What's the question?

The age old question most every Asian in a non-Asian country faces is "What are you?" It sounds like such a philosophical question, a question that invites self-examination and introspection. But I know better. Instead of responding with "I'm an introvert with slightly reckless tendencies" or "human," I simply rephrase the question for them in a more satisfactory form (which is perhaps just as obnoxious).

When I was younger, I used to rephrase "What are you?" as "What is your nationality?" But I realized, nationality is more akin to citizenship than ethnicity. So then I thought the question ought to be "What is your ethnicity?" But the question assumes the listener has only one ethnicity when she may be multi-ethnic. So now my painfully crafted question is, "May I ask you what your ethnic background is?" Hence, when someone asks me, "What are you?" I respond, "Do you mean to ask what my ethnic background is?"

A variant of the "What are you?" question is "Where are you from?" With this, I take a slightly different approach. For example, when someone asks me this question, I say "Philly." Then they inevitably ask "No, I mean, where are your parents from?" Then I say "Philly." Then I usually add, "Do you mean to ask what my ethnic background is?"

And sometimes people just guess, and since 1 out of every 4 humans on this planet is Chinese, they usually guess Chinese and are wrong. Then I say, "Do you mean to ask what my ethnic background is?"

Hey, if people are going to be ignorant, might as well have a little fun with it.