Sunday, June 15, 2014

If Asians said the stuff white people say...

If Asians said the stuff white people say...  Friend and former colleague Aleck L. (who hails from Taiwan) sent me this hilarious spoof.  I suspect this is more universal between cultures and races than people on the receiving end assume.  After all, if you're Asian, then you're going to hear all the stereotypical Asian assumptions – and not the others.

I've been amused quite a few times by assumptions people from other cultures or races have made about me.  What leaps immediately to mind were my earliest experiences (in the early '90s) driving around Estonia.  I often met people who had never met an American before – and when they heard that I was from California, the almost inevitable follow-up was to ask me about various movies stars, with the assumption that I must know them personally :)  I also vividly remember a black guy from Chicago who was part of my mess decks crew when I was in the Navy.  He was continually astonished at the stuff we white people would eat – especially vegetables.  Much of the Navy diet was food he'd never tasted before, and which he associated with white people.  And then there was my Indian colleague who was continually amused by (from his perspective) the American/white beliefs about dating, sex, and marriage – he thought we were four or five centuries behind the Indians in those regards :)

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