I was able to do this because my mixed looks gave me enough ambiguity that I could pass for either full white or at least having been so Americanized that I might never have learned my mother ' s native tongue . A white lookingvery mixed looking hapa ' s experiences of teaching in Asia are not really the experience of a ' minority ' if they are seen as white or ' eurasian ' by most Asians . It ' s probably worth remembering that 1 . Many hapas don ' t pass as white , or even as ' hapa ', but pass for full Asian would they get the same treatment ? 2 . Many hapas raised in the West don ' t speak the Asian language of their heritage and even if they did if they didn ' t look white or mixed , would they get the same treatment ? I ' m not sure , but for those hapas falling into categories 1 and 2 , a lot turns on how comfortable they are with being perceived as ' asian ' by other Asians and not benefiting from hapa and white worship . There are also parallels between this and with the stories of hapas trying to be ' white sexpats ' in Asia .