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After Professor Xiu Hong finished posing a discussion question to her East Asian studies seminar, white man James Bernard, without even the slightest, littlest, tiniest bit of hesitation, proceeded to insert his own take on Chinese culture among classmates who were mainly of Asian descent.
“Let me just jump in real quick since I feel like everyone else is confused,” Bernard interjected, not missing a beat to chime in on a culture he lays no claim to, “a lot of Chinese culture doesn’t make sense unless you’ve studied it, like I have.”
Instead of pulling out his printed readings for the week, Bernard proceeded to uncrumple a crusty movie brochure from the bottom of his bag.
“In this one Jackie Chan movie," Bernard said, "I remember that in Peking, they take a month off work and school for Chinese New Year. My bad! It was Bruce Lee. I can never tell them apart.”
While having absolutely no culture of his own to reference, Bernard did not hold back when assessing Chinese traditions, especially after thorough consideration of that one time he mistakenly went to Den Den’s Korean Fried Chicken, thinking it was a different KFC.
“Fried rice can get pretty spicy,” said Bernard, having never tasted a single spice in his entirely vanilla life, he continued, “so you really have to know what you’re getting into. It’s pretty lucky I’m so experienced. I don’t even have to read the chopsticks instructions now when I get Andrew’s pho.”
At press time, polls reflected that Bernard was wholly disliked by all except for society at large.
