Un "chinez"

As a white guy who wears boots, pants, a coat and a hat that all conform to the Moldovan norm, I get none of the strange looks that some other Peace Corps volunteers get when they walk around. That's why I was shocked, but not surprised, by what happened when Scott, a Peace Corps volunteer who was born in America to Korean immigrant parents, visited my school last week.

Because my students had been studying journalism, I had invited Scott to be interviewed by some of my top eighth-grade students for a profile they were writing for our one-issue English newspaper. I only had two classes that day, so I met him at the school in the late morning. I knew that for just about every student at the school, Scott would be the first Asian they had ever seen; still, I wasn't prepared for their reaction.

The bell rang, and the students flooded into the hall for their 10-minute break. My sixth-grade students came into the classroom to drop off their backpacks, and they stopped dead in their tracks when they saw Scott standing next to my desk. Girls stood 10 feet away and giggled. Boys stood in the doorway and stared. I described the scene to Scott as he had his back turned.

"It's okay," he said. "I'm used to it. It happens everywhere I go. I don't mind when kids do it, because they've never seen anyone like me. It just bothers me when adults act the same way." On the plus side, none of the students pulled their eyes back to slits, which is an inexplicably rude and offensive gesture that seems to be obligatory whenever a Moldovan describes an Asian.

At the beginning of class with my sixth grade, I allowed my students to ask Scott questions. They stuck to cookie-cutter questions, such as, "How old are you?" and "Who is your best friend?" After answering a handful of them, Scott sat in the back of the class and observed.

After that lesson, I had a free period. I took Scott next door to see the computer lab, where we discussed computer games from the late '90s, a subject in which Scott is well-versed—some Asian stereotypes have truth behind them.

Next was my 8b class, which asked Scott questions for about 15 minutes. The questions were wide-ranging, from "Do you smoke?" and "Do you like the Chicago Bears?" to "What are your parents' names?" and "What is Shao Lin?" Questions about Shao Lin and whether Scott spoke Chinese were based on stereotypes, but Scott was happy to deflect them, and in some ways affirm them, since he speaks some Korean and did a small amount of martial arts as a child. The kids came away learning something new about a kind of person they had only seen before in action movies.

Then came my 8a class, specifically the group of girls who were ready to interview Scott. They talked to him for the full 45 minutes of class time, and then continued the discussion for a few more minutes. Their questions were generic enough to ask any American working in Moldova, since I had told them only that they would be interviewing a Peace Corps volunteer. During the interview, I threw in a couple questions about what it was like looking different in Moldova, and I think Scott's answers made a small effect on the girls. It surprised them, for example, that Scott was stopped by Moldovan police 13 times in 2006, including once when he was hauled off and interrogated (thankfully, he's now on a three-month streak free of harassment).

I saw Scott off, feeling that I had exposed my students to something new, and hoping that meeting someone with Asian heritage who didn't know karate or how to speak Chinese had challenged some of their assumptions.

The next day, one of my sixth-grade girls bounded into my classroom and asked, "Mr. Peter, is the Chinese man going to be here today, too?"

"Did he say he was Chinese?" I asked. "No, he said he was American."

The girl merely shrugged and laughed. "I don't know. He looked Chinese."

Perhaps my expectations were too high.