Posted by: colorblindcupid | June 12, 2008

Twins

Some friends just baptized their twins at our church. Mutual friends attended the baptism, but they do not belong to our church (they’re some of those Catholic types ;) ). They have a daughter exactly the same age as DD (4 weeks apart). The mom is Chinese and the dad is white. Though you (or at least I can) tell the girl is mixed race, she looks more Chinese than white.

So when it’s time in the service to go to Sunday School, DD asked her friend if she wanted to come. Saresh took both of them to their classroom. Because the baptism was at a different hour service than we normally attend, the Sunday School teacher was not familiar with DD (and obviously not our friend’s daughter either).

Saresh introduces the girls and the teacher says in all seriousness, “Oh! They’re so cute! Are they twins?” I do not know how he kept a straight face when telling her they were just friends.

In some fairness to the teacher, they both have dark brown hair and brown eyes and they did both come in with an Indian guy instead of two separate parents. However, I seriously doubt if they were two white girls with brown hair and eyes that she would have made same assumption.

Indian… Chinese… whatever. You know how they all just look alike.

Posted in Child raising issues, Chinese, Colorblind Cupid Wrote This, Funny Stuff, Indian, Mixed Race, interracial family, kids, racial stereotypes

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Responses

  1. hahaha! My friends and I discuss this all the time. One of my co-workers seems to place anyone that isn’t white in that category of “they all look just a like.” That ALL Asians look identical..whether Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean, Indian, etc. She makes that assumption for all African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans too. Some people are just so… narrow minded.

    By: ara0062 on June 12, 2008
    at 11:09 am

  2. For what it is worth, this happens all the time if I take my daughter and one of her friends somewhere without another parent. People can tell they are the same age but they look nothing alike. So they ask if they are twins?

    By: The Therapist on June 12, 2008
    at 1:29 pm

  3. PS – we are not mixed race.

    By: The Therapist on June 12, 2008
    at 1:30 pm

  4. My friend and I used to be mistaken for twins all the time when we were in high school. Other than both having blonde hair (although mine is darker) and light eyes (hers are blue and mine are green) and being about the same size (except she’s 3 inches taller than me), we look nothing alike. Our facial features are completely different. People just don’t look closely enough at faces to distinguish them, I think.

    By: D on June 12, 2008
    at 2:02 pm

  5. hee hee well you know, fraternal twins don’t look alike, so it’s always a possibility that’s what they have in mind.

    My first two kids are the exact same size (because my oldest is very small for her age, while my son is very very big for his) – everywhere we go people ask if they are twins. So I *know*, in our case, they are thinking fraternal twins. ;)

    I’ve seen your daughter though, CBC, and if it’s any consolation she could pass for mixed race of many different flavors. You know my son doesn’t even look asian, he looks latino. lol

    By: chineseambassador on June 12, 2008
    at 6:04 pm

  6. My cousin and I were always mistaken for twins/sisters – even when my own sister was with us, which drove her crazy. I don’t look anything like my cousin, who is blond and blue eyed, but we were the same age.

    I think D’s right – people just aren’t paying close attention. It’s an odd thing to ask people though still!

    CA – your son totally looks Latino! A pirate latino. LOL I love that look he makes.

    By: colorblindcupid on June 12, 2008
    at 7:37 pm


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