"are you chinese?"

so i'm still sick and now that it's been 4 days, i think i'm allowed to whinge a little bit. so here it goes: mooooooom, i can't stop coughing. i've tried everyone's home remedies (including just taking everything and hoping for the best) and this morning, chunchun (aka crystal) gave me this chinese medicine. i have a cold and it still smells foul. i think i remember taking this in china, so it's legit.
chunchun likes to speak to me in chinese, because... i look like i should be able to speak and i always respond in english because... i can't really speak chinese anymore as it turns out. it's only minorly embarassing. it becomes majorly (?) embarassing when she insists on asking me if i'm chinese. i keep telling her yes. and i keep telling her i'm one of the bad ones. so i always try to make it up by talking about chinese history or even better, chinese art history (her field) to maybe convince her that i'm at least trying.
yesterday, don (another roommate) asked me if chinese people thought americans were violent. apparently that's the general consensus in the middle eastern countries he's lived in. i'm starting to believe that chinese people (read: crystal) think that americans are stupid. so stupid that they make chinese people who go live there stupid as well. just by being near each other. this stupidity, chinese people imagine, is what dissolves the guilt that lines ones soul.

i hate being sick.