What They Say..

I like to play off the fact that I don't look like my ethnic background (does that sentence sound funny? it sounds funny to me).  I guess you can call me ambigiously Asian (okay, now THAT sounds funny, and pretty bad).  I am Filipino and as far as I know in our lineage I am 100% Filipino.  I'm sure somewhere up the line there was mixed blood, but as far as my knowledge I am pure.  Those on my mom's side of the family just don't look Filipino at all.  We have smaller eyes and we have lighter skin, well... with the exception of my siblings who got it from my dad's side haha

Since I was young, i've always gotten the question "Are you Chinese?" or "Are you Japanese?".  I used to get mad when I was younger but it's a running joke now with my family and friends.  I think it's pretty funny when people ask me and I sometimes make a game out of it, which then it turn makes the other party uncomfortable in fear of getting it wrong.  I bring this up because I get it all the time when I'm working.  I listen to JPOP and KPOP when I'm at work so people ask me if I'm Japanese and if  I can understand the music (btw, I can understand just a bit since I've taken 2years of Japanese lanuguage classes).  I tell them I'm not and then next assume I'm Chinese because they think my boss is my mom.  When I tell them I'm Filipino, they get shocked which I'm not really surprised about since it happens so often.  The best reactions come from the ones who automatically speak to me in their native language and I'm just like ".... what?"  Actually the best reactions come from Filipinos who assume I'm something other than Filipino.  And then they always end up asking me the same questions.
1) You're Filipino?
2) Where is your family from?
3) You were born here huh?
4) Can you understand Tagalog?

Always.  And it's usually all of them by one person or 2 out of 4.  Then they proceed to speak Tagalog to me but of course I reply back in English.  I think they do so just to test me, I dunno, but it seems that way.

It's interesting to me that It always ends up being this way.  Not that I'm saying it's bad or anything, it's just amusing that it always happens.