What are you?

So I went to this photo exhibit opening last night:

3/10/2008 - 5/30/2008
Solo Exhibition - Part Asian, 100% Hapa (Opening Reception 3/10, 6-8:00 PM) -
Asian/Pacific/American Institute, NYU
212.992.9651
www.seaweedproductions.com

The interest is obvious for me as someone who's half Chinese and half Swiss. But what I did not anticipate was the strange feeling of walking into a room and seeing people that look just like me. I realized at that point that it was something I'd never really felt before. I mean, it can be a hard concept to grasp conceptually. It never occurred to me that this was something that I'd never experienced. After all, while lots of people are ethnically mixed up there aren't very many places where they congregate. It's not like, if you're Chinese and just moved to NY from Hong Kong and you're feeling a little homesick you can head down to Chinatown for a bit of 'home.' Know what I mean? I know I repeated myself over and over to the people I was with and I know they were saying the same, "I've never really been in a room with people that look like me." We kept looking around, mouths slightly ajar, taking it all in. I couldn't stop looking around. People all looked so different yet similar. Some of the pieces on display(all of which had short blurbs written by the subjects about themselves) caused me to laugh out loud. If you haven't seen this exhibit or the book I'd recommend it because there certainly isn't much media out there about being mixed. Not that it's so much different from other ethnic 'experiences,' but it's still another perspective.

It was refreshing to joke about the "What are you?" question all of us mixed folk seem to get. Until that point, I'd never really encounter groups of other people who were the targets of that very same question I personally get on a regular basis. So to counter the joke it just became the first thing we discovered about each other with each new person we met. I dunno, it was an interesting bit of time. I'm sure most people take it for granted to look out into a sea of people and see lots of physical similarities but now I know that I've never really had that but I never noticed it until I did have it. It's not some 'boo hoo' thing at all, I like looking different, being different, being hard to pinpoint/label. It's an observation that I wanted to share because it blew my mind a bit. Ain't no lie...