what goes around comes around.

today i stopped in happy donut for my first water ice of the season. i rarely see asians in kensington. and when i do i gawk like a tourist. so, the staff at happy donut are of east asian descent. and i paid my dollar then blurt, "are you chinese? vietnamese? ...(come on, humour me here...)" then the woman looks at me, kinda surprised with a hint of offended, and goes, "we're cambodian". "umm... are YOU chinese?"
"no, i'm taiwanese." hehe. waah.
[IT'S TAIWANESE AMERICAN HERITAGE WEEK]
anyway, i walked back to work and told my coworkers how i made a "racist" comment and asked if they were chinese. which is a 2% legit question, since happy donut sells "chinese food". but i shoulda/coulda guessed cambodian because, statistically speaking, the likelihood that an asian doughnut shop owner would be cambodian is definitely higher compared to other ethnicities.

so in that moment i instantly forgave everyone who has ever asked me such questions.

later today i was walking home and i hear someone say, "ni hao!" with incorrect tones.
i decide to humour him, turn around, and say "ni hao! teeheehee" back. i couldn't help the giggling at the end.

of course during the rest of my walk back i thought of everything i should have said:

"hai hao!!! hao jiu bu jien!!! ni ne?!!!" (chinese 101 skit #1)
"ninja!" (ninja as a euphemism for a really bad 'n' word)
"wassup mah brutha!"
"hakuna matata?" (just tryin' to reciprocate and speak your language here...)

this also made me think of j at work, who still calls me 'chinita' even though all my team tells him, "oooh daaang, you betta not call her dat coz she not chinese. "
so my future comeback is to dish it back to him and call him mexican. which i'm sure he will appreciate.