If you're not white, at some point in your life you'll be subjected to 'The Culture Quiz'. It's the moment a friend, colleague, or some random stranger you’ve just met at a bar decides to take advantage of your ‘ethnic cred’. I may have straddled two cultures my whole life, but believe it or not, there are some things about 'being Vietnamese' that I simply don’t know. Here are some of the more awkward quiz questions - get your red pens out.
How do you say ‘phở?
As soon as someone finds out I’m Vietnamese, I know that an impromptu vocabulary session is lurking. Usually, that word of the day is ‘phở’. That someone will pucker their lips, and lay a careful and emphatic ‘furrr’ in front of me, feeling accomplished.
Truthfully, as kids of the diaspora, we probably spent a good chunk of our childhoods burying our parents’ native tongue in favour of the more accepted folds of English. So we might not know the correct amount of flutter to put into pho or any other phrase you’d like translated on demand.
How long have you been here?
Implicit in this question is the idea that we have come from somewhere. Whenever someone asks me this, I wonder what image has popped into their mind. Are they imagining me as a mud-smeared extra in Apocalypse Now, dragged by an American solider from a thatched hut, and tossed onto a helicopter to be flown to safety?
The truth is a little more beige. I was born in the ordinary depths of suburban Sydney on an average winter’s day, and have stayed put ever since.
The writer as a child with her mother. Source: Supplied
How many times have you been "back"?
This is the fun cousin of ‘How long have you been here?’. Being asked about going ‘back’ comes with it the implication that you belong somewhere else. But for me, ‘back there’ might as well have been Narnia for the enigmatic nature it took on in my childhood household.
In reality, I’ve been to Vietnam exactly three times – the last armed with my best friend, and a dog-eared Lonely Planet tucked into my backpack, as bewildered by the traffic as you were.
Do you know Anh Do?
Why I would especially know one of Australia’s most loved Vietnamese personalities over my mate Shane over there is a mystery, but I get it. Maybe you’re picturing some sort of country-wide telepathic intranet that connects all us Viets together.
My family, in fact, does know Anh Do, but only as ‘that guy on TV’, along with ‘that guy on TV who cooks’, Luke Nguyen.
How do you make bánh xèo?
Being tapped for Vietnamese recipes by my white friends is a particularly acute source of frustration. Source: China Squirrel
I did ask mum how to make the sizzling pancake bánh xèo once, expecting a seminal bonding moment I could take to the grave. Instead, she sighed and told me to look it up on YouTube.
This article was edited by Candice Chung, and is part of a series by SBS Life supporting the work of emerging young Asian-Australian writers. Want to be involved? Get in touch with Candice on Twitter @candicechung_
Comedian Michael Hing returns with Season 2 of Where Are You Really From? to unpack that perennial question. The four-part documentary series premieres Wednesday, 19 June at 8pm on SBS.
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