Q&A: The "where are you really from?" debacle

Hi guys, I was going to do a post about my time in Dubai (check out my posts on Instagram) but there was something in the news this week that made me quite angry and I certainly have something to say about it. In case you weren't aware, this week a senior royal aide Lady Susan Hussey caused great offence when she asked a black British woman Ngozi Fulani at an event repeatedly, "where are you really from?" despite the fact that the black lady was indeed born in London. This sparked such a major national outcry that Lady Hussey was forced to resign very quickly and Buckingham Palace offered a groveling apology - it has been headline news on the BBC and has been picked up in several countries as well as clear evidence of the monarchy as well as British society being inherently racist. As a British-Chinese person who has encountered this question before, I'll deal with this in a Q&A format to explain why this question is so offensive and how you should never ask such a question, but I will also offer tips on how to handle such social interactions as well. 

Q: So why is this question offensive? It's just the other person expressing interest in you, right? 

A: This question is offensive because it suggests that you don't come from the UK, you look like you're from another country. It is a very loaded question that can make the person at the receiving end of it feel very unwelcomed, "you're not one of us, you're not from around here, so where are you really from?" This black lady Ms Fulani in question was born in London, she wasn't from Africa - but if you wanted to know where her parents or grandparents were from, then you should have asked a different question about her ancestry rather than use that terrible choice of words of "where are you really from". To me, it suggests that this person asking the question has already made up her mind that Ms Fulani must be foreign despite the fact that she did say, "I was born in London". Now when I have encountered this question before, if I did ever reply that I'm British-Chinese or that I was born in Singapore, the other person would  say something really stupid like "ni hao" or start telling me something like, "I once met someone from Singapore when I was at university." The population of Singapore is 5.9 million people, the chances of me actually knowing that person you met at university is effectively zero and besides, why should I care if you actually met someone from Singapore? Hence this is an example of someone with terribly poor social skills trying to establish rapport and failing miserably: they think they can impress me by showing that they know something about Chinese culture or Singapore, but they fail to realize that I've set the bar very high to be impressed. Look, I've met white people who can speak Mandarin fluently and if your Mandarin is better than mine, then hats off to you, I'm impressed but if you think that I'm going to be impressed if you speak just five words of Mandarin, then no, you have just misfired on that attempt to establish rapport with me. But it's not racism per se, it's simply really poor social skills and a complete inability to know how to establish rapport with someone you have just met. 

Q: So how should the white person handle this issue then so as not to cause offence? 

A: Please remember, the golden rule is never ever try to impress someone you've just met - that's just very bad manners and poor taste. Besides, it is an extremely difficult way to establish rapport as you cannot predict their reaction even if you do share a piece of information that is impressive. So for example, I was at a meeting in Dubai when the client mentioned just how much money had made on the property market in Dubai. He even told us exactly how much his profit was and gave us just a bit too much information, it did feel like he was trying to show off, "look at me, I am so clever with my investments and I made so much money in the process. Please tell me you're impressed!" Neither my boss nor I were impressed - don't get me wrong, I deal with investments for a living and thus if what he said was true, then yes of course he has done very well. But I judged him for his poor social skills in trying to establish rapport this way: it was his attempt at establish rapport that failed (even if his investments were quite successful). My boss probably felt the same way about this guy's attempt to impress us - it didn't go down well with him. It is a rather egotistical approach to establishing rapport: to try to get people to like you because they're impressed with what you have (in terms of material wealth or achievements) rather than getting people to like you because you're simply a really nice person. We don't know how Lady Hussey would have reacted if Ms Fulani had talked about where her parents were from, I wonder if Lady Hussey would have tried to impress her by talking about other West Africans she has met before - but that's me speculating based on the many awful conversations I've had with dumb people with no social skills before in this country. 

Q: So you're chalking it up to poor social skills rather than racism per se? 

A: Yes and no, it's a complex question and I'm not letting Lady Hussey off the hook - it's the difference between murder and manslaughter. Allow me to give you an analogy: imagine if Lady Hussey was driving and she got distracted by a notification on her phone, she takes her eyes off the road for a moment to look at her phone screen - that lapse of concentration causes her to miss a bend in the road and she veers off the road onto the pavement, running over a pedestrian, the pedestrian dies on the spot. So Lady Hussey claims in her defence that she didn't set out to murder that pedestrian, it was all an unfortunate accident and she shouldn't be punished. She didn't know whom that pedestrian was and thus had no motivation to kill that pedestrian. However, in this case, I would say that even if she didn't deliberately set out to kill that pedestrian in question, thus she is still responsible for that death through dangerous driving and ought to be punished for that. It would be a lesser charge of manslaughter rather than first degree murder. Thus in this case, even if Lady Hussey didn't have the intention to racially abuse Ms Fulani, the end result is still the same and pleading ignorance or a lack of malice, a lack of intention to cause offence doesn't undo the damage that her actions had clearly caused. Such is the problem with working with royalty - people like Lady Hussey are put in that position because they were born into the right aristocratic family rather than because she had been selected on the basis of merit - thus in the absence of meritocracy, you get idiots like her who have such terrible social skills that she ends up embarrassing the royal family at events like this. Even if someone like her clearly has terrible social skills, then she ought to have received the appropriate training to teach her how to interact with the public without causing grave offence like that but clearly, her training was inappropriate: trying to teach the elderly anything new is always very challenging and if she is that woefully incompetent, then she should have never been asked to work in that position in the first place. Let me be very clear: Lady Hussey is an idiot, she is incompetent - she must be removed from official roles at once and she is guilty of racism. 

Q: How do you propose dealing with this issue then? 

A: If we know that asking people where they're from is a major social taboo, then you can ask other questions to try to get the same information. For me, the question I always ask is, "what other languages do you speak?" That was, I've got a good excuse to ask: I'm learning these languages and I'm hoping to get the chance to practice speaking the languages with you if you happen to speak them too. Then that way it becomes a more innocent conversation about me learning languages rather than me challenging them whether they belong here in England. If someone is from another country, then in all likelihood, they would speak another language and if not, then they might be from somewhere like Australia or Canada where they could have grown up in an English-speaking environment. The other way I deal with it is asking them about the past - so for example, if I encounter someone in my gymnastics who is speaking English with a foreign accent, I would start the conversation like, "I really love the way you do that skill, you must have had really good coaches! Where did you used to train, to learn to do it like that? You have such good technique!" You see, they would then volunteer the name of a gymnastics club and I would then be able to work out the location of that gymnastics club as to where they had lived before coming to the UK. It's my way of getting people to volunteer that same information without asking them point blank, "so where are you from?" I can usually sense when someone is willing to volunteer that information or not - if they're not comfortable, then I would back off and leave them alone to avoid causing any awkwardness. But in inquiring about certain aspects of their lives like this, I am showing interest that is specific to their experiences. So at work, I would do the same thing by asking people where they had worked previously to see if they had lived in another country - it's not the same as asking them point blank where they are from, but it is simply me showing interest in their work experience. 

Q: But what's wrong with talking about your heritage or your roots? Why is that offensive? 

A: I can't stop talking about my heritage, my cultural identity, my family and my childhood growing up in Singapore, my experiences etc here on my blog but note that I am doing this on my terms and I am able to select exactly which aspects of my experiences I wish to discuss here where I have full control over what I share. People like Ms Fulani and I are not trying to pass as white or pretend that our skin colour is anything different - we just don't like being interrogated by white people who are determined to get a very simple answer like, "you're African, you're Chinese" and shove us in a box without giving us the opportunity to explain what makes us unique individuals. I may have Chinese DNA (well I'm mixed but I digress) and that has resulted in the colour of my skin along with my facial features like the shape of my eyes. But what about the fact that I had never lived in China? I grew up in Singapore speaking English as a first language; furthermore, because I pursued French at university and had spent years working in French speaking environments, I speak near native-standard French and my French is far more fluent than my Mandarin, which is my third language. The fact is my education and work experiences have been far more influential in determining my cultural identity than my Chinese DNA per se - I want to be able to talk about myself on my own terms, rather than have a lazy, ignorant white person shove me into a box labelled 'all Chinese people are a monolithic entity'. I love talking about myself, once I get started, I can't bloody shut up and that's why I write my blog. But when a white person asks me where I am from, they're expecting a one word answer like 'China', rather than allowing me to explain the complexity of my multi-faceted identity. 

Q: Nonetheless, would it hurt if you said, "I'm from Singapore" and then talked to them about Singapore? Could you then use this as an opportunity to educate someone about Singapore if they are that ignorant? 

A: I think it depends on who is asking. Let me give you an example which was offensive, I was going to a meeting in this big office building in London and I got into a lift with an old white man. He then looked at me and asked, "are you Japanese?" I then replied, "why do you want to know? What gives you the right to ask me that question?" He said, "oh I'm just curious." I then told him, "you're just being rude, I don't know who you are, you're just some random person I met in the lift and you don't have the right to ask me that kind of question. I didn't start interrogating you about who you are and what you're doing in this building. No, I'm quietly standing here minding my own business and you ought to do the same. I suggest you Google social skills because you're certainly lacking in that department." I went out of my way to be nasty to him because he had no reason to ask me that question and it's not like I am some kind of official spokesperson for the Singapore Tourism Board to try to persuade random people I meet that Singapore is a great place to visit for a holiday. Let's contrast this to a meeting I had in Dubai with an Australian lady - Dubai is 89% expatriate and people come from all over the world to work and live there or to do business there. So within that context, I was quite happy to tell her that I was born in Singapore but had spent more than half my life in the UK. Thus with that Australian lady who was friendly and definitely showed a genuine interest in getting to know me better (well, because she wants my company to use her products), so I didn't mind talking to her about Singapore and asking her what she thought about Singapore given that she has visited it many times (thus she would have an informed opinion about Singapore). Therefore within the right context, such as in a meeting with that Australian lady, I was more than happy to talk to her about Singapore but that was very different from that creepy old man in that lift in London who asked me if I was Japanese and the context is vital.

 Q: Are you pretending to be white by demanding that white people ignore your skin colour? 

A: Aah this brings to mind the Sarah Tiong case. I've already blogged about this so I will link this to my original posts but in a nutshell, Tiong is an Australian celebrity chef who got so pissed off when a dumb white Australian DJ interviewing her tried to impress her with a few words of Chinese that she abruptly left the interview. The Australian radio station in question issued an apology but Tiong received a lot of hate not from white Australians but from Chinese people! Tiong's parents were Chinese-Malaysian migrants and there was an insane amount of hate from the Chinese-Malaysian community directed at Tiong after that incident, accusing her of turning her back on her Chinese roots and pretending to be white. That wasn't the case at all - Tiong had the right to tell a white idiot with very poor social skills to piss off, she wasn't some kind of cultural ambassador tasked with encouraging white people to learn more about Chinese culture. Quite frankly, I just don't expect my white friends to know anything about Chinese culture or speak any Chinese but I do expect them to talk about Chinese culture in a respectful manner if it came up in the conversation. People like Tiong and I are not pretending to be white nor are we demanding that white people treat us as if we're white, we do reserve the right to be pissed off when really stupid white people with poor social skills say dumb shit to us. I felt bad for Tiong as she didn't deserve all that hatred and I hope this incident involving Ms Fulani will highlight to those of you living outside the West what it is like to be at the receiving end of this kind of racism when dealing with white idiots with poor social skills. If you're a Chinese person who is proud of your Chinese heritage, then go ahead and tell the world what you love about your culture, but never expect anyone else to be doing that on your behalf - you have to get on with it and do it yourself. 

Q: Why do people ask such a question anyway? It seems quite intrusive, even rude. 

A: There's definitely an element of childlike curiosity in there - I remember when I was traveling in parts of rural Africa where they would never seen a Chinese-looking person like me before, the kids would just stare at me as if I was an alien. I'd like to think that they have already seen people from all over the world on TV or the internet but no, these kids were still curious when they saw someone like me walk into their town. They would even talk about me, assuming that I wouldn't understand and most thought I was Japanese - like nobody thinks I'm Chinese, most people think I'm Japanese for some reason. But those are young children, they don't know any better, they're not old enough to develop social skills to allow them to cope with this kind of situation. However we cannot take it for granted that all adults would have attained the right kind of social skills as they grow up - some remain in this child-like state with awful social skills. They see someone who looks different and their first instinct is, "I want to know where this person is from", rather than, "ooh but if I ask such a question, I may make them feel uncomfortable and upset, so actually I shouldn't raise the topic now." Once again, it's the same root reason of all of these problems: poor social skills. I know it is not malicious - it's just plain stupidity when it comes to failing to take into account the consequences of your action. As a rational adult, I would think two steps ahead whenever I have to make a decision: I'd weigh out the pros and cons of various actions before I pick the right option. Whereas children are more impulsive, they have no filter and just do what they feel like doing or say the first thing that comes to their mind without considering the consequences of their actions. There are some adults who still have that child-like naivety when it comes to saying the first thing that comes to their mind without realizing how badly misjudged their choice of words are. Trust me, my parents are incredibly autistic and they're so old today, but they're always saying the most inappropriate, offensive crap. Being older hasn't made them wiser, they are still naive and stupid.

Q: But is it just white people with poor social skills who ask such offensive questions? 

A: No, not at all; white people aren't the only ones with poor social skills, I'm encounter plenty of Asian and black people with really bad social skills too. I've seen Singaporeans say really stupid shit to white people - oh yeah, there are loads of Singaporeans with really shockingly poor social skills. Let me share with you this incident from years ago. White person walks into the room at an event, Singapore guy asks him where are you from? The white guy replies, "I'm from Prague, in the Czech Republic." The Singaporean guy then responds to that by saying, "Your country was once known as Czechoslovakia, then it was split into two new countries: Czech Republic and Slovakia!" And I was shaking my head in disbelief, I had to tell the Singaporean guy, "you just told this Czech guy a piece of information about his country that is common knowledge. You are not saying anything insightful or informative or even interesting. So if you're trying to impress him, then you've totally failed. You've only demonstrated that you're creepy and weird, that you have no social skills and you don't know how to make new friends."  The creepy weirdo from Singapore said to me that he was just trying to be friendly and establish rapport with the Czech guy. I then told him that this was not the way to do it, he had the demeanor of a ten year old kid in a primary school trying to impress the teacher that he knew the answer to a question, that is not how we build rapport with people we have just met. The Czech guy probably doesn't really care if you knew that much about the history of his country but I'm sure that he would be quite pleased if you showed some interest in him personally - how about asking him what he is doing in Singapore for a start, if this is his first trip to Singapore, what he has enjoyed in Singapore or what he dislikes about Singapore. At least by asking such questions, you're showing that you care about how he feels and what he thinks - by volunteering some random fact about his country, were you expecting him to respond like your primary school teacher and reward you for knowing that fact? It doesn't work like that! After all, you're an adult now so you do realize you're no longer in primary school and this Czech guy is not your teacher. 

Q: So do Asian people in the UK do the same dumb shit?

A: Yes, they do. I had this ridiculous encounter with two Indian guys who insisted that I was Japanese when I was in a supermarket - you see, I was visiting my friend Sylvia in her new home in North London and I decided, I couldn't just show up empty handed. So when I got out of the train station, I then went into the local supermarket to try to find something like chocolates or flowers for her. This was a small shop run by two Indian guys and I couldn't find price tags on many of the items so I picked up a box of chocolates and asked them how much it cost. They then gave me a price which seemed ridiculous - like I know how much I would expect to pay for this in a major British supermarket and the price they gave me was more than double that. So I was about to put the box of chocolates back down and walk out of that shop when the Indian guy said to me, "it is still cheaper than where you come from." I then said, "you have no idea where I come from and how much chocolates cost there, so what you said was utter rubbish. I know exactly how much I would pay for this is Tesco, Waitrose or Asda." The Indian guy then laughed and said, "my prices are cheaper than in Japan!" So I replied, "I am not Japanese and you're an idiot, I'm not spending my money here so you can go fuck yourself." The Indian guy looked quite shocked at my outburst and was left speechless. His colleague then stepped in and said, "look bro, he wasn't trying to cause any offence, he was just trying to be funny." I then told his more sensible colleague that you do not take a look at your customers and make assumptions about what country they are from; quite frankly, that's none of his business and it is not some game I'm willing to play with him. He must respect the privacy of his customers who just want to shop in peace, buy the items they need and then leave the shop without having that kind of awkward conversation about where they are from. I then realized, if these two were any more intelligent, would they be doing a poorly paid job like this? No, obviously not - not only did they have awful social skills, they were quite stupid too. 

Q: So when does bad social skills turn into outright racism? Where do you draw the line? 

A: I think there is a sliding scale - there's a difference of course between someone beating up Chinese looking people during the pandemic (which actually did happen) and the kind of ignorant behaviour that I experienced in with those Indian shopkeepers in North London who assumed I was Japanese. On one hand, you might argue that we should be more forgiving of those who are ignorant or stupid (as in the case of the Indian shopkeepers) in the absence of malice and we should reserve our strongest response to the real racists who have malicious intentions. However, if we do that, then we are silently condoning bad behaviour that stems from poor social skills, allowing people to get with that time and time again simply creates a situation whereby these ignorant people don't realize what they're doing is wrong and offensive - so if we don't call them out and tell them that it is not acceptable, then how are they ever going to learn? Thus for the sake of the greater good, to help us progress as a society, we need to hold people like Lady Hussey to account for their mistakes whether there was any malice involved or not in order to warn others that this is not acceptable at all and nip this kind of racism in the bud. I'm not making any excuses for her, I think she is a stupid, racist, senile old idiot who should never be allowed to work again and I'd like to see her make a humiliating public apology for those racist remarks. 

Q: Okay, but why do people like Lady Hussey and others still say dumb things like that? 

A: For too long, we've simply put up with people who say dumb shit - we forgive them, we tolerate their poor behaviour, we dismiss it as, "there's no malice involved, it was just a little misunderstanding and so let's move on." If we keep on putting up with this kind of idiotic crap, then we are silently condoning it and it it time we call it out. Whether Lady Hussey was genuinely racist or just a dumb old woman with terrible social skills, what she did was wrong, there was no excuse and she has to be held accountable for her actions in this case. I am pleased with the way Buckingham Palace has reacted immediately by offering a groveling apology without trying to defend her racist behaviour. So the rest of us have to join in and say, what she did was completely wrong and unacceptable, so she must be punished rather than forgiven. 

Q: Aren't you just being too woke? You're too easily triggered. 

A: I don't think so. I remember many years ago when I went public with a genuine case of racism at work, I'm not going to repeat all the details here as I've already written a long blog post about it. Someone made a racist joke and it was very rude and downright racist - so I called them out for that to my management and got an apology. However, the amount of hatred I got online was insane though, it was everything from "you're taking it too personally, even if it was a racist joke about Chinese people it wasn't directed at you" to "don't be such a flower, just be tough and brush it aside if you don't like what people say, no need to make such a fuss like that." The fact is Ms Fulani and I have the right to feel safe from discrimination when we are at work as that's the law of the country, it's not me demanding some special privileges or rights, instead I'm merely asking for the protection that I am rightfully entitled to according to the laws of the UK. If you don't like the laws of the land protecting people like me from racism, then tough shit. The irony is that my work place sprang into action and I got a groveling apology immediately from the two racist idiots at once but it was the hatred online that took me by surprise. There is still a lot of ignorance out there about where the law stands, what is not socially acceptable and what is plain illegal - my conclusion is that there are a lot of bloody stupid idiots out there but then again, am I telling you anything you don't already know? The line is crossed when the law is broken, not when there is public consensus about whether or not Ms Fulani or myself have the right to feel offended. Hence the laws are written by intelligent people in government to govern the masses, the hoi polloi: common people who are often stupid and ignorant. 

Q: Are you expecting white people to ignore the colour of your skin to avoid offending you? 

A: Well, I expect them to treat me with a certain level of civility, let's put it this way. If you see a person in a wheelchair, you do not run up to them and start asking, "so why are you in a wheelchair? What is wrong with your legs or spine? Will you ever walk again? Give me your full medical records now." No, that would be so rude and terribly offensive. Even if you are curious, you have to think about how such a line of questioning would make the person in the wheelchair feel and thus any rational person would just avoid the topic altogether. Likewise, if a white person notices that I am obviously Asian or Chinese looking, I expect them to approach the topic in the same way - if you start demanding to know where my ancestors are from out of the blue and start interrogating me in the same way that Lady Hussey interrogated Ms Fulani, how is that anything but downright rude and offensive? Thus the key thing is to offer me a good reason why you want to know and it had better be a valid reason: simply being curious isn't a good enough reason. So I actually get this a lot - I'm a Chinese looking guy who works for a Latin American company and I speak Spanish at work, so most people look at me and would do a double take as my circumstances are unusual to say the least. Hence if people want to ask a specific question about how I ended up working for a Latin American company, then that's totally fine and I'm happy to talk about my journey that led me to where I am today - they're expressing an interest in me and I'm happy to have that kind of conversation. But then if people start asking me about 'where my ancestors are from' - that's not acceptable at all and I would usually challenge the person by demanding why they have asked this kind of rude question in the first place. 

Okay so that's it from me on this topic, what do you think? Do you think that Lady Hussey should be forgiven for her poor choice of words because there was probably no malice intended? Would a public apology suffice or should Ms Fulani make a police report about racist harassment? How would you like to see Lady Hussey punished for her racist actions? Are you willing to be more forgiving of her folly and mistake just because she is so old? Or do you actually think that I've been too harsh on her because she is white and very rich? Please leave a comment below and many thanks for reading.