Growing up across the river from NYC, I remember getting in more fights than I can count on my collective digits because of the way I look. Even today, as an adult living in NYC I still run into these racial situations like the time a woman threatened to, "kick my skinny chinky ass" because my bag almost touched her. Like most bullies she caved when confronted. Sometimes it isn't even aggressive--like the man I happen to be alone with on that long, long elevator ride who thought it would be a compliment to describe my kind as "exotic" or the old Italian lady who expressed a bit of shock to hear my unbroken English. It is with some cold comfort that I do feel "lucky" to have been trained from a young age to deal with all these situations: sometimes with a verbal lashing, sometimes with humor and sometimes with just a shrug.