Years ago, when I was a graduate student fresh back from a year in Japan, one of my housemates pointed out an acquaintance at a party. "You'll be able to talk to Calvin," she said. "He's Japanese."
I wondered about Calvin's name, which certainly didn't sound Japanese. Maybe he'd given up trying to get Americans to pronounce his real name and picked one they could manage. Maybe he'd chosen Calvin because he was an admirer of Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes. If so, he was worth getting to know. "Calvin doesn't sound like a Japanese name," I said, watching Calvin pop the top of a beer can. "Are you sure he's Japanese?"
My housemate nodded. "Positive."
Whatever Calvin was, he was definitely good looking, and he didn't look stuck up either. So a few minutes later, I worked up the nerve to talk to him. "Melissa tells me you're Japanese," I said hesitantly. Now that I was standing next to him, I saw that Calvin dressed more like an American. No Japanese person would have been caught dead in jeans with frayed knees, or beat-up trainers with holes in the toes. And for that matter, the heels of his trainers weren't run down. A lot of Japanese kids wear down the heels of their shoes, changing out of them so often.
Calvin made a face. "Yeah? Funny she should say that, because I'm actually American." He took a long drink of beer and looked me in the eye. "Chinese-American. Third generation."
I did what I could to apologize, then hunted down Melissa.
"For your information," I fumed, "Calvin is American, not Japanese. And he's not even of Japanese descent, he's Chinese-American."
I was seething. I'd just embarrassed myself and it was all her fault. And she'd made me blot my copybook with Calvin, who'd been even better looking up close.
Melissa, however, wasn't the least bit embarrassed or apologetic about her gaffe. "Chinese, Japanese, whatever," she said with provoking nonchalance.
I let her have it with both barrels. "You can't just say whatever," I almost cried. "The Japanese and Chinese speak totally different languages. They eat different food, and their cultures are vastly different. And for God's sake, Calvin's a native speaker of English! You can't just blithely call somebody Japanese when he's not and say whatever when you find out you're wrong!"
"You act like it's such a big deal," Melissa said.
"It is a big deal," I told her. "Would you want somebody saying they'd heard you were English?" Melissa was, in fact, of Welsh extraction.
"You act like you know everything about Orientals," she countered.
I sucked my breath in. "You know, the preferred term is now Asian," I told her.
Melissa sipped her beer. "Whatever," she said again.
I gave up and walked away. Correcting ignorance is one thing, but correcting willful ignorance is a tough call. Especially when you're angry, a little tipsy, and wearing your party clothes.
But what Melissa said really stung. I hate being called a know-it-all because in my heart of hearts, I really do want to know everything. What I should have said, though, was You act like it's okay to be ignorant. Because that was just what she had done, and it was wrong.
I should qualify that. In many ways, we're all ignorant -- to begin with. It's okay to be ignorant, and I should know; the older I get, the more overwhelmed I am by the colossal extent of my own ignorance. No matter how much I learn, there will always be a mountain of things I don't know: languages I can't speak, music I can't read, crafts I can't do, concepts I can't grasp. I try hard to be culturally sensitive, but I've confused Ukrainians with Russians, Australians with New Zealanders, and Indians with Pakistanis. But for all that it's okay to be ignorant, that doesn't mean it's right to stay that way. Still, I've got one thing going for me that Melissa didn't: I really want to learn. And when I'm caught out, however embarrassing it is, I've learned to own up to it.
That may be why it drives me wild to find people like Melissa who are blissfully, unashamedly ignorant. Especially nowadays when we have radio, television, the internet, Wikipedia. When, in America, we are blessed with free libraries, cheap books, and a multi-cultural society which includes all sorts of people who can, if we are willing to learn, share so much about themselves and their cultures.
After seventeen years in Japan and many years of teaching a variety of Asian students, I've lost track of how many times I've heard people confuse Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, you name it; if it's Asian, it's all one big muddle in many people's minds. Moreover, whenever I point out -- politely, of course -- that the restaurant we're going to is actually Korean, not Chinese, or that Mr. Tran is Vietnamese, not Korean, or that foot binding was not practiced in Japan, but in China, the responses I've gotten have largely been the same as Melissa's whatever. The same people who think Chinese and Japanese can be treated interchangeably, that Koreans and Vietnamese are pretty much the same because, after all, weren't their countries divided up after wars? - might wince to hear a ship referred to as a boat, the objective confused with the subjective, an Irishman described as an Englishman, Budweiser mixed up with Coors.
So, for what it's worth, Chinese and Japanese are not the same; Koreans and Vietnamese are not the same; Cambodians and Filipinos are not the same. All of these people, their languages, food, and culture, are vibrantly, fascinatingly different, and the generally preferred term for all of them is now Asian.
But most of all, while it's perfectly okay to be ignorant, it's never okay to stay that way.
