little. yellow. different. A weblog by Ernie Hsiung

Posted
29 May 2003 @ 1pm

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the only asians in kenya

(The background: Lunch conversation with two co-workers. We’re all Asian, in our mid-twenties.)

Girl co-worker: Have your parents ever told you that they weren’t really your kids?
Guy co-worker: Yep. “Oh, you? We found you in a gutter! No wait, a trash can! Ha ha!”
Ernie: Same here. When I was young, I was convinced that I was adopted. I was convinced my real parents were Eskimos or living off of the plains of Kenya. The only Asians in Kenya.
Girl: Me too! I wonder if white parents tell their kids that.
Guy: Nah.
Girl: Why not?
Ernie: Because white people love their children.

47 Comments

Posted by
Ken
29 May 2003 @ 1pm

Wow, that’s really sad… I would have thought there were plenty of Asians in Kenya. You know, there’s that whole Commonwealth thing.


Posted by
Naladahc
29 May 2003 @ 1pm

Because white people love their children. Bwhahahahahahahahahahahah


Posted by
Katie
29 May 2003 @ 1pm

So good, it must be posted three times :)


Posted by
TChem
29 May 2003 @ 1pm

Our parents don’t say it–but our siblings do.


Posted by
:: jozjozjoz ::
29 May 2003 @ 2pm

Another one of your zingers, Ernie!


Posted by
vince
29 May 2003 @ 2pm

Actually, I am a white guy, and my parents use to tell me they found me in a dumpster outside the hospital, and once my father actually pointed at a couple on the street, and said, “See those people over there,? They are your real parents”.

Man no wonder I am so screwed up


Posted by
phil
29 May 2003 @ 2pm

there’s a famous bridge in Korea where all the children are dispersed beneath and parents pick and choose from the lot.

Or so it seems.


Posted by
Jonathan
29 May 2003 @ 2pm

I’ve never had that problem– then again, MY parents constantly remind me every second and every moment of any given day that I’m THEIR kid– and boy, do I OWE them.


Posted by
Brendyn
29 May 2003 @ 3pm

Actually, my mother told me on my 16th birthday that I was the result of a faulty condom and I wasn’t planned at all…I’ve been traumatized ever since.

so oh well I guess, it runs in this generation :)


Posted by
Jenni
29 May 2003 @ 4pm

I’m white, and though my parents only occasionally joked about ‘finding me under a rock’, I got this all the time :
‘If you’re not good, I’ll sell ya to the gypsies!!’
Since I grew up in Michigan’s UP, it didn’t bother me much. Not many gypsy caravans goin’ through there.


Posted by
Romi
29 May 2003 @ 4pm

actually my sister and i kept telling my mom we found HER in a gutter…


Posted by
wwfmike
29 May 2003 @ 6pm


Posted by
Jillena
29 May 2003 @ 7pm

I’m with Jenni here, I’m white and my mom used to tell me I was found under a rock also. My brother had me convinced, to the point of tears, that I was adopted at one point. And while we were on vacation in Mexico, when I was 9, went around saying, “Meeeester, meeeester, would you like to buy my seeeester?”. My mom finally made him quit after telling him that someone would probably take him up on the offer. That just scared the pants off me. Heh. :D


Posted by
Scott
29 May 2003 @ 8pm

I’m white and my father always used to insist that the milkman (yes we had them in those days) was my real father…I guess that’s better than my friend who had her mother explain that her birth was the fault of not-a-failed-condom but rather failed-saran-wrap (seems her parents couldn’t be bothered to find a condom so they used what they thought was the next best thing).


Posted by
Xkot
29 May 2003 @ 9pm

My mom told me I was the result of a broken condom once. All I have to say is that I’m really grateful someone in the QA department at Trojan was being lazy.


Posted by
Lisa Chau
29 May 2003 @ 10pm

Too damn funny!

– Lisa

Lisa’s new blog: http://dartblogs.com/lisachau/


Posted by
bri
30 May 2003 @ 3am

omg, every birthday, Mom would say: “Yeah, X many years ago, we found you in the garbage… ha ha ha!” For a while I believed it, especially when I never got a bday party even though all my white friends did.


Posted by
Jas
30 May 2003 @ 6am

My father always told me that he found me on the doorstep one day and decided to take me in. Hm …


Posted by
Christina
30 May 2003 @ 6am

I’m white as well and my parents insisted for years (still do and I’m 23 now) that I was found crawling up the beach with the newly hatched turtles. It really sucks anytime an educational show comes on TV and there are baby turtles scrambling towards the water.


Posted by
April
30 May 2003 @ 7am

I’m white and FREQUENTLY tell my son that I will just GIVE him to the gypsies…I’m not counting on getting any money for him!


Posted by
vj
30 May 2003 @ 9am

my siblings all admit that I am my parent’s child. it’s the conception stories that are traumatic: needed a new dishwasher, mom didn’t want dad to divorce her, everytime she got drunk she got a kid, she thought she was menapausal and didn’t need a condom anymore… the list goes on. *sniffle*


Posted by
Kallisti
30 May 2003 @ 10am

I’m white.. not only for the first 12 years of my lfie did my “father” tell me that he *bought* me from gypsies while deployed somewhere across the ocean (damn aiforce asshole), but it was on my 13th birthday that I found out I was the result of my mother having an affair while her and the “father” were separated (I feel that I would have been less traumatized if she had told me this loong beforehand)


Posted by
Jon
30 May 2003 @ 10am

White here… does being told you were left by aliens count? They were joking, but I was too young to get the sarcasm yet. :)


Posted by
ketan
30 May 2003 @ 11am

I was told by my Indian parents that I was purchased on sale from Sears for $0.75. My sister was slightly more upscale; she came from JC Penney.

In countries not the United States, Indians count as “Asian.” Going by that definition, there are assloads of Asians in Kenya. The British liberally sprinkled my people throughout East and South Africa.


Posted by
walter
30 May 2003 @ 1pm

According to Belle I’m pink, not white, but either way my parents have me convinced I’m from the milkman. They tell me he had red hair. I have reddish (orangish) hair. My parents don’t have reddish hair. *sigh*


Posted by
Saima
30 May 2003 @ 2pm

Have your parents ever told you that they weren’t really your kids?

I don’t need my parents to tell me that they’re not my kids!


Posted by
Abby
30 May 2003 @ 4pm

I’m an Asian with BIG frizzy hair, who is somewhat tan and pretty tall (for an Asian girl) — my mom always told me that my biological father is not my dad (who I’m taller than), but rather Reggie Williams. Dude, I’m still waiting for some that backpay on the child support.


Posted by
April
30 May 2003 @ 4pm

I was convinced for a long time that my sister was adopted and that her real mother was a cow.


Posted by
mae
30 May 2003 @ 8pm

My mom told me that I fell out of a cereal box. (Pretty crappy prize.)

When my little brother was 7 or 8, I had him convinced for about 30 seconds that he was abandoned by aliens. My mom told him that I was lying. Aw.


Posted by
Tracy
30 May 2003 @ 9pm

Isn’t anybody here adopted? There’s an advantage: when your parents tell you they got you from someplace else, you know it’s the truth. I’ve always known my parents weren’t my birth parents (my folks are plenty real - read “emotional baggage” - to me).


Posted by
kika
31 May 2003 @ 10am

I’m Mexican and my folks would always vie us siblings against each other. This one was adopted while this one was their real kid and so on… bastards.


Posted by
Texasyankee
31 May 2003 @ 12pm

Which white people? Certainly not my mother…:P


Posted by
kim
31 May 2003 @ 3pm

that’s hysterical, because whilst being asian, my parents never told me and my brother that we were adopted. always claimed that we were theirs, or else, why would me and my brother look so much alike?
thing is — without any photographic evidence (apparently, my mother didn’t like camera’s in her face when she was “pregnant”) i created an adoption situation, where my parents went to a farm in china, took the two fattest children they could find (you know, for good luck, because fat kids are healthy kids, and healthy = lucky) and brought us back to the states with them.

apparently, i so desperately wish that i was adopted that i’d actually create a whole scenario where i was.

but it’s like they say in “mommie dearest” -”adopted children are best, because they were chosen.”
hmmm…


Posted by
Tracy
31 May 2003 @ 8pm

Damn straight we adopted kids are the best.


Posted by
Hazel
31 May 2003 @ 9pm

Yup that is right white peoples parents have to straighten out the lies about being adpoted the sibblings tell…. My father conviced his sister that his parents got her from the indianas. My aunt went crying to my grandmother at 18 to ask her about it, my grandmother thought my aunt was pregant. Needless to say my grandmother has not forgot that neither my has my Aunt and being that she is my God-mother I am paying for the sins of my father…. I wish I was adopted.


Posted by
margaret
1 June 2003 @ 2pm

in my family, my parents always insist that my older brother was found in a rocket ship outside of smallville and my little brother was the only albino monkey at the international wildlife park. and then there’s the ‘k-mart blue light special’ story. that has applied to all of us at one point or another.


Posted by
srah
1 June 2003 @ 11pm

My parents always told us they got us at the stupidmarket.


Posted by
Random_Tangent
2 June 2003 @ 12am

My parents adopted me out of the discard bin at the hospital. I was a defective baby. Stupid doctor kept telling ‘em I’d turn out retarded.

I wanna go kick his ass.


Posted by
Hannah
2 June 2003 @ 8am

My mom used to tell me she got me from Rent-a-Kid and if I did’nt behave she would send me back in exchange for a better model. I got really nervous when my little sister showed up. I behaved until I was thirteen.


Posted by
Hannah
2 June 2003 @ 8am

My mom used to tell me she got me from Rent-a-Kid and if I did’nt behave she would send me back in exchange for a better model. I got really nervous when my little sister showed up. I behaved until I was thirteen.


Posted by
ElectraSteph
2 June 2003 @ 12pm

My mother used to tease us she would “leave us out for the the garbage man to take us”. My younger brother, who was really small, got “garbage man” confused with “government” — and so he would tell the neighbors that mom was going to leave us out for the goverment to pick us up.

One day the neighbors came over to talk to my mom, because they were concerned that child welfare was trying to take us away.


Posted by
al
2 June 2003 @ 2pm

funny.. i don’t ever remember my parents
commenting on any such things towards me & my 3 siblings..

but i do remember my dad making us smell his feet for money.. not even loose change!
it’d be like 1 coin– like 10 centavos or 5 kobo..
and i remember mom making me help her tweeze out her armpit hairs, and look for white heairs on her head..

many many years later, we’d go on to tell our parents to hang out(side) 2wice a week
cuz it was garbage/trash night.

hollah!


Posted by
jk
2 June 2003 @ 4pm

My Korean parents told us that we were so homely, the trolls under the bridge were giving us away for free.


Posted by
jen
2 June 2003 @ 5pm

I’m Filipino. When I was young, my parents used to tell me that they picked me up from carabao poop. Go figure.


Posted by
Aristan
2 June 2003 @ 6pm

My dad used to tell me the mailman was my father when I was like 4 or 5.

He stopped it after my kindergarten teacher called him after I told the class “My daddy says the mailman is my real daddy. But our mailman is a woman.”


Posted by
Sear
3 June 2003 @ 5am

My sister was adopted when she was 9 years old, so it’s not like she could be confused about it. However, she and I are very close in age (about three months) which provides us with some pretty interesting oppertunities. She’s very Mongolian-looking - tan skin, almond-shaped black eyes, black hair, typical Asian beauty. Me, I’m German stock, whiter than death, brown hair, brown eyes, thin as a rail. So of course we tell everyone that we’re twins. This works best if our mom is around, since she’s blond-haired and blue-eyed.


Posted by
chi
4 June 2003 @ 11pm

there actually *are* asians in kenya… (mini shout out to my motherland… WHOO!) yeah, the japanese government and the kenyan government came together and built a hydroelectric dam… pretty cool stuff…