During my time in Hong Kong, I tried an experiment to see whether my appearance changed how I was treated. For context, I have a racially ambiguous face and white, tall, and dark brown hair, so it’s not easy to identify where I am from at a glance, and I speak enough Mandarin to get around. The first month I had no appearance change, the second month I dyed my hair black, the third month I changed my dressing style to Hong Kong style, and the fourth month I kept my black hair and switched back to American-style clothing but traveled to a couple of other countries. The first month even if I spoke to people in Mandarin they would respond to me in English, on public transportation people would not want to sit anywhere near me, they would rather stand. Once word got out that I was American, when I would go out I had random people I had never met before come up to me on the streets asking about me because they had heard about me in some event I was in, and ask me a lot of questions because I was the first they had ever met. Second month and third months the same people would speak to me directly in Cantonese or Mandarin but would not speak English to me at all, I had no stares or problems in public transportation. They couldn’t tell what my ethnicity was but they all thought I grew up here. I would get compliments on my Mandarin and local students would tell me I sounded like a CBA (Chinese Born American). By the fourth month, I went to a couple of other countries and was in Hong Kong as well. People would ask where I’m from and I would tell them that I was Mexican American and people would tell me no, that I was not. That I didn’t look American and that I didn’t look Mexican. So, I would just say I was from there Hong Kong and only then people believed me.
The first month was more frustrating as I was singled out a lot, and being approached on the street by strangers was quite odd especially since it was nowhere near my university, they just had heard about me. I later found out there are other online forums in which information travels around being the ones I had known. The last month was the most amusing, I never expected people to tell me no that I was not Mexican American, but agreed when I said I was a local. I realized in my time there that most of the Americans that have traveled there are very few, and even then they didn’t look like me, they were like the people you would see in an American small-town movie like Hallmark Christmas movies. And most locals truly believed in those stereotypes. But, it was a really fun experience, most people were very excited to talk to me as I got to be the first American many people had ever met and I got to change a lot of opinions about American stereotypes. This experience allowed me to learn more about the culture there, how to blend in, and to teach others more about the U.S.
Overall this little experiment helped me understand how people perceive internationals in general in Hong Kong. Over time I learned how to blend in with the culture at least at face value enough were people would tell me no I was not Mexican American I was from there.