I DON'T LIKE FRENCH JOKES ABOUT ASIAN PEOPLE (PROBABLY BECAUSE I AM ONE)

I've been interning at Vice France for a month, which is evidently long enough for them to feel comfortable asking me to write about slurs against chinks. And apparently I'm in the perfect position to talk about it: My parents are Vietnamese and my eyes are almond shaped. OK, fine, they're slanted as an attic ceiling.

Of course, I'm well aware that you will probably use these racist asian jokes to make fun of some of your best asian friends (because some of all our best friends are asian, right?). And so in doing this, I hurt my diaspora. But "one must know one's place," and right now I'm the intern, so here comes some premium gook-bashing.

GASTRONOMY

"Pay attention to your dog or she's gonna eat it."
I heard this gem for the first time at a classmate's house. This girl had an ugly-ass poodle our group of friends adored. On top of this I was eight and I only swore by industrial sweets and cookies. Never would I have eaten this dog.

"Do I have to remove the plastic film wrapped around the chinese spring rolls?"
We are in 1998, and yeah, Thibault, you're nice, but when we eat at your house I don't ask your mum if I can eat the rice bag. What is more, your hands are sweaty when you come and pick me up after school. I'm thinking about dumping you.

"When you make spring rolls, do you wrap it in your axillary space?" /variant : "Why do Asian people always smile? Because they're the only ones to know what spring rolls contain."
I'm puzzled by this one. Are spring rolls really that mysterious? It's carrot and shrimp wrapped in rice. Furthermore, do we ask Mexican people if they prepare their burritos with their armpits? The spring rolls my mum prepares are made tidily, with love and in accordance to the tradition. Let this be known!

"I love cantonese rice."
You have so little things to say that the only topic you find interesting enough to mention is the fact that you love cantonese rice? "I love cantonese rice" is worse than talking about the weather outside. At least the weather is something we're both experiencing. "I love cantonese rice" is at the same level as shouting "This is your song!" at your friend Ahmed when they play an arabic tune at the night club, except at least that little gambit is supposed to make you look like an idiot.

SET EXPRESSIONS

"Am I speaking Chinese here?"
At college, everyone stared at me when the teacher used this expression, like I was going to hulk out on him. Is this something people do? Should I be scared of my friend Jaro from Zimbabwe when someone says "it's dark outside"?

"Konnichonwa" (because of the french blockbuster Taxi II)
"Hello" in Japonese is "konichiwa". But I'm not Japonese. By the way, I'm not Chinese either. This street technique for chatting up asian girls is as useless as "Hey miss you are beautiful". My cousins agree with me.

"Are you Chinese?"
It's the usual story. At primary school, Asia is China and China Asia. Sometimes it's also Japan, but regardless it is one country, indivisible, with bowl cuts and epicanthic folds for all. My classmates were so insistent on this fact that for a little while I really started to believe that Vietnam was some crap my parents made up just to screw with me. Like Santa or Jesus.

"To give a forced laugh" in french is "rire jaune", which literally means "to laugh yourself yellow"
Fair enough. But when your interlocutor adds "Oops, sorry" with an awkward silence as if he/she has just broken your dead grandma's favorite teacup, it kind of diminishes the whole "just a figure of speech" aspect. Stop begging pardon for everything. It's distressing.

CONTEMPO CLICHES

Asian productivity
Searching for a way to maximize profit is part of the business culture in Asia, as it is in every country of the world. It's got nothing to do with our productive gook genes. I am totally capable of being just as lazy as the rest of you. Now Asian competitiveness, that's a whole nother bag of cans.

"My sneakers were made by your cousins."

If this were the case your sneakers would look like shit, because my cousins are toddlers and most of them live in France.

"Do you know karate?"
I could have learned (and I probably would have appreciated it), but I didn't. Instead, I did gymnastics. I was actually the queen of the cartwheel.

"Asian people can't hold their drink."
Wrong, Asian people with acetaldehyde-dehydrogenase-induced erythema can't hold their drink. I can drink a lot without ending up vomiting all the liquids that my body contains. Let's even say I'm the kind of girl who babysits her friends after midnight when they're completely plastered. I swear.

"Your french is good."
This is nothing but a fake compliment. On the contrary, it would be OK for my cousin's girlfriend (who is born in France and has an Asiatic origin) because she got an A at her oral of French language.

"Asian people love pictures"
You'd think this one would have faded now that every person in the world has their camera out ALL THE TIME, but still, whenever it's me everyone's all, "Uhhhp? Uhhhp?" [nudging each other].

NAMES

"Your name is Tching Tchong?"
Very popular French playground joke of the 90s. For maximum effect, it should be said before I've finished telling you my name but after I've started it.

The Nguyens
NGUYEN is the most common name in Vietnam. I'm sorry but that doctor is not part of my family, nor is that lawyer, that cook, that law student, or the girl who attends dance course with your little sister. This one did work out for my retarded little cousin who was pampered by the nurses when he had to be hospitalized. They thought he was Dr. Nguyen's son.

WOMEN

"I love Asian girls."
How should this sentence be understood? Are you a sexual maniac? An ex-fan of hentaï fanzines?

ASIANEURO.COM
A friend of mine, whose family name is Nguyen, told me about this website after she found a flyer for it in her mailbox. Asianeruo.com is kind of a big phone book dedicating to helping boys meet single asian girls; a kind of search engine to find your "asian love". They probably sent this brochure to every Nguyen girl they found in the Yellow Pages.

"You're probably as complex as your language."
Whispered by a handsome Swedish guy in a restaurant under a magnificient luster, this sentence is cheesy but otherwise fine. Mumbled by a drunk and stinking guy who staggers next to a soundsystem, this is awful. Less lyrical but somehow more pleasant-sounding version: You're a Chinese brain teaser.

PAINFUL CHILDHOOD

"The white ball"
Primary school, beginning of each afternoon. The teacher used to ask all the pupils what they had eaten at lunch. One day I found myself saying I had eaten "a white ball". I was referring to "Banh Bao", you know, this salted bun stuffed with meat and mushrooms. "White ball? You mean snow?", "But there's no snow in Asia", "True. Do you know what snow is?". I was only 5, but already creating class debates.

"Chinese symbols, in secondary school."
Do you remember when they were fashionable? They were everywhere. On agendas, pencil cases, bags, caps. Everybody was coming and asking me for the meaning of the symbols, as if I were Google Translator.

"Circumflex accent"
Aka the "small Chinese hat". Asking me every week before the class every day where my "small Chinese hat" is hidden is a typographic joke as brilliant as saying "you're similar to the H of Hawaii. Useless." It sucks.

"Hey, here's your family!"
This was a systematic joke while I was hanging around in the commercial center with all my friends and their braces and we could see Asian people in the distance. The assumption that every dark haired, almond-eyed person roaming the streets must be somehow related to me got on my nerves after awhile--even if we maybe do look exactly the same and share a last name.

"She has slanting eyes."
Pajama party, 2002. We had just finished watching "Bridget Jones's Diary", I'm starting to fall asleep. Lila asked if I was sleeping and Juliette answered, "Don't worry, she just has slanting eyes." Once again, thank you.

All these jokes are fine really because I know the true reason why you all make so much fun of us Asians, you are just jealous.

ÉMILIE NGUYEN