The ethnic minority

San Franciso is home to a zillion immigrants from China and Hong Kong, making Chinese people and food a pretty common sight. Now that I'm in the Boston suburban region, I guess my heritage is sort of a novelty.

A woman in my office - an immigrant from China - seems to view me as a cautionary tale for her own children, of Chinese descent but born on U.S. soil. Every time I run into her, she asks me questions about whether or not I speak Chinese, how I communicate with my relatives and what foods I eat. Yesterday, she asked me if I used to only like American foods or if I preferred Chinese food as a child. I let her know that, when it comes to food, I'm not very discriminating. Not at all.

Her concern, it seems, stems from the fact that her children, age 11 and 8, only like Chinese food that is deep fried and/or sweet and sour pork. She would love for them to appreciate more traditional Chinese food, but they refuse to try it. Is this common for us ABC (American-born Chinese)- types? Will her kids grow out of this phase?

And upon returning to my desk, this co-worker had sent me an e-mail filled with links to Asian resources in the Boston area. Restaurants, grocery stores, apparel shops, etc. And some of these pages are in Chinese, a language she knows I cannot read.