I had quite a transformative experience last week.

I was walking down the road, minding my own business, happily daydreaming and swinging a just-bought cupcake in my hand. Then a couple of guys walked past, and even though they had plenty of room on the pavement, one of them pushed right into me, seemingly on purpose. I shot daggers at him (metaphorical ones, obviously) and he just turned and slowly said “Ni Hao”. Which is “hello” in Chinese. The only reason I know that is because so many people have said it to me over the years, in similar circumstances.

Usually in this situation, I am so taken aback that I can feel my body tighten and get smaller. I freeze, look down and keep walking. I did that when the guy came up to the open car window when I was waiting for a friend to get petrol, and kept saying “moshi moshi”, whilst I looked the other way, inches from my face.

But not this time. Something came over me. There on the pavement, I looked at this guy and slowly said “fuck off”.

He looked so surprised! Now it was his turn to be taken aback. He started laughing, repeating to his friend “fuck off! she said fuck off!” and then turned back and said “I’m sorry, that’s all I know in Chinese”.

“I’M NOT CHINESE. How would you feel if I started speaking to you in "African”“? (The guy was mixed race, and his friend was black).

Wow, it really wasn’t going well for this guy. He took my point and said,

"I am truly sorry”.

“Yeah, you should be”.

Honestly, when I was walking away, I felt like punching the air. I got an apology? For the first time in my whole life? It was incredible.

But it did make me think, did I only feel brave enough to speak up because these guys weren’t white, because they would understand when I used another example of racism? What could I have said if they had been white, to help them understand?

The disconnect between how I define myself and how others define me will always be shocking to me. It will always take me out of myself when people do this, always make me realise that people just see some stereotype of “small asian girl” until I start talking, will always think I don’t deserve the space on the pavement, or even just a bit of respect. But I’m starting to claw that back. Watch out world.