Being Asian, I have always been so proud of my heritage and culture and have always made sure that I spend time educating my friends and acquaintances about who I really am, yet there has been a dilemma. Well, I can't blame others as well as it could be confusing for a foreigner to 'really' understand what and how Asian I am.
    Oh yes, when you look at me you can actually say I am Asian yet most 'Asian stereotype' you have on your head, I could not so relate to that and no, I wasn't born or raised in the West. As an Nepalese Indian guy living in New Zealand, a lot of curious souls have asked me numerous questions about my culture, which seemed to fascinate them and I personally love explaining and introducing my culture to them and here I have listed couples of points which could seem Asian yet no so Asian:

• Yes, I speak English fluently even though I was born and raised in my home country. A lot of people get surprised by how I could English fluently, which seemed to take them by shock knowing I moved to New Zealand just a year ago. There are countries which are 'non-English' where we learn how to speak English as kids and speak it our entire lives.
• A lot of people have stereotypes for what kind of food I like. Knowing I am Indian, they have a theory I eat butter chicken, naan breads and curries at home everyday. Well, I don't mind them and actually love it, yet we didn't grow up eating those food and actually personally for me, I have eaten more naan breads and butter chicken after I moved out of my country. Plus being Asian, I was expected to know how to use chopstick which I had no idea how to even hold earlier neither did I grow eating the stereotypical 'Asian Food' which could be your Chinese, Japanese or Korean food.
• It is quite fascinating when people try to guess what language I speak especially when other 'Asians' wonder if I am the same Asian as them and put forward a little friendliness speaking their native language with me. As much I would love to know and speak those languages, I always disappoint them as it is never a language I know that they come and speak with me. Whenever I go to eat out in an Asian restaurant, I always have the server come up to me handing out menus in their native language and start their conversation in it while on the other side I have no idea what they are saying, breaking the conversation and asking 'I don't speak the language you are speaking. Could you speak in English?' and then a mere disappointment and awkwardness in the face of the server. What is more fascinating is when I can actually speak Hindi and then there are Indians around speaking Hindi with no idea I can actually speak the language and yet I can hear everything what they are talking, which could be things so private that I wasn't supposed to hear.
• The most interesting part is when people are confused about my ethnicity as I cannot relate to an Asian-Kiwi nor an Asian-Asian and lie somewhere in the middle even though I am so much Asian as anyone and then sometimes I can so relate to both the extreme groups. Plus when it comes to random strangers guessing where I originally come from, they never get it right after 20 guesses as well.
• But at the end of the day, as stereotypical as it may sound I love rice and because of this love for rice Asians restaurants are a paradise. Especially living in Auckland which is so beautifully multi-cultural and diverse, I have had the experience of getting to know so many Asian cultures and of course food which has been such an enlightening experience.

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