South-east Asian Face?

Yesterday, while reading about the flood in Thailand, I recalled the many incidents where I was said to look like (or completely mistaken for) a Thai. To people who know my name, they'd ask if I was a Thai-Chinese mixed.

One of the funniest event happened when I was in Form 2. Our history teacher(I even remember her name!) asked me if I was Siamese. My first reaction was hey, this is new; because all the years before that, in Malaysia, people often mistaken me for a Malay (I was really tanned back then), and when I went to China, they'd asked if I was Indonesian Chinese.

Nichkhun Horvejkul, member of a South Korean boy-band, 2PM.
His father is a Thai, while his mother a Thai-Chinese.

So, I told the teacher that I'm Chinese. But even then, she insisted that I must have Thai blood and wanted me to go home and ask my father. I reassured her that I'm a pure Chinese and tried to laugh it away by telling her I was often mistaken for a Malay. Shockingly, for me at the time, she said, "No, you don't look Malay. You look Thai" and "Really, go home and ask your parents. You MUST have Thai blood."

Well, I just smiled, nodded and said okay- just to end the topic. It wasn't because I hated it, but she insisted so much as if she knew me more than I do, and it was rather funny in a way.

These years as I grew older, I don't get asked about my race any more, probably because I was enrolled at a Mandarin-medium college, and everyone were Chinese. However, it happened again.

Boonsak Ponsana, a Thai badminton men's singles player.

Once, when I was covering a badminton event at Bukit Jalil, and many media people from a few other countries were present, I was asked if I was a Malaysian! I said yes, and asked if she'd thought I was Singaporean (because usually multilingual people around here are either local or from Singapore). She said no; and, "You look Thai."

AGAIN! 

That time, I felt indifferent enough, and jokingly admitted it. "Yes, I'm Boonsak's sister." Why the sudden twist? Because we, including the lady who asked me and another local journalist who was listening to our conversation, are all Boonsak's supporters. :D

Tony Gunawan, Indonesian Chinese badminton men's doubles player.
2000 Sydney Summer Olympics gold medallist.

Anyway, so last night I thought of this being mistaken for a non-Chinese thing again, and brought it up to my parents. Startlingly, my mum said that when she first knew my dad, she had also thought that he looked like a Thai descent. Even up till now, yesterday, mum was asking dad if his mother, who passed away before I was born, had Thai blood. The answer, apparently, was no.

Then, I was thinking that actually most South-east Asians have similar looks, though people of Chinese descent were originally from East Asia, which explains why some South-east Asian Chinese people look Chinese/Japanese/Korean. 

So I guess I have a typical South-east Asian face? I don't really mind any more (I disliked it when people think I'm Malay when I was a little girl), because I found South-east Asians (especially Thai-Chinese) quite good looking. teehee.

Susi Susanti, Indonesian Chinese badminton women's singles player.
Won Gold at the 1992 Barcelona Summer Olympics.

I've never asked, but now I wonder if my friends have ever thought I don't look very Chinese, in that case, more Thai/Malay or any other races I have not been mistaken for?

Do let me know!


P.S
I was even mistaken for a boy when I  was eight and had a boy-cut hairstyle! Jeez.