Misunderstandings - The Chindian Stories

I have some really funny stories that a very good friend of mine told me of his experiences as an Indian man, married to a Chinese and obviously having Chindian children (DUH!!). His story is definitely not one that is unique and I am very sure it's one afflicting all Chindians AND mixed parentage people. After reading the chilling stories below, I do invite mixed parentage families to come forward and present your side of the story so that we can give the general public a much better understanding of how we are. Actually I am not very sure also la, so stand up Malaysian Chindians and be heard!!!! Ok so I drama a bit la...sue me!

When my son was 4, we sent him to a playschool and the teacher called his name 3 times. Whenever his name was called "Michael Sean David", my son would stand up but the teacher would ask him to sit back down and wait for his name to be called because she was expecting some Mat Salleh or at least an Eurasian boy.

My friend, Gerald whose daughter was in school for the first time and was asked by the teacher to raise their hands according to race so that she could record the number of students from each race. After counting, there was one more student in her class. She counted another time with the same results because Gerald's daughter raised her hands twice! Technically she is not wrong as she is Indian and Chinese. What a hoot! I am sure the teacher was super appreciative of it.

Gerald's daughters are relatively fair and don't look Indian so one day at Tesco, he was carrying his 2 year old daughter while her mother went to the ladies. She threw a tanturum (his daughter, not his wife though I think she would have too if it didn't look so wierd) saying things like "I don't want you", "I don't like you", "I want mommy", over and over again. The good news was that there immediately was an army of makcik (middle aged women) surrounding Gerald thinking he was kidnapping this fair looking kid!

He mentioned that she was his daughter and waiting for his wife. The security came over and asked to hold on to his daughter since she was obviously uncomfortable with this Indian man. Luckily his wife came back soon and all was explain when they saw that the mother was a Chinese. But this was a horrible experience for poor Gerald. Noticed I said poor Gerald and not poor me as I was laughing so hard a bit of pee came out, when I heard this story. What a wacky person! But it seems Malaysians do care after all.

Another time, Gerald (yep happened to him again) needed to get his house's auto-gate repaired. So his wife called for the service person and they were still fixing it when Gerald came home. He parked his car outside and walked in. He was immediately stopped and was told that he entered a wrong house as this was a Chinese house!! Really fuming Gerald shouted saying this is HIS house and HE was going to PAY for their work! Dammit!!! Yep, laughing and peeing again no doubt!!

My children unfortunately are having problems coming to terms with their race. They cannot understand why they have to be classified as Indians when they clearly are not! They are only 1/4 Indians but because we are so obsessed with race segmentation and we don't have categories for everyone, we just follow the father's race. Can you imagine my next generations marrying Chinese, they will soon look completely Chinese but will have Indian on the IC! Isn't that just screwed up???

My daughter has said that she is NOT Indian but is actually English! My nephews (children belonging to KLY) also thought that I was English mixed Chinese but that's because their perception of an Indian is very stereotypcial and I need to help change that but still, I am not fully Indian either. I am not English but not fully Indian nor Chinese either.

I am proud to be Indian but we gotta call it as it is. We are not going to be English la but we have got to either do away with this race thing since it is going to be redundant by the next generation. Still I thought those stories were funny. So the next time you see an Indian person calming down a Chinese looking child, pls rugby tackle the guy because he really could be a kidnapper. Even if its not, hopefully its Gerald and that would be another story to entertain me!