Token Asian Girl

It's not often that I'm reminded of my race as Asian, although I do live in a predominantly Asian area.  Sometimes, I catch myself looking at a mirror and I'm reminded that I am, indeed, Asian and that no, it doesn't wash off.  And every now and then, something happens that jerks me into remembering that I'm Asian and everything that goes along with it...

This week, I found out that a friend of mine who works in our marketing department has been ringing around the company asking for "young, slim, Asian girls".  I asked her why and she replied that she was asked by her boss to look for these "candidates" because the company want to do a new campaign and highlight how "diverse" they are.  However, my friend didn't count on the fact that was blatantly obvious to me: they are very few of us ethnic minorities at my company.  Now, when it comes to hiring women, we do a brilliant job but ethnics, that's a whole different issue.  So, I pointed out the irony that the company's desire to illustrate how diverse they are has resulted in the company realising how un-diverse they are.  As it turns out, the company have decided to drop the idea... so perhaps they will just stick with the usual white faces? I'm looking forward to finding out...