Qayerdansiz?*

[hulegu]

Today, I got spectacles after many years of squinting and people telling me, "You should get glasses." Then, a friend told me, "You know, they [the glasses] make you look like an Uzbek." This is strange, but also coincidental; last week, following the Andijan lecture I attended a SOAS, an Uzbek woman told me, "You have very Central Asian features

Comments

[anonymous]

Estonian (in Ukraine, on account of speaking Russian in a funny accent: a very scary man in a library asked me)

German (in Latvia: ditto: but nice conductor-woman on a train near the splendidly named town of Ogre)

Jewish (in Lithuania: ditto, and on account on my not having a habit of wolf-whistling at passing women, according to my dodgy cab driver)

Irish (in Ukraine, on account of being more vivacious than even Odessan, and hence fairly well-informed, stereotypes of English character) - which is more or less accurate, really, as I do have Irish heritage.

Turkish (woman in Pret a Manger, Clerkenwell, London: I have no idea whatsoever why)

Venichka. English/Scottish/(unoccupied) Ulster Irish