I was born and raised up in New York, barely spoke a word of Chinese. I didn’t know the difference between Taiwan and Thailand.(laugh)
I was American as blablabla… until one day on a third grade playground, the inevitable finally happened. I got teased for being Chinese.
Every kid just teased for making fun on the playground, but this was fundamentally different and I knew it right then and there. This kid, let’s call him Bryan the Cowboy.
He started making fun of me, saying “Chinese, Japanese,Dirty knees, Look at these!”
(laugh)
The kids started laughing at me and it hurts!
我在纽约出生长大,几乎一句中文都不会说。以前我连“台湾”和“泰国”都分不清。

(大笑)
直到我上了三年级,有一天在操场上,不可避免的事情终于发生了。因为中国人的血统,我第一次被人取笑了。
当然,平时一起玩儿的小孩子都会互相戏弄开玩笑,但是这次的性质绝对不同,这点我在彼时彼地就感觉到了。我们暂且管那孩子叫牛仔布莱恩吧!他嘲笑我说:“Chinese, Japanese, Dirty knees, Look at these!”(种族歧视的歌词恕不翻译了抱歉)
大家都开始笑我,我真的很受伤!
I can still remember how I felt, I felt shamed, I felt embarrassed, but I laughed along with them, with everybody. I didn’t know what else to do. It was like having out-body experience, as if I could laugh at that Chinese kid on the playground with all the other American kids because I was one of them.
Right? Wrong! On many levels.
我依然能够记得我当时的感觉,我觉得特别丢脸特别羞愧。但是我当时跟着所有其他人一样在笑。年幼的我并不知道该怎么办,似乎觉得如果我能跟操场上其他美国孩子一起嘲笑“中国人”,我就能置身事外了,我就是他们当中的一员了。
这种想法可取吗?当然不可取,而且是大错特错。