Aug
5
stereotypes
Posted by: Natasha Chiang | August 5, 2011 | 3 Comments
I’ve struggled a lot with my identity during my experience here in Uganda. Many people yell at me, “Japan!”, “China!”, “Korea!”, because I look Asian. When I tell them, I am Canadian, also Chinese, they refuse to accept it because Canadians are supposed to be white, or “mzungu”. It bothers me a lot because I’ve never really thought about how I am Asian… to be honest, I seldom identify with it, which was why it bothered me so much that people would just call me “China”.
Today a white man, looking like a beggar but dressed it nicer clothes, came up to us. We weren’t really that guarded, until he started to ask us, “do you speak English?! Thank God you speak English…” and he started on this story about how he needed money to pay his half- Ugandan son’s school fees. All these months, we would feel extremely guarded when a Ugandan approached us, because 80% of the time they would ask us for money. Back home, if someone approached me, I would think they needed the time or something. Here, I mistrust the people, as bad as that sounds. I am just tired of people asking me for money. But in the morning, as the white man came up to us and spoke to us in an English accent, somehow we felt more comfortable with him… until we realized that he was asking us for money.
We walked away, told him we couldn’t help him more than his embassy could, and felt strangely disoriented and blind-sighted.
In moments like these, I realize how easy stereotypes make our lives… and how startlingly dangerous it is that we rely on them so carelessly.
Comments
3 Comments so far
We actually had a random guy come up to me and some friends when we were in McDonald’s the other day. He was carrying around a set of skis and went from person to person asking if they’d like to donate money so he could go the olympics or something. It was kind of… funny.
Maybe he’s mentally … different? In the villages, if you have a mental disability, children throw rocks at them. And yeah, it is kind of amusing to see people make up stories to get some money. It was just extremely disconcerting to hear it from a white, middle- aged man in the middle of Uganda..
He seemed fairly normal, aside from the fact that he was asking us for money. Or rather, aside from the fact that he was asking us for money in that manner. I’d probably be more likely to give it to him if he just asked, hahaha. That’s sort of horrible, the rock throwing 🙁