandarin was the sort of common knowledge that everyone
should know-akin to knowing that Paris is the capital of France or that
Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel-an example of something
prime missing from my childhood education (and if this was the case, then what
else had I missed; the story of Father Christmas in Swedish? the origins of the
Easter Bunny?!).
“I don’t know” I said to her.
She didn’t even pause, “Is it *insert-Mandarin-sounding-word-here*?”
The look on my face was blanker than a Khmer person’s when I
speak English. “I don’t know” I repeated.
She gave me a look that said she didn’t believe me and
turned back to her friend.
I have never met anyone in all of my travels who would not
willingly translate a small word or phrase if they were asked and spoke both
languages and was offended that she thought that I would not share information
like that if I had known it. What was I
supposed to do? I really don’t know anything in Mandarin except for “hello” and
thank you”, both of which I may or may not mispronounce unintentionally at
every opportunity. People aren’t just
mean like that, and despite the fact that we were in China, she was surrounded
by people from the tour group. Not only
that, I’m not Chinese. Wonder of wonders that she should meet
someone on an airplane surrounded by a tour group who, like her, doesn’t speak
Mandarin.
It wasn’t until she gave me that look that it dawned on me
that she thought there was Chinese in me and by default of my Chinese-looking
face, I must speak Mandarin.
Thus the lessons.
What all of this has taught me is nothing about my looks and everything
about assumptions. People assume so many
things based on my looks; that I’m Khmer, that I’m a Japanese/Eskimo
combination, that I speak Mandarin. It
was funny in the beginning, and I play around with it when I get the chance, but mostly, when these things happen (and boy do they happen) I
get a little twinge of homesickness, and I think of “home” the US, where I do
get the question of my ancestry a lot.
It’s just curiosity though, and whoever asks it is asking with interest
how my face was assembled – which backgrounds came together to make me. The idea of questioning whether or not I am
American is never even an idea.
The truth of it is that it
doesn’t matter what my ethnicity is.
I had thought about owning up to it on this blog, but after composing a
small paragraph, I read it over and thought to myself, who cares? It’s not
important. You know what’s important? -Health messages that I attempt to pass on to my village, encouraging basic and continuing
education, spreading knowledge of my own
country to these people and their culture to my own. The whole point of this blog post is that it
boils down to two questions: Why does it matter if I look Khmer or if I don’t?
Would my message mean less if I were Khmer?
And I think that is a huge reason Peace Corps is
important. To spread the idea that the message,
the knowledge, the learning is what is important, not the vehicle that is used to spread it.
But if you ask me where I am from, I am still going to say “America,”
and if you ask me about my heritage, I am still going to ask you to guess
first. After all, I might as well have
some fun with my face, and get a story out of it.
xo-Amanda
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