Thank you for this fantastic piece! As an East Asian person, I often feel embarrassed by my fellow country men/women’s blatant racism towards non-white foreigners. This often has to do with the lack of multicultural awareness from the ground up. Schools never teach kids to respect people from all cultural and ethnic backgrounds and the fact that most people from the older generation have rarely seen anyone who doesn’t look like them makes it even worse. It is also a side effect from Western colonialism that perpetuated the idea that the white culture is desirable and anything else is inferior. I’m hoping that with more migrants coming to these countries and younger people who have traveled and studied abroad coming back and bringing in new perspectives, things will start to change, but it may take years, sadly. I’m so glad you found Hiro, who not only was respectful to you but also stood up for you. He’s a keeper! I have started to call my family members out when they made racist comments towards foreigners. Baby steps!