SHARING TIME!

[glockgal]

It seems like every single post I make about Avatar: The Last Airbender casting ends up in people needing to share their experiences growing up as a social outcast and/or a survivor of abuse and/or victim of visual judgement. I've also seen a lot of demonstrations of subverted self-loathing and (the more amusing) claims from multiple people that

Comments

[mijan]

Wow, that encounter with the Afghani guy in the chip shop is one for the record books. Everyone thinks about their own heritage a bit differently. For some, they want to know where your DNA originated in the grand scheme of history. Some want to know what language you speak and what religion you follow. Some just want to know where you and your parents were born. You'll get a different answer from everyone.

Actually... here's a secret... after the first day or two in London, I started telling everyone I was Canadian, not American. With a last name like mine (it's French, and most Americans can't even pronounce it), and my natural tendency to lapse back into "l'Acadie" accent and slang when I leave the US, it was really easy to do. I grew up going back and forth between New Hampshire and Nova Scotia, and I still feel like my family's little fishing village is home. Besides, after the series of dirty looks and "Did you vote for Bush" interrogations, I didn't want to deal with that for my entire stay in England. I was generally treated much more kindly when people thought I was Canadian. *sigh* Very sad.