"Get lost gweilo!" says the old man. I firmly respond, "How dare you call me gweilo! Be respectful and call me ah-cha!"
If you got this joke, then you have a local understanding of racism in Hong Kong.
(For those who don't get it, gweilo is a Cantonese term for white people while ah-cha refers to South Asians.)
I'm an Indian made in Hong Kong. And because I was born and raised here, my parents felt it was vital that I learn the local language of Cantonese. They wanted me to better integrate into society and avoid the limitations they faced due to their own language barrier.
It seemed like a simple formula: Learn the language, become a local, everybody's happy.
However, as we realized in my early years at school, Cantonese isn't a language you can just pick up in class. The language is famously colloquial; you need to use it regularly and surround yourself with it to truly embrace how people communicate.
Mastering the language's many tones is daunting enough, but Cantonese is filled with slang terms, expressions and foul language we are not taught at school.
It is similar to how an English class might teach someone to say, "Hello, how are you?" but in the real world they'd probably hear "How's it going?" more often.
It was a battle of learning textbook-Cantonese in the classroom versus people-Cantonese outside.
My wake-up-call moment was when I ranked second-to-last for Cantonese in my elementary school. My parents, fortunately, were smart enough to realize that it was the lack of Cantonese at home that was causing me to fall behind. They did not blame my Indian brain for being incompatible with the Chinese language.
They sought for extra help through tutors and tutorial centers to supplement my learning at school.
The combination of school, tutors and having Chinese friends is what resulted in me being able to speak fluent Cantonese today.
When I look back to my days as a little boy, I didn't fit in, and yet, I didn't necessarily stand out either.
The term "ethnic minority" wasn't what people used to describe me. I was just that guy who looked different.
When my classmates invited me to join them, it was not because they wanted to be inclusive, it was because we got along as individuals. It wasn't until we were taught about different Asian cultures that everyone started comparing how different we were.
Teenage years are often when people try to identify themselves. It was also the time my classmates started mocking any features of mine that didn't match the rest of the herd.
Being hairy was an issue I remember being picked on about. One person would joke how I probably didn't evolve properly from a monkey. Another would ask if I found it hard to run since my hair made me less aerodynamic.
I never liked to argue or fight, so I would respond that my body hair meant I would never get mosquito bites because it would trap the insects before they bit me.
I wasn't trying to be funny, but joking about the situation helped me deflect the negative attention.
Bullying and racism existed in varying degrees. Going to an all-boys school meant facing a daily challenge of trying to be the alpha male and being Indian meant I had to have all the answers to anything happening in India.
The hardest time was when I was 16 or 17 years old because I felt exhausted that I always had to take an extra step to clarify myself to people. I was ready to create my own FAQ with "How come you can speak Cantonese?" as the first question in the list.
Not being Chinese seemed to be a burden in my daily life. I had to explain myself repeatedly. I spent countless conversations explaining my family's history, my daily habits and which type of curry I was going to be having for my next meal.
My mother once told me "There is no correct race" and this made me realize that I was not at fault for being Indian. I could hate it every day and waste my energy trying to work around it, or I could embrace it and play it to my advantage.
Why should my identity be an inconvenience? After years of self-reflection, I finally convinced myself to embrace my differences and my outlook started to change.
Racism was not something I had to guard against. Instead, I simply told myself I had better things to do than get offended by strangers.
When I first dived into the world of stand up comedy, my material started off with my identity and my history. After all, Carol Burnett once said that "comedy is equal to tragedy plus time." I had a long timeline of tragedies that were ripe for a comedy routine.
Joking about how my body hair can trap mosquitoes became part of my routine. Unlike my monkey ancestry, however, my comedy evolved over the years as my fans grew with me.
At my shows, the audience may enter the room ready to be impressed by the feat of an Indian performing in fluent Cantonese. When they leave, many of them only remember me as a person that made them laugh.
In the duration of my time on stage, people would unconsciously forget that I was Indian. They would, at most, think of me as that guy who looked different.
That is why, when I travel to perform, I insist on being introduced as a comedian "from Hong Kong" or as a Hongkonger.
The definition of "Hongkonger" is "a native or inhabitant of Hong Kong." I used to spend a lot of time wondering if I qualified as one. These days, I don't bat an eye at the question.
I feel the current protests, if anything, have opened new dimensions to the meaning of the term "Hongkonger" and strengthened my understanding of it.
When others, including I, saw that the people involved in the protests were from different backgrounds, ethnicities and religions, it brought a clearer understanding of what makes a Hongkonger.
Even though only 8% of this place is non-Chinese, the diverse crowds involved were often made up of people who called Hong Kong their home and identified themselves as Hongkongers.
These moments connected different ethnicities by reminding us that a part of the definition of a Hongkonger is we are all fellow human beings.
As a comedian, rather than using my platform for cross-cultural exploration of diversity and inclusion, I make my shows a place for a group of individuals to come together and laugh.
I don't formally share about my culture, instead I joke about an old man who insulted me incorrectly by calling me a gweilo instead of the correct discriminatory term of ah-cha.
Oddly, the more I laugh about my life as an Indian in Hong Kong, the more people don't see me as an Indian in Hong Kong.
They only see me as someone who learned the local language, talks about life as a local and makes everybody happy.
Vivek Mahbubani is a Hong Kong-bred bilingual stand-up comedian performing in both Cantonese and English.
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