I never made that connection, thought it was a shape thing (oh and the red shirt). But I never saw asian people as yellow, and don't understand that remark. An asian friend of mine once jokingly referred to herself as a banana, but then had to explain the joke to me.
Whether you personally are caught up or not it still has a deep history in anti-asian racism. Depictions of asians as yellow is a classic hallmark of anti-asian racism.
Racism is racism. If you think that certain nation is of a certain kind because of their genetics, it's just racism, whether it applies to yourself or not.
But to clarify, she was only making a joke, it wasn't racist.