selamat detang, little chinese girl

In Indonesia, I am white.

“White with small eyes,” the Chinese-Indonesian girls told me.

They showed me the underside of their forearms, pointing at their skin,

“look, we are white too!”

They took my wrist and flipped it over, lining my arm against theirs.

Among the three, I was the darkest. I had a good summer.  

“Ok, you are brown, but you are white.”

My skin, my flat nose, my eyes, my tall(er)-obviously-Han-looking father, gives me immediate membership into Indonesia’s much wealthier ethnic minority.

I am Chinese.

I am beyond Taiwanese-American,

Beyond difference, beyond other

Beyond exotic, beyond someone else’s fetish
Beyond being daughter of a dishwasher.

Instead, I am white and rich.

If you are brown,

You drive us.

You feed us.

You clean us.

You help us.

You smile for us.

I am lost here, 

and even more lost, when not belonging to the other.