Netizens slam viral Instagram story about 'Chinese girl that loves ahneiii food'

Oof, I thought we've been through this so many times already. Someone still hasn't gotten the memo (in 2019, even) that whatever racist notions and supposed in-jokes one might have, it should stay offline.

Deepavali came and went earlier this week, but instead of a sincere appreciation of the symbolic spiritual victory of good over evil, a woman professed her love for Indian cuisine. Fitting, since she was in Mumbai anyway. 

Nothing wrong at all with a shout-out to biryani, tandoori chicken and keema. What this lady didn't have to do was to assert herself as a Chinese girl who loves "ahneiii" food. But not so much other "ahneiii" elements. 

Facebook user Ganesh Nadrajan saw the lady's post on an Instagram Story and made sure to screengrab it for a post. 

You can already imagine how it could be deemed offensive to Indians — here is a non-Indian Singaporean happily using a mangled version of the word "anna" (typically pronounced "ah neh"), a Tamil word for elder brother. It's questionable when a "Chinese girl" uses the term broadly to refer to an entire culture, plus the fact that there's a Hokkien slur for Indian people that sounds similar: "Ah pu neh neh". 

Then also there's the part where she says that she likes Indian food, but winks that she may not like Indian people as much.

Netizens were not amused and made it pretty clear on Ganesh's Facebook post. 

 

ilyas@asiaone.com