Some random person was talking about how Aang from Avatar was 'obviously white' because no Asian person had round eyes and wavy hair. I said my father did, and he's fully Chinese. He said that my father obviously had some white ancestry then. I gave him photos to lots of East Asian people with wavy hair and pointed out that wavy hair wasn't exclusively a white feature, wtf. This then somehow led to that guy going on a rant about Japanese people denying their white ancestry, and declaring that all ethnically Chinese people have straight hair and slanted eyes, like his family does, and anyone who doesn't isn't really Chinese but in denial because they're all racist. I tried explaining how racial groups are approximations with no clear boundaries, and just describe a tendency towards certain physical features, and somehow he thought that meant I thought that two Asian-Americans would magically produce a white kid because they live in a white country, idek.
also he asked what country I was from that had all these allegedly non-Chinese-looking Chinese people, and then triumphantly declared: "I am not talking about Singapore I am talking about china Japan and Korea plus somewhat Thailand and lao and Vietnam". Because obviously Japanese and Koreans are much more Chinese than actual Chinese people from Singapore, most of whom migrated from China a generation or two ago.
![[none]](./images/smilies/none.gif "none"){kind=small}
my brain hurts now
Asia is a really huge continent. China is a really huge country. There's so much variation in appearance, and it's weird that people think any kind of racial purity is possible or even has any meaning to begin with. It's not like there's a strict line between Europe and Asia, and all the people on one side look one way, and those on the other side look another way.
although yeah, my father's not 100% Chinese. My grandfather is Peranakan, with darker skin and bigger eyes than the average Chinese person. My grandmother probably does have some distant white ancestry - random kids on her side of the family have popped up with blue eyes after their parents married white people, and her uncle had naturally red hair. But that's irrelevant to any discussion other than the discussion of how much white privilege I am entitled to.
