Travel Stories from an Asian Man #1
One of the most thought-provoking posts on Gary’s blog View from the Wing considers a question that Gary got from an African American woman at the World Domination Summit after discussing some of his techniques for maximizing his travel experiences: “these sound like great techniques; can you talk about how well they work if you aren’t a white male?”
I can’t hope to answer this question fully, but I will share some of my travel stories that I think have been affected/created/influenced by the fact that I’m an Asian male. It’s up to you to decide if that’s true or not.
Story #1:
Near the end of my senior year of college, I went on a mini-roadtrip with some of my best friends. Somewhere along the highway in North Carolina, we stopped at a Waffle House for a meal. We sat at two different tables: four of us at one, three at the other. I ended up sitting with three of my blond friends.
Our waitress was a friendly older woman with a southern drawl. She could tell that we weren’t from around the area, so she asked us why we were passing through. We told her that we were on a small trip and were about to graduate from college, so she asked us what we studied.
My friends answered political science, computer science, and psychology; when it came around to me, I said, “mathematics”.
The waitress responded: “You know, when I saw you, I thought you’d say math”.
Did you have any black friends present who were about to order chicken but got preempted by her as well?
That did not happen, although in general it seemed like having an Asian customer was quite an anomalous event for that Waffle House.