Asian woman with green eyes

 

“Look!”, I point at the TV, “I want that red hair. It will match my green eyes”.

“Your eyes aren’t green,” Daniel said quickly.

And we started to laugh.

The color of my eyes is our old disagreement.

I think my eyes are green, but Dan says they’re gray. And both statements are true.

My eyes change color depending on my clothes.

“Look, I agreed with you that I’m an Asian woman. So, you have to admit that I have green eyes”, I didn’t want to give up.

We laughed again.

“You agreed? When?”

“At the presentation about Russia, I publicly stated that my husband is right when he calls me an Asian (Eastern) woman”.

The story is: Daniel knows the history of Europe and geography well. When asked where his wife is from, he raises his hand up for clarity and says “Tomsk is located just above China”. He believes that since the area next to China is Asia, the people are Asians, respectively.

At first, I resisted this statement and proudly declared that I was Russian.

But in the process of preparing for the presentation, I realized that my husband was right.

It is believed that the Ural Mountains divide Russia into the European part of the country and the Asian part (including Siberia* and the Far East). There is no clear border on the map, but from a purely geographical point of view, Daniel is right.

 

Also, my father’s last name is probably Tatar. In Tomsk, only my grandfather and his few descendants bore this name. But in the Republic of Tatarstan, this is a common last name. 

From this it follows that I can be Tatar (Asian) on my grandfather’s side.

Would you agree that both facts are quite convincing? Therefore, during the presentation, I openly admitted that my husband was right, and declared myself an Asian woman.

In our family, we don’t quarrel over different points of view. Some disagreements turn into family jokes. My nationality is one of them, and my eye color is another.

Today I tortured my colleagues with the question of what color my eyes are. Two girls in a voice answered that blue (!). What? 

I wonder if you always know what color your eyes are?

As soon as the bleached hair grows back, I’ll dye it a little red. Maybe then my eyes will turn green forever.

Do you have any family jokes? Please, share if you do. 

*Siberian Tatars were one of a few indigenous groups living in Siberia before Russians came 

**my grandfather (died in the war), my father and brother (both died a long time ago), my mother (also no longer with us), two sisters and I (married and changed their names).