The Chai-neese Connection

Quite often,and very justly so,I have been accused of ranting a lot about Asain Femme fatales,leaving their bitter better halves hanging in the air,unnoticed and unmentioned. This post is a humble attempt to set that right.

Asian dudes,Chinkees,Chappa Mookans..no matter how you wanna refer to them,they are there,they are here,they are everywhere..and especially for someone working in the heart of
the International District ( a.k.a Chinatown ) in Seattle,its hard not to notice,observe and form some well-misinformed opinions about them.

So,whats so special about them ? What are they good at that We,the desis can't do ?

Well,for starters,they seem to have got the fact right that a Rose is a Rose is a Rose,only if its spelt and pronounced simply as Rose. Hence, no matter which random Asian dude you stop on the street and ask to introduce himself,hez gonna give you a totally innocuous-sounding normal American name. It doesn't matter that their original name compulsarily has a combination of W,X,Y,or Z;sometimes repeated more than once,they are always going to be Alex,or John or Steve to you.

So, when it comes down to you and an Asian dude at the local disco,who do you think the drunken blond babe is gonna remember; Alex or Srinivasan Parthasarathy.

Even in the case of the very few rare Asians who retain their original names,their names pose a much lesser threat to the people here than us. I had a TA back in my grad-school whose full-name,I swear was only 4 letters long. Thats it, 2 for the first name,2 for the last. Hell,my nick-name is longer than that. Since the people here seem to have a short memory-span for retaining names,there was no surprise who got the TA-ship over the dozen applicants. Of course,the other minor fact was that he truly was a genius at coding,but I shall get to that
later. The fact is,it is much easier to pronounce the Asian dude's english name,or spell out his original name,than trying to call out a desi-dudes first name.

Language is a barrier,rightly so. Even though Indians might excel in English,we falter a little wee-bit when it comes to the languages that matter. Having come from a now computer-savvy part of India,I am not sure if things have changed now. But in my time ( 3 years back ), the average desi-dude starts using the computer only maybe when he is in his first year in college. And 11 times out of 10,it is for watching porn. Like I said,things mite have changed,mebbe guys
now start using the computer much earlier than that,for watching porn ofcourse. But still,the desi-enlightenment does not happen until his 2nd or 3rd year,when he decides to go to SSI or NIIT,because his daavu is going there as well.

On the other hand,I sincerely believe that the order of languages that the Asian learns is as follows : C++,Java,and then Mandarin. Its almost as though the Asian kid is put in front of the monitor and keyboard and left alone to fend himself,and he responds..by coding a perfectly optimized 3D-gaming application that is also capable of doing peer-to-peer file transfers. We,on the other hand,are forever indebted to google,bless the search engine,that feeds many a dubakoor,like ME.

Physical ability,and quite frankly,one's physical appearance is another alluring factor where I feel Asians have an advantage over us. A desi's typical day starts at 9,ends at 5,out of which he has to have 400 coffee/tea breaks,e-mail checks,restroom visits. Have him stay back till 6 or 7,and you can literally see him physically wither away and fall apart. Its almost as though our body clocks are tuned to make us look better and work effectively well (??) in the mornings,and the productivity-graph starts sliding as the day wears along.

They,on the other hand;are seemingly tireless and infallible to physical exhaustion. I know Chinkees,who look the same coming in at 8 am in the morning,and look the same,when I leave,on the rare-late occasion at 6,seemingly appearing to go on and on and on,like a Energizer battery. And the advantage of this is,I am pretty sure they don't take showers every day.
It just doesnt show,or smell. This is where you curse your stars for being born Hairy-Hariprasad. And since pretty much everyone in their family are born-geniuses who look alike,you wont even know if the guy sitting next to you is really your co-worker,or his brother or grand-dad !!!! Thats how uncanny their resemblance is.

Their food,as ghastly smelling as it may be,helps them to a great extent,retain their physical and mental stamina. In my 3 years here in the US, I have not seen an obese or physically exhausted Asain. If at all I did miss seeing one,I guess he was a Nepali. Our Friday-evening badminton sessions at Buffalo usually ended with some random Chinki-pair whooping our asses,and sending us off the main courts. Ofcourse,we would find solace in the consoling fact that we staged a mighty come-back and edged out a narrow victory,when we played against their wives and/or mothers,but still,that their stamina is insanely better than us,is a fact that I am willing to bet on.

The second generation of this new-age immigrants too follow nearly the same trend. More often than not, my observation is that ABCDs' here have a more than fleeting resemblance to the Sri-lankans or the Afro-americans. They tend to be darker than their Aminjikarai-born parents,think its cool to dress up in bling-bling attires,and stroll around like jumbo elephants,wearing their dad's over-sized jeans like lungis.

ABCCs' on the other hand,you guessed it rite,look like their fathers,who in turn looked like their fathers,thus giving a disturbing clone-effect to their family portraits.

Since no post of mine feels complete to me without them..I talk finally abt..
Asian chicks,..drollllll.....aah,they are totally different,but I would love to add here that that perhaps is the only thing that the Indians and Asains agree upon. We both think Asain babes are hot,we both droll over them,and fantasize about them. It doesn't matter to us that our dreams remain dreams,while they execute it in reality. We are content to merely be watchers,and rejoice in the fact that our desi-kudis are never gonna droll over Chinkees,thats about the only solace we have,dont break our hearts gals.