Stares

~Jason~

When I was back in the States, I was told by a few people that Italians were a bit racist towards Asians. And, like what anyone else would feel, I was a bit worried. On the other hand I was also told to not worry about such things, that I will not experience any sort of racism when I will be studying abroad in Rome. Here are my thoughts.

I've noticed a few things while in Rome that have caught my attention about Italian sentiments of Asians. 

There are so many Japanese tourists. Although people from China are mixed with the Asian tourist population, the Japanese dominate the majority of the tourists who come to Rome.

The Asians who live here in Rome are usually from South East Asia, ie. Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Shri Lanka and some people from Hong Kong. All of these populations, excluding people from Hong Kong have very dark skin, and to any white person (for white people can't differentiate any sort of Asians apart) MAY clump them with the Indians. 

The majority of Indians are street vendors or people who try to sell people shitty things like flaccid and wilted roses, some sort of ring that it made out of a string (sources say that they try to steal your wallet because they tie your fingers together and thus not be mobile), and other useless things. Thus, the Indians are seen as the low-lives, the ones that gain money by selling unimportant items, never really doing any of the more dress shirt-suit-fancy shoes ordeal. 

Lastly, because the color of the skin seems to be the main epithet that sparks racism, dark, brown skin is lumped with the Gypsies. (for this sake, I will not include Africans, although they basically do what the Indians do, but specialize in fake sunglasses and stolen/fake purses). The Gypsies had a dark and depressing history in Italy. Currently, the government is finger-printing all the Gypsies and deporting them out of Italy. Sounds familiar? Lemme give you a hint: it starts with "Holo" and ends with a "caust".  

As you can see, there seems to be an over all "clump" or classification of non-Italians, specifically those who have darker skins with weird slanty eyes on their faces. and that strange, almost awful language.

So now I invite you to slip into some nice Italian shoes. Bring a scarf because its "cold" (and you look "sexy"). Wear your tight jeans and wear your sunglasses because it's dark and cloudy outside but you don't care because you're Italian. 

You are walking to buy some lunch, but you've got to cut through the Vatican to get to your favorite spot. As you enter the Metro, you hear the accordion being played by a gypsy with his pregnant wife (she looks 9 months due, but you've seen her with the same belly for 2 months now) and she's coming with a broken sprite bottle begging for money. Sometimes you would see a child asking for money, but strangely you could have sworn that the child's dad looked like someone else. You find out that this "child" had more than 3 "dads". Most likely a way to grab the hearts of the compassionate but you know better to be scammed by one of them. 

You walk out and you make your way to the Vatican. There, you are bombarded by flocks of Asian tourists, posing for cameras doing that really stupid "peace sign" with their two fingers. You quickly realize that there must have been over 15 tours going on, each having 30 or more Asian tourists in each group. 

They are everywhere.

You eventually get to your favorite bar (not the American bars) but, since the bar is so close to the Vatican you are waiting behind a band of Asian tourists. They try to speak Italian but they butcher it so badly that it makes you want to cry. Meanwhile everyone else is taking pictures of everything they see. 

Can you see why this can be a bit annoying? How Asian tourists, who flock by the millions really make things inconvenient and annoying? Just imagine if herds of Asians were to come and "tour" your favorite places in the US. Santa Monica, 3rd Street, Century City, Long Beach, San Diego, Seattle, Pikes Place, Tacoma (kidding with this one) etc. It would suck. 

So not only do Italians despise Americans, but I feel like they are a bit annoyed, cold, apprehensive, and unwelcoming of Asians too. Lucky for me its 2 birds with one stone, you know, being Asian American.

It's true, I havn't gotten any real, tangible, first encounters of racism, like what they would do to the Gypsies or some of the Indians, but I do feel extremely "different", even under some sort of spotlight in some areas in Rome. I get a lot of stares, especially when I'm with Miya. I don't think Italians can cope with the fact that an Asian guy can be with an American, let alone white, blond haired, blue eyed gal. I find pretty amusing actually, because many people in America can't understand that phenomenon either(it's always the asian girl with the white guys, not asian guys with white girls). Also, when we do interact with Italians, they always face and talk at Miya more than me. Perhaps because she's a pretty girl and I'm just a dude, but who knows? Maybe its all subliminal and done unwittingly. I digress....

I'd be truly impressed if you have read this far. I'd love if you will give me some of your thoughts about what I've wrote. Do you think this is a fair assessment? Am I looking too far into it? For those of you who have been to Europe, or are in Europe, how do you feel about my responses? I'm really interested in what you have to say. So, dica, per favore! And also I can continue my streak of comments while Miya still has 0 for every blog she writes. haha.