Tags
Australia, changing opinions, education, Identity, Korea, making a difference, nationality, Poland, race, racism, stereotypes, teacher, teaching
IDENTITY IN THE MAKING
Being Korean born and adopted into an Australian family with a Polish heritage I often get questioned about my identity. ‘What’s your Nationality?’ ‘What languages do you speak?’ ‘How long have you lived in Australia for?’ are just some examples of these questions. When I answer: ‘stralian’, ‘English and Spanish’ and ‘fer my whole life’ in the most Aussie of accents I can muster, I get a range of responses, some of which can be highly amusing. From raised eyebrows (disbelief), to frowns (careful contemplation), to flustered shaking of hands and sweating (embarrassment) and finally, plain disappointment.
But it’s not these questions that bother me (I mean I look ‘Asian’ whatever that means, and own a last name that’s like running a marathon every time you spell it). Questions are just curiosity and a desire to know what’s not understood. It’s when people assume they know me, or when they prescribe an identity to me that completely misrepresents who I am, that I can get a bit narky. Examples of this include the following:
-Once I was walking up Mt Lofty with my dad, sweating my way up the hill and minding my own business when a random guy shouted ‘Ni hao!’ at me as he passed. He did so extremely loudly (as though I were deaf) then proceeded to laugh hysterically as if it was the funniest thing he ever did. My dad was close to whacking him one, I suspect.
-Another time, I’d just paid for my petrol when the man at the cash register yelled, ‘thanks little China!’ at me as I left. I still don’t understand what on earth he meant by this, but for the sake of this post, it was SO NOT ON!
-When I was in Vietnam, I was subjected to the very opposite. Nobody believed that I was a volunteer English teacher because they didn’t believe I was Australian. I even had to show one particular man my passport as proof. My friends, however, all Caucasian, some blonde, all very fair skinned, were given the royal treatment. Free chocolates and lollies, invitations to dinner with their families, lots of ‘oooing’ and ‘ahhing’ and, to my annoyance, lots of requests for extra English lessons.
I could go on, but for fear of sounding like I’m whining (which I probably am), I just want to conclude the following. Based on my experience as an Australian who doesn’t fit the ‘conventional’ Aussie image, I think I am in a position to comment about the values and ideals of our culture. I think there are many contradictions in how we would like to see ourselves (multicultural, inclusive, open-minded) and how strongly we cling to existing ideals (colonial, Anglo-Saxon). Fair enough since these ideas have been the dominant culture and have manifested themselves through our written history and into our living spaces, but I think through culturally diverse, multi-lingual, multi-cultural, and multicoloured education, this will begin to change. At least, this is what I hope to achieve when I step into a classroom for the first time as a teacher.
