Not Again

Last night I went to get my monthly massage, which was especially soothing after shoveling snow for nearly two hours earlier in the day.  As you can imagine, I was so looking forward to being in a quiet space and allow a skilled masseuse to knead away the knots in my shoulders, back and neck.

Imagine my consternation when the massage therapist upon hearing my last name began to speak an Asian foreign language to me. "OMG, really?" I thought and "Not again. Damn!"  Even if he spoke my family language which is Cantonese Chinese, I still wouldn't understood a word he said. I actually had to ask him what he was saying to me and he proceeded to say he was speaking Korean as he presumed my last name was Korean.

Okay, so I get that person may presume some things based on a last name but let's be honest. Would he begin speaking Italian to a client whose name was Bellini or Gaelic to someone who was O'Hara? I will bet all the money in the world that he would not have done that.

Anyway I made it clear that I didn't speak a word of Korean or Chinese and that I grew up in a Jewish White neighborhood. I did what I could to shut the conversation down but he seemed insistent to continue talking culture and so on.  Honestly all I wanted was a massage...in silence.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Institutional Racism and Higher Education

Image
There's so much happening that it's hard to start, as it has been two years since I've written. From March 2020 to June 2020, much of the US (and the world) was shut down to the COVID-19 pandemic. It's strange to read my past postings and to find myself here - isolated most of the time and hesitant to leave the confines of my home due to this highly contagious virus which to date has killed over 500,000 and has infected over 14 million , and disproportionately impacted BIPOC . Then in May, our nation was roiled once again in racial violence with the murder of George Floyd by police officers in Minnesota. As a result, many companies, organizations, and institutions published statements of support and a commitment to change. What's disheartening is that the murders of Black men, women, boys and girls have been happening for time out of mind, and in recent memory have been viewed and heard in social media for at least a decade. Four years ago I walked i
Read more

Split and Stereotyping

Image
***This posting has spoilers for the film "Split"*** Last weekend I went to see the film " Split ", which is about disassociative identity disorder  (DID) or is still commonly known as multiple personality disorder. For many of us, we think of the book " Sybil " back in the 70s then later the film featuring Sally Field as the client, Sybil. However, interestingly, the client admitted years later that she faked her diagnosis .  Although DID as a diagnosis is fairly uncommon although the  phenomena of disassociating  is more common that we think due to stress, trauma or even illness. As I watched the film, it was clear to me that there was a significant amount of stereotyping to depict the different identities such as "Barry" who liked to design clothes and had an affect that would be stereotyped as "gay." Another is that the film was reinforcing the belief that mental illness is over-the-top and beyond repair. Also that mental illn
Read more

Lost & Found

This morning I had an argument with my BF and it did not go well. No surprise. Also no surprise that the argument started at point A and ended up at point Z or what I'd call "planet mars." My poor BF, he had no idea what hit him (metaphorically of course) but neither did I. By the end of the argument, I found myself standing alone in the middle of the living room with tears threatening to stream from my eyes, and eventually they did. The feelings that arose were a powerful potion of regret, anger, sadness and perplexity as to my teaching experience in China in 92-93. As some people know, I was interrogated in China in 1993 and my visa was unexpectedly cancelled because I allegedly broke the law. Later, Chinese officials admitted that they "may have made a mistake" which is pretty much an outright confession for having done something wrong and being sorry for it. For years I always believed that what I set out to do in China came out of a sincere desire to
Read more