FruitLoops

You call me a banana –
well, I could be a banana, I suppose …
(or an apple, or a honeydew, or a grape –
but not a grapefruit or an orange)
I like bananas enough;
but if I had to be a fruit,
I’d be a cherry –
a black cherry –
I love cherries!

You call me a banana
because I said I find the Chinese characters
difficult to decipher,
and don’t always understand every word
the newscaster says on the Mandarin news;
that, and because I prefer
communicating in English.
(Would it make you feel better if
I’d said I speak Singlish lah,
and my English not so good -
aiyah, like my Mandarin loh?)

You call me a banana –
meaning, you think that
I think that although I’m yellow on the outside,
I’m really white on the inside.
If you had asked,
I would have told you what I really think:
that I’m an Indian trapped in a Chinese body.
(But would you call me a rotten banana then –
yellow on the outside and brown on the inside?
And if I spoke German, would you call me a Nazi;
would you lynch me for speaking fluent Japanese?)

You call me a banana –
are you the sort of person who thinks that
all Chinese people must speak fluent Mandarin?
If people were fruits,
the European tourists here would be rambutans –
red and hairy on the outside and white within;
you might want to be a mango
so you could be happily – and acceptably –
yellow both within and out.
(What about mangosteens I wonder –
who would be mangosteens?)

You call me a banana –
automatically presuming that
if I’m poor in Mandarin
and am proficient in English,
I must be a debauched groupie of “the Western culture”,
the disgraceful paradigm of a desperate
Chinese-wannabe-ang-moh;
that I’m ashamed of (and indifferent to) my Chinese roots,
and, subsequently, of all things Asian.

You call me a banana -
are you a cultural chauvinist
or a Sino-manic fascist?
Do you think a Chinese person who
cannot speak, read, or write, in Mandarin
is as “unnatural” and “shameful” and “abominable”
as a girl who isn’t at all inclined towards
the male of the species?

You call me a banana,
you say I “jiat kentang”;
you don’t understand:
I don’t see colors the way you do,
my favorite carbohydrates are noodles and pasta,
and I’d prefer to be a cherry –
a black cherry.

So,
why do you call me a banana?