{"id":736,"date":"2024-05-01T19:00:07","date_gmt":"2024-05-01T11:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cie.hkbu.edu.hk\/the-punctum\/?p=736"},"modified":"2025-06-06T23:32:45","modified_gmt":"2025-06-06T15:32:45","slug":"what-are-you-by-ms-shannel-carnett-division-of-arts-and-languages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cie.hkbu.edu.hk\/the-punctum\/blog\/2024\/05\/01\/what-are-you-by-ms-shannel-carnett-division-of-arts-and-languages\/","title":{"rendered":"What are you? — by Ms. Shannel Carnett, Division of Arts and Languages"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n\n

What are you?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A simple question. Yes, it should be simple<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But they don\u2019t see the children point and run away, calling me \u201cmonster\u201d when all I wanted to do was to call them \u201cfriend\u201d.
They don\u2019t see that I notice when clerks run away before I can speak to them in their mother tongue.
They don\u2019t hear me being called \u201cghost girl\u201d by my own mother and her siblings during family reunions.
They don\u2019t hear her siblings asking, \u201cCan she understand what we\u2019re saying?\u201d as they place a fork down in front of me instead of chopsticks like the rest of my family. They don\u2019t see the smile slipping when they laugh at my request for chopsticks and keep the fork lying next to my bowl.
They don\u2019t notice my nodding become strained as my aunt\u2014my mother\u2019s sister\u2014enthusiastically explains a New Year tradition that I\u2019ve celebrated since I was still in diapers.
They don\u2019t feel the discomfort when I hear my own friends and family, \u201cYou\u2019re not Chinese.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, it should be easy then, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I should pretend and say that I\u2019m white. Yes, that would be easy<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet, when my classmates saw me get a 100% on my math test, they would insist that \u201cit\u2019s because you\u2019re Chinese.\u201d
They don\u2019t see the hours I spent slaving away every night on my studies, just so that I could have a chance of a better future. My own <\/em>future.
They don\u2019t understand my frustration, my disgust when my grandmother\u2014my father\u2019s mother\u2014tries to convince me to give up on my studies\u2014my future\u2014<\/em>and use my \u201cexotic\u201d appearance to \u201ccatch a rich man\u201d.
They don\u2019t hear my mother’s family complaining that I should be at least five foot eight when the average height for an American woman is five foot four.
They don\u2019t hear the disbelief from my father\u2019s family when they hear that I\u2019m treated as the \u201cminority\u201d in my mother\u2019s country. Yet, they find it understandable if I\u2019m treated the same in my father\u2019s country.
They don\u2019t notice my confusion when I open my Christmas present to find double eyelid tape when I know that behind my glasses, I have my father\u2019s eyes.
They don\u2019t feel the burning in my throat and pain in my chest when they look at me like an imposter and say, \u201cbut you\u2019re not white\u201d when my DNA report says that the white man\u2019s name on my birth certificate is, in fact, my father.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, once again, \u201cWhat are you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat am I?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, I beg you to tell me. Please help me answer this very basic <\/em>question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What am I?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What are you? A simple question. Yes, it should be simple. But they don\u2019t see the children point and run away, calling me \u201cmonster\u201d when all...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cie.hkbu.edu.hk\/the-punctum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cie.hkbu.edu.hk\/the-punctum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cie.hkbu.edu.hk\/the-punctum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cie.hkbu.edu.hk\/the-punctum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cie.hkbu.edu.hk\/the-punctum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=736"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.cie.hkbu.edu.hk\/the-punctum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":744,"href":"https:\/\/www.cie.hkbu.edu.hk\/the-punctum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736\/revisions\/744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cie.hkbu.edu.hk\/the-punctum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cie.hkbu.edu.hk\/the-punctum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cie.hkbu.edu.hk\/the-punctum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}