Stalkr.com

Parading as a "Culture Vulture"

"Laurie Wang"

Roll call during the first day of classes was one of Laurie's most dreaded experiences. Every teacher and professor, without fail, scanned the room for someone they could plausibly think of as a 'Laurie Wang' but when their eyes landed on her, they had to do a double take. In disbelief, each and every single one of them hesitated- she could tell- and the reactions ranged from the banal "oh, interesting name," to invasive and sometimes offensive questioning. No one would really expect a blonde, blue-eyed five-foot-eleven girl with frizzy hair to be called "Laurie Wang."

"O, huh, did I pronounce that right? Where's your last name from, by the way, are you, uh... Portuguese?" the professor asked.

Back in high school, some teachers would at least be warned about the white girl with the unambiguously Chinese last name. College, however, proved to be a whole different playing field. The Economics department was large enough that her record could easily get lost between a thousand others, but that still was not enough to save her from the awkward moments of having to explain her entire family history and trajectory at the beginning of class to a bunch of strangers.

"My parents are Chinese, I was adopted as a baby," she explained, blood rushing to her cheeks as she turned red with embarrassment from feeling all the eyes in the room on her.

"That's really interesting, and you are?"

"Completely, 100% pure American, sir," she replied.

"Nice, and you uh- speak the language?"

"I grew up in a Mandarin-speaking bilingual household."

"Cool, uh, very cool," he said before continuing to read down the list of names, not interrogating a single one of the following responders about their family origins.

Still, Laurie could feel a few eyes in the room on her. The ones who would later try to look her up on Facebook or Instagram (if she had one) to confirm that her parents did, indeed, match the description of someone with the last name Wang, and to compare them to their mismatched white daughter. It was because of people like them that she felt uncomfortable showing her face at the Asian American cultural center on campus, or talking publicly about her struggles of growing up with a tiger mom. She was well-aware of how quickly she would get branded as a weeb and a culture vulture for showing her public appreciation for the culture she grew up in.

After her Applied Econometrics class ended, Laurie drove back home instead of staying behind to hang out with her friends like the rest of the students would. Already in the second semester of her third year and only a few credits away from finishing her undergraduate degree, she had struggled with making friends on campus, much to her overly-ambitious mother's disappointment.

"Hi honey, how was school?" her mother asked as she heard her coming in.

"It was okay," Laurie replied, ready to dart up the stairs and into her room to listen to some music and hopefully purge the memories of class earlier from her brain.

"No cute boys or bitchy girls in your classes?" her mother said, eyes fixed on her historical romance drama so much that she could not even turn around to look at Laurie was she spoke. "By the way, if you're going upstairs, tell Lucas to come down here, I need him to do something for me."

"Okay," she answered, obediently.

She went up the stairs and instead of turning right towards the hallway that led to her bedroom and her parents', she took a left and passed all guest rooms, laundry room, office, gym and kept walking all the way down to the end, where loud rap music emanated from her brother's room. She knocked on the door hard and called his name loudly, but knowing how deafening the sound must have been inside, Laurie considered calling it a lost cause.

"Lucas, I'm coming in," Laurie announced.

"Wait-" Lucas shouted back, but only a second too late.

Laurie had already opened the door, and there he was, in full glory, with his well-defined abs and toned arms from playing college basketball all out in the air as he often was when their parents were not around- particularly when cute girls were in the vicinity. Speaking of cute girls, there was one below him, with her shirt still on, at least. Lucas jumped forward, as if shooting a three-pointer, and reached for his shirt on the floor.

"Is that a new tattoo?" Laurie asked, noticing his ribcage before he could grab the shirt to pretend to protect his dignity.

Lucas had admittedly always been the better sibling. He was tall, handsome, liked by all the aunties and even more beloved by their daughters. Laurie could not even claim she was superior to him in any way- even academically, he was on an athletic scholarship to play D-1 basketball and chosen to major in Mechanical Engineering. Most important of all, to white people, he did resemble their parents. Lucas had been adopted from South Korea, so despite not being biologically related to their parents, he at least did not have to overshare the details of his adoption to a classroom of random college kids at the beginning of each term.

"Don't tell mom, please," he said, both about the tattoo and the girl.

The girl in his room did not happen to be just any random good-looking college girl either. She was Laurie's best friend, all the way from elementary school, who Lucas had just shamelessly crept in on to add to his contact list of booty calls.

"Mom said she wants you to do something for her downstairs," Laurie told him.

"Crap," Lucas said, knowing their opportunistic mother fully well. She claimed her bad vision got in the way for Lucas to continue filling out her forms or making payments she was too lazy to process herself.

"Go," Laurie instructed.

She knew he would not object, given that her leverage against him was too powerful, and besides, she wanted some time alone with Imani. Given prior events, she figured the two of them were in for a talk.

"So, how long?" Laurie asked once Lucas was out of the room.

"What?" Imani played coy.

"Since you gave into the Lucas charm, like are you two a regular thing? I thought you were better than this, Imani, he's a fuck boy."

"Girl, you're tripping," Imani replied. "Lucas is cute and all, but cute doesn't pay my bills. This is just a temporary distraction."

"Dickstraction," Laurie corrected.

Imani had been raised by her grandmother who lived a few houses down from Laurie's. The girls had met once at church, during that brief period of time Laurie's mother insisted on being religious and Imani's grandmother could still walk out of her front door. Imani was a couple of years older than Laurie, so naturally, the two lost contact when Imani defeated all odds and went out of state to attend a semi-prestigious university. She was back in town to take care of her senile grandmother, but since that proved to be a full-time energy consuming job, the two had hardly ever talked since.

Imani laughed, "look, if it bothers you, just tell me and I'll stop. This was the first time anything like this happened, I swear."

"Girl, I don't care- as long as you're warned that Lucas is Lucas and he's addicted to female attention."

"Don't worry, I got you- I'll keep his ego in check."

"Good luck with that one."