A to Z challenge is definitely
doing good to my memory and giving me a heartfelt grin every time I am writing
a post. Thank god I chose to write anecdotes from my life. LOL. In 2004 we were
visiting Malaysia – me and my parents. I was a freshman at college that time.
Malaysia is definitely a shopper’s paradise if you know where to shop from.
Actually, Bangkok takes the cake in shopping in these Asian countries.
Anyways, we were visiting Genting
Highlands on this particular day. The ride through the cable car was awesome.
We were staying within the theme park. After a sumptuous dinner at one of the
restaurants we were hanging around and talking a long walk to our hotel.
I was walking ahead followed by
my parents at some distance. An elderly Chinese couple were walking up from the
other side. They quickly came towards me and started talking in Chinese all of
a sudden! I could hardly understand anything and only thing I kept repeating
was – I don’t speak Chinese!
I guess they didn’t understand me
either.
But I could understand they were
asking for some help.
Only Chinese word I knew at that
time (or even now, I guess) was ‘ni hao’!!
The more I tried to explain them
neither was I understanding anything, nor can I speak, they kept on asking in
Chinese.
And seriously when two people are
speaking so fluently and you don’t understand anything it feels funny to be the
spectator.
What I could understand from all
the gestures was they were lost and they wanted to get back to their hotel!
If you have visited Genting you
will know the four hotels are color coded and you have to follow the colored
lines along the walls to reach to your destination.
I don’t know if things have
changed now, though.
They were carrying the yellow
card, with the hotel’s name in English. With some effort I could make them
understand that if they followed the yellow line on the wall they’ll reach.
Really hand gestures are a savior!
They said xie xie and left.
And guess what my parents did when they reached me – simply
laughed at me!
This is a constant problem in my life. According to my
parents and a lot of people I have quite a few Asian features on my face! I
have small eyes, flatter nose etc etc. I used to be called Japanese when I was
a kid because I looked like them! I don’t really believe in that, maybe I have
little eyes but that doesn’t make you look like Chinese or Korean!
But this has happened with me quite a few times. Once in
Mizoram, where I had gone for a trip, I was mistaken by their people as a Mizo.
They were protesting against something, there was a rally and they came to our
car and gave me a flag and said something in their language. Yes they picked me
out from a car full of passengers!
Even in Kolkata, my hometown people used to speak to me
first in Hindi, thinking I’ll not know Bengali, which is my mother tongue! Weird
I say.
You guys tell me do I look that Asian???
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| this is me in childhood, I am the one in Blue |
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| This is me from the time this incident happened. That's my mum by my side. |
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| This is me now, Feb 2016 and my little man |
Do I look very Asian??
Until next time, Cheers!!
Meanwhile check out a yum Salad Recipe
in my Food Blog
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This post is written for the A to Z Challenge 2016 for Day 7 Letter G. Visit A to Z, BlogChatter to read other beautiful bloggers!