What's it like being an Asian American here in Germany? Well, I guess there are a lot of similarities to being a minority in the U.S. - stereotyping seems to be a worldwide phenomena. But the differences in how Asians are perceived is impossible to ignore, and has made me take a harder look at exactly who I am.
Consider the popular clichés about Asians in the U.S.A: intelligent, good with numbers, law-abiding, go-getters, mostly middle-class. Growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, I guess I also believed a lot of those things, without considering why. Of course there was the typical name-calling in school, but in my generation Asian stereotypes were for the most part weighted toward the positive.
In Germany I'm faced with completely different stereotypes, and they throw me off-balance even after 20 years of living here. Germany is a prosperous nation with well-educated people who frequently travel around the world during their (typically) six weeks of vacation. And so, many German men travel to the poorer Asian countries where women - and sometimes their entire families - depend on the generosity of these strangers. Sometimes the men marry the women they meet and bring them home. That phenomena has led the many to believe that Asians living in Germany, especially Asian women, are poverty-stricken, badly educated leeches.
In the city where I live, Cologne, there is a noticeable Asian population, and so the looks of wonder (or dismay) my German husband and I receive when walking down the street are not so frequent. That's unfortunately not the case in other areas. Once I was in a small town in the Bavaria with my girlfriend. Although that was in 2003, you would think it was 1703 and no one had seen a foreigner before. People actually stopped in their tracks and turned around to look at me. In an even smaller town in the ex-DDR, everyone simply stopped talking and glared when I walked into a pub.
The stereotypes aren't only held by the uneducated few. Two weeks ago I had an appointment with a doctor I'd never seen before. He started explaining my problem in a very loud voice, speaking so slowly I wondered if he had a speech impediment. It was actually painful to listen to, but I decided to give him the benefit of doubt. Perhaps he was hard of hearing and needed to speak loudly. Perhaps he had had a stroke and wasn't yet running at 100 percent.
When he finished, I answered him in my rapid-paced German, and asked a few questions using medical terms. And then I knew. I could see his eyes literally widen and when he answered my questions, his speech problem was completely gone.
Or take the time I was in the hospital. The staff somehow assumed that I wouldn't be able to afford treatment myself and actually called my then boyfriend to hear if he would take over payment. He told them to look at my insurance papers, where they would see that I had premium coverage, and then to talk to me themselves since I was lying in their rooms.
It's difficult to be treated as a third rate resident and it gives me a different perspective on things. It leads me to think of how the Issei and Nisei must have been treated during their early days in America. Now I understand why my grandmother never had the confidence to speak English. Going from intelligent and self-sustaining to uneducated and economically dependent during one intercontinental flight (or in those days ship passage) can be enough to kill any desire or belief that one can fit into the foreign culture.
But you know, these stereotypes do have their advantages. Since in Western Europe right now it's not too pleasant to be identified as an American, if I note an especially strong anti-American sentiment, I simply say I'm Japanese. Funny thing is, no one really objects or laughs to let me know they can see through me. They actually believe me! Then they say things like, "But you must have spent some time in the States, you have a bit of an American accent." To which I reply that I have spent some time in the States. Which is the truth, after all.
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