In my final year of uni I witnessed something that was practical and yet insulting and politically incorrect all at the same time.

It was exam time and I was sitting in my something-or-other 3-0-something exam eaerly awaiting the end of the three hour period. The examination supervisors then announced, “Could all Asian students please underline their last name so markers will know whose paper is whose?!”

Practical because a lot of Asian students would write their surname first and many “Westerners” would find it difficult to distinguish an Asian first name from a surname.

Insulting because not all Asians have “confusing” names (myself included).

Politically incorrect because I’m sure there are lots of non-Asians out there with equally confusing names, eg. Matthew James, James Matthews…

So what did I do? Underlined my surname just like they asked me to.