The Race Card

I really don’t want to play the race card, but I’m going to do it anyway. It’s been quite a fascinating experience being Asian in Africa so far. First of all, you hear the word “muzungu”, which means “foreigner”, a lot. The little school kids, older people, anyone and everyone. It’s as if they’ve never seen a foreigner before. Secondly, I personally have never been mistaken for being Chinese more than I have here. Any time I walk by a group---big or small, old or young, I hear the word “China” (except they pronounce it “Cheena”). I’ve heard it so many times that I’m sick of it, but used to it. I want to turn around and tell them that not all Asian people are Chinese---but that would just be silly. Sometimes people will approach me and ask, or if they’ve struck up conversation they’ll ask me how to say a word in Chinese---in this case I say that I’m not Chinese, I’m actually Japanese and proceed to translate the word into Japanese. Who knew that life in Tanzania as an Asian would be like this?!