Hello readers,

This week on ASTU, we focused on the book The Reluctant Fundamentalist written by Mohsin Hamid. The book follows the inner dialog of the protagonist, a bearded Pakistani man called Changez and his journey in America. He struggled to identity himself, during his stay in America not only did he witnessed how Americans reacted to 9/11 but also tasted first hand the rise of racism against people of colour.

This book resonated with me because in a lot of ways I can relate to Changez’s experience although not to such extreme extend. Being born in Canada but raised in Hong Kong and later coming back for 2 years of high school also university gave me somewhat an identity crisis. When people asked me where I am from, I would usually ask them weather they would like to hear the long or short version. Although I am Canadian, I identify with being a Hong Konger. To be very honest, the problem of race never crossed my mind until I came to North America. When you meet a person in Hong Kong, you wouldn’t ask where they are from because the city is made up of 96% Chinese but when I am in North America, the first thing people ask is where I am from. I studied in a school in North Vancouver where there is only me and another south east Asian student, we made up the whole Asian population in our grade, how my fellow peers identify me when I first got here is “the other Asian girl” . The idea of identifying someone according to their race is still foreign to me, my mentality changed as a result.

A scene in the book where Changez is in the parking lot and came across this man swearing at him and calling him “F**king Arab” echoed in my heart, not because of the strong language used but because I myself have unfortunately experience racism first hand not too long ago. I was on an empty bus late in the afternoon, on my way home when a drunk white male sat across me. He looked angry but I minded my own business and didn’t give much thought to it. As time progresses, he tried to make conversation but I pretended that I don’t speak English. After multiple failed attempt to make conversation, he said “F**king Sake, if you can’t speak English don’t come here, Go back to where you came from. You are wasting the resources of Canadians” he then continued and stated that he once served in Vietnam and can speak multiple languages including Mandarin and Korean. After listening to much insult and harassment, I said to him,” would you like to start a conversation with me in Mandarin, Cantonese, Korea or English cause I so happen to speak all four “ (My Korean language skills only consist of food vocabularies) . Much to his surprise, he looked at me with confusion and soon left the bus. I know I shouldn’t give much though to it because I should forgive his ignorance but I really couldn’t help it. Does the colour of your skin means so much to a person? If the situation had changed and I am White, I am sure the same thing wouldn’t have happened. Is one race better than another, this is truly a race between races.

Thankyou for reading my blog and bearing with my anger. Hope you have a great weekend 🙂