Jul 22, 2011 19:52
My Chinese-Canadian roommate was telling me how the other day on her way home from work, a few guys on the street approached her and said "ni hao". We live in Toronto, one of the most multicultural cities in the world, and which has a very very high Asian population. She said they looked Latino or southern European, and my best guess it that they're not from around here. And even so, in this city how short a time do you have to be here for that to have any novelty value?
This hasn't happened to me in my recent memory in Toronto, but it has happened to me while on vacation. It happened to me in Paris, and in Montreal, both of which are fairly multicultural cities. When I was on vacation in Europe, some storekeepers would try to greet me with "nihao"/"konnichiwa" etc. I'm personally more lenient when it's in that setting, because these store keepers in these tourist areas are probably used to seeing a lot of Asian faces who are tourists and don't speak English well. I'm much more outraged when it's on the street by a stranger, especially in an area where Asians are a very visible minority. What the fuck do they get out of this? Do they do this to every Asian person they see?
I'm wondering how many of you guys have had the experience of a non-Asian stranger approach you on the street with their attempts at "greeting you" in Mandarin/Japanese/what have you. If so .... how do you react? What do you do? When it's from random strangers in settings that they really should be accustomed to seeing an Asian face, I feel violated and angry, but I never know what to say back.