Another racist attack

It’s been a while since I last updated this blog. Well, I had been pretty busy during the past few weeks trying hard to study for my business valuation exams which I finally took on Sunday in Dulles, Virginia.

The 3-day course was very enriching with the lecturers citing so many real life examples on cases that they had come across in their 40 years career as business appraisers. However, one small incident marred the impression I have even for the educated. Here’s a little conversation I had with one of the lecturers:

Day 1

As Student A and I were about to walk into the conference room after our break, the lecturer stepped out of the room.

Lecturer: Hi Ladies.

Saya: Hi

Student A: Hi…… (And being typical American, she started chit chatting with him)

The lecturer talked about how he had been traveling for the past 30-40 years and spending most of his time in Latin America. He left for Latin America 3 days after getting married (mind you, without his wife) and had been to many Latin American countries and yada yada yada…

Lecturer: Well, as you can see, I am bilingual. Fluent in both Spanish and English.

He then turned to me and asked, “So are you bilingual as well?”

Saya: Yes, I speak Mandarin as well since I am a Chinese.

Lecturer: So you are a Chinese

Saya: I am a Singaporean.

Lecturer: Oh, so you are an immigrant?

Saya: Nope, I am not. I have come here to work and will go back to Singapore whenever I feel like it. I will definitely not be staying here.


Day 3

While having dinner with my colleague in TGIF, the lecturer, together with another lecturer and a fellow student, walked in and sat at the table adjacent to ours. We sort of like started talking by shouting across tables.

Lecturer: So did you take a boat here?

I heard his question but pretended that I did not hear it. Then he asked again, “Did you take a boat here?”

I answered nonchalantly, “Nope, I did not take a boat. I took a plane here. I am not an illegal immigrant.”

Lecturer: Well, I like to think that you took a boat here.

I was pissed but did not rebut him further.

After a couple of minutes, he asked, “So I guess you will be getting married to someone and settling down here?”

I knew where he was coming so I said, “I will definitely not be getting married here. I only come here to work and will definitely want to go back to Singapore.”



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Somehow or rather there is a fairly large group of Americans out there who are still living in their own tiny world made up of only the U.S.A. It doesn’t matter if these people are educated or not, they feel that all the people who come to the U.S. are here to get out of poverty, to lead a life that they will never imagine possible if they were to remain in their home country. These people are here because they want to get green cards to become American citizens. America is a place of gold and opportunities where everyone will give a hand and a leg just to be here.

What naïve thinking! It’s time these people wake up their idea and see how the world has moved while they were still sleeping. Not everyone is here to fulfill the “American Dream”! Can’t they simply just think that we are here to widen our horizon and experience life outside our country? And indeed, we are experiencing the harsh reality of life right now with all these racism which we never have to face when we were in Singapore.

Perhaps Houston is really a nicer place to live in compared to other cities in the U.S. So far, I have not faced any racism within Houston. It’s only when I traveled out of this city that I had racist remarks hurled at me. Two out of two so far (remember the airport incident?). Let’s see if our California trip will make it 3 out of 3.