I thought this was hilarious. I totally cracked up. Believe it or not, I have had all these things said to me, more than once. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMJI1Dw83Hc
Don't kid yourself, they do in Asia all the time to people who look differently from them. Been there, experienced that.
I'm sure that's true. But there would be a difference. It would be a pretty safe bet that any white person in, say Japan, would be a foreigner. So a question like, "Where are you from?" Answer, "America" or some other Western country would be appropriate. But here in the U.S., I'll will get, "Where are you from?" Me- "Michigan." Reply - "No, I mean where were you born?" Me- "Michigan." Reply - "Oh." Or sometimes - "What nationality are you?" "American." "No, I meant, where were you born?" "Michigan." "Oh." I don't get offended. I think it's just hilarious. We do eat with chopsticks though, unless we have guests, then we eat American food, American style with silverware. I have to do some remedial work with the girls though. They aren't very good with knife and fork. And they want to eat everything on the plate with a spoon.
I laughed at that. But I'll bet there are people on this forum whose families have not been in this country as long as mine. My ancestors, at least on my mother's side, came here in the 1800s. (To Hawaii originally.) My husband's mother's parents were immigrants and his father was also.
My lord I got asked so many times in grade school "say something in korean" I'm not your dancing monkey people. Then when I didn't want to they'd ask if I were embarrassed. These were my people and my friends, didn't hate them for it, just found it really annoying.
People are ignorant often times when it comes to communication. I think what people are asking when they say things like that is do you have an interesting story we can base a conversation on. In their lack of grace and equally strong carefulness to not appear nosey it comes out "where were you born" or something similar. I expect it's a universally shared feature across cultures, I think there are probably a lot of Caucasian people born and raised in Asian countries as well and the same thing happens even more so with them. There are lots of Americans and other nationality Caucasians whose parents work in Asiatic countries. I had a classmate in high school that was born and raised in Japan until Jr. High when her parents moved back to the US and she had stories of the same thing happening.
Francis Cooke (99% sure that was his name, I'd have to ask my grandmother for confirmation. She has the records. Family history is her hobby)
Lol I get Asians telling me I don't count as Asian because my ethnicity is Filipino...apparently no "real" Asian can be named Carlos...lol My kids are first generation American born. USA USA USA!
My ancestors on my dad's side were imported in 1637, I have no idea about moms side except they have been in the US for more than four generations.
Technically either one would work. A merchant in Virginia brought an apprentice across with him in 1637.
My personal favorite is "remember Pearl Harbor!". I used to get that a lot every Dec. 7th. ...sigh... Yeah, that was me. My bad. My brothers got beat up for being 'japs', at least until they became bad mofos themselves. Because you know, ninja. It's in the blood. (but seriously, don't mess with my brothers) BTW, Sachiko, in your signature you have "sachiko is spelled 幸子 in ganja" Do you mean kanji? Because, um, ganja is something entirely different.
Christine, your story reminds me of an event a long time ago. 1980 - I was on R & R in Japan. I had chosen a small village on the west coast to experience the culture with the least amount of outside influences. One morning I got up early to walk around before the fishing village got too busy. As I walked down the street, I met an elderly Japanese man so I bowed and said "Ohio Gozai Masu" trying to be polite. Out of the blue he spat on me and I reacted accordingly with the American way of reacting to such an insult. Not a cop around to see him spit on me, but there were plenty a second later when I reacted. At the police station they finally found a translator and I told him what happened. The translator told the police what I had said. The old man confirmed what I said and then told them his family had been wiped out at Nagasaki and as an American I was responsible for his family's death. To settle the incident they told him to hit me and me to spit on him. After he hit me, I told the translator I would not spit on him as Americans were too civilized to act in such a uncultured way. I told them when the bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, my father was 10 years old and my grandfather was deceased and therefore my family had nothing to do with the deaths of his family members. Other to change planes, I have not been back to Japan since. However, I do not hold the actions of one against the whole and I would not stereotype Japanese people or any other Asians for it. Sachiko - I don't see humor in stereotyping anyone based on race because even in the guise of humor it is still nothing more than bigotry. Having lived in Asia for many years, I can usually tell someone's ethnical background and will ask if I am right and also ask whether or not they still honor their heritage and culture as to me that is very important.
Yes, You're right. I should change that. I think "ganja" is actually a term for weed in some language. My husband and I were talking about the characters when I was doing that and they're called hanja in Korean. (The Army spent a year teaching him Korean.) And my mind got garbled when I typed that. I'm still in the process of learning Japanese. My mother decided to make sure I was American so, although she is fluent, never taught me. But she has been teaching her granddaughters Japanese. I snarl at her now and then about it, with the greatest respect of course. So it will be corrected and your correction will be memorialized in this thread.
You should have seen the racism I endured in Hawaii over three years as a teenager. That being said, I don't whine about it. In fact, at the time, the only way I could "solve" the issue was to fight.
I love how the Japanese police tried to solve your situation iowa. Kind of shows the cultural difference in reasoning between here and there.
