Since moving to a relatively rural prefecture in Japan to teach English, I've often been mistaken for or passed as a Japanese person, and perhaps this is no surprise. Though not fluent, I can sustain a basic conversation for at least a few minutes. But I'm not Japanese—my nationality is American, my ethnicity Chinese, and my feelings, when I am taken for a Japanese person, are conflicted.
On a late November evening in Moscow, Idaho, my boyfriend and I are on our way to dinner. I have requested that it be at our local Thai restaurant because that’s the closest thing I can get to Indian food in our tiny university town. I can already taste the explosion of fish sauce, duck meat, peppers, pineapple, and basil. The anticipation makes me optimistic, even though the evening is the color of ash and…
