As I was running today, I passed by a middle aged man who called out to me, "Watch out, China lady!! Watch out, China!!"

All indignance and sarcasm aside, it's extremely sad for me to hear this on almost a daily basis. It doesn't matter to me that he's just one person whom I will probably never see again. It doesn't matter to me that he probably doesn't know any better, or that maybe he's a little bit crazy. It matters to me that just because I'm not Caucasian, I need to be called out based on the racial category that I appear to be. And it matters that I was tempted to not dwell on it because I wanted to convince myself that it wasn't a big deal. Because it is a big deal, precisely because we've tried to convince ourselves that it's not a big deal.

I wish I had the patience to stop every time someone said something like that and just say, "Why would you say that to me?"

Hm. Experiment for next time. Stay tuned.