Residents of Asia as foodstuffs

I’m not a banana, the poppodum said to the omelet

By Nury Vittachi
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SOMEONE asked me the other day if I was a banana. It wasn’t as odd a question as it sounds. She wanted to know if I was “yellow on the outside but white on the inside”, indicating a cultural mix of east and west.

As a South Asian, I couldn’t possibly be a banana. But what was I? A curry? A poppadum? A lime pickle, extra spicy? What would you call Imran Khan, the Anglicized Pakistani cricketer, or Pat Morita, the American actor who played Japanese sages? Charlie Chan, the famous Chinese movie detective, was played by a Swede, as in the nationality, not the vegetable, although come to think of it, it wouldn’t have made much difference to the quality of acting either way.

It got me thinking. Can a Swede be a banana? Can a banana be a swede? We need a wider range of metaphorical edibles, I decided. So here’s a guide to “Residents of Asia as Foodstuffs”.
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You are a Banana (yellow on the outside, white inside) if you look Chinese but speak Mandarin with an accent and gag at the thought of eating chicken feet.

Where Bananas are found: In the Asia-Pacific offices of US multinationals, talking about their guangxi (contacts) and trying to dress like Omelets.
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You are an Omelet (yellow on the outside, yellow on the inside) if you regularly eat things which have tentacles and can make money with your eyes closed.

Where Omelets can be found: Running businesses in off-the-beaten track locations such as Saigon and Irian Jaya.
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You are a Choc Ice (brown on the outside, white on the inside) if you look south Asian, but you prefer jazz to bhangra, like lager better than lassi, and have a thing about blondes.

Where Choc Ices can be found: At technology companies all over Asia.
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You are a Cappuccino (white on the outside, brown on the inside) if you look Western but you’d instantly swap a fortnight in Florida Disneyworld for a week in a high-class ashram with an ayurvedic spa.

Where Cappuccinos can be found: In yoga classes in every main city in Asia.
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You are a Boiled Egg (white on the outside, yellow on the inside) if your parents raised you to go to church but you now think Buddhism is cool, Tibet is a mystical paradise, and Richard Gere is an actor.

Where Boiled Eggs can be found: Wandering around Asia working as teachers and editors.
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You are a Vanilla Yogurt (white on the outside, white on the inside) if you think of yourself as cosmopolitan but almost all your albums are by Caucasian singers and you hold your nose when you smell natto, tofu or lime pickle.

Where Vanilla Yogurts can be found: In international schools all over Asia.
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You are Beef On Rye (brown on the outside, brown on the inside) if you add fresh chopped chilli to everything you eat, including chilli sauce, and sit cross-legged on Western chairs and sofas.

Where Beef On Ryes can be found: All over Asia in fields which favour swots, such as medicine and electronic engineering.
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So what am I? I decided that I was a Deep Dish Super-Supreme, which is a pizza with everything on it. Or to put it another way, some of us are just plain mixed-up.

Comments

[Peter Emmett]

Shouldn't there also be Sour Cream (white on the outside & white on the inside) if you constantly complain about how things are done in "Asia" and how much better things are done at home.
Where Sour Cream Types can be found: at most expat gatherings when the weather is too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry, too humid...

[gweipo]

In Africa there is now the term "coconut" brown on the outside and white on the inside ...

[Nury]

I rather fancy switching it to drinks rather than food -- descriptions of drinks can be much more complex than food items -- for example, Peter Emmett is dry and self-deprecating and fun, so he would be a Martini with a cherry on top, whereas gweipo (I've seen your blog) would be a thoughtful mix of complex flavours -- perhaps a chenin blanc or something!

[Is this food?]

So what's a fob?

[Captain Coconut and the Twinkies of Justice]

There is also a twinkie- which since a twinkie is mostly an American snack, in my own honest opinion, refers to Asian Americans who are more American than Asian (and be a negative or a positive term depending on how you use it).

Fob- which is not any food I know of- is what twinkies usually refer to for recent immigrants from their home country especially those who still retain a heavy accent when they converse in English. Extreme Fobs are those who pine for the home country (annoying the settled Fobs and most twinkies) yet have no desire to return there. Reverse Fobs are Bizarro Twinkies who have never been to the motherland or know really what it is like over there but can be scary in their affection for that motherland.

Fob can be and has been used as a derogatory designation, but like the N-word for African Americans, it has been to an extent claimed back (as Kevin Smith would put it) and has been used with affection within a community.

I refer to myself as a coconut- not because I secretly want to be Caucasian but mostly because there is nothing but water in my head.

[Jan]

And another one - 'wine-eyes' [ or maybe it should be spellled 'whine-eyes'?] : members of any gathering who begin conversations with 'when I was in......' and bore their listeners rigid with out-dated views on how much better things were 'back when... in some other country'.

[Emmy]

I am milk chocolate rich and sweet and make your mouth water....

[stickyfingers]

When I was last in HK my cousins told me that there were now 'Rotten Bananas' - South East Asians who dress and act like they're "stylin' black Gangsta Rappers".

I'm Eurasian - but have yet to define a niche, I look Polynesian and think Pan Asian. Does that make me Kumara(sweet potato)?

My Aussie Mum has always claimed the Egg moniker being anglo on the outside but Chinese on the inside. She's fluent in Cantonese and fully immersed in Asian Culture.

[Anabela]

These monikers are hilarious - here's one that is not related to food.

My family refers to bi-racial people of African and Asian/Caucasian heritage as "11 o'Clock." (My family used to live in former Portuguese Mozambique).

For the life of me, I never understood why they called this particular group "11 o'clock." After all, I can't understand something that they can't convincingly explain to me.

The "best" explanation was, "They're not quite 12 o'clock/midnight."

If anyone has any ideas, please let me know. This is one of the universe's mysteries I must solve before I pass on to the other side.

[Bill]

Anabela : I think it means that you're not quite "pitch black" (like it might be at midnight outside). Just a guess.