People who want to show of their great inter-cultural learning, should only do so if they have any

Oct 15, 2010 09:36

Okay, I and my husband are Filipinos. We're also Canadians who are living on a sort of diplomatic exchange in the United Kingdom. We love traveling. We love learning about other cultures. We've also had the privilege of meeting lots of people - very traveled, very culturally aware as well as very ignorant. Now, we've learned to accept that there ( Read more... )

life, rant

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vicchonn October 15 2010, 18:01:06 UTC
Amen to that. I have Chinese origins but my background is pretty... uhm, complicated. In any case, before I learned Mandarin in college, everyone would also assume I automatically spoke it.

Moreover, since I'm from a country where people do not usually look, well, Asian, it drove me nuts when AFTER telling them where I'm from and grew up, people would attempt to "teach" me supposed facts about the place where I had spent years living in (even the language (!!!) which led to a pretty embarrassing incident, for the idiotic pseudo-teacher of course, during my freshman year in college.

People enjoy making cultural assumptions (of the politically incorrect kind) that sometimes can be simply offensive. But as you said, curiosity is understandable, but flat out ignorance and even arrogance is intolerable.

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l_i_n_a_y October 15 2010, 18:07:22 UTC
Isn't it hilarious and annoying at the same time when people make assumptions about such complex matters as ethnic identity?! I love how people tried to "teach" you. Heh. In Montreal (where I grew up), you can't really tell much about a person by how they look (well...not all the time) because there are so many 2nd, 3rd and 4th generation immigrants. I used to get a kick out of saying "I'm Canadian" when people asked where I was from. Then they would give me the oddest look and ask "No, where are you REALLY from?" Then, I'd be like "Well, I was born in Ohio." Heh.

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vicchonn October 15 2010, 18:24:14 UTC
It still entertains me to say I'm from Peru too! (hometown). Though there's a large Chinese and Japanese population in Lima (where I've lived for about a decade), many immigrants are still 1st generation. So people don't expect the growing 2nd and slightly smaller 3rd, etc. generation to fluently speak the language.

When I went to the US for college, people would literally stare at me whenever I spoke Spanish or said I was Hispanic. In London, or big cities like NY, people were less confused by my cultural ambiguity.

Next time people ask you where you're really from, tell them Angola or something like that. I know someone who has Colombian origins but was born in Alexandria, Egypt. You should see people's reactions at that.

Even with globalization and the so called more connectivity, people are still living in social bubbles.

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lin_yun October 16 2010, 18:21:13 UTC
interesting ( ... )

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vicchonn October 18 2010, 02:47:52 UTC
LOL. It's okay. Yeah, I agree with your comments of Chinese being more "popular"... I think it's because Chinese people are everywhere--whether it is first, second, or whatever generation.

In any case, looks aside, language is also a way of identification. So if you look like X, people tend to automatically assume you speak language X people should speak.

At this point of my life, I'm used to people not believing or believing me, correcting me when they are the ones not knowing, challenging, etc. Nevertheless, there are perks. I have fun unintentionally eavesdropping some conversations. And just for kicks, I try to avoid speaking a language as much as possible and see what people say. It's really priceless to see shocked or even embarrassed faces when I'm introduced as "oh yeah, this is so and so and she also speaks..."

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