Are we running into the same morons? I have similar conversations too:
“Where are you from?”
“I’m from California.”
“No, where are you REALLY from?”
“I really am from California…”
“I mean, where are your parents from?”
“Oh, Taiwan”
“Taiwan? What’s that? Oh, you mean China?”
“Uh no (is this person for real?). From… ok fine, yeah China (whatever).”
“Do you guys really eat dogs there?”
Another slightly modified one would go almost the same, except after they asked “Where are your parents from” and I answered “Taiwan”, they were like, “Wow, your English is so good.” Well duh, didn’t I just say that I was from California?!
The most obnoxious one was when I was on public transportation, and this guy came up to the seat in front of me with his friend. He turned around and went, “Ni hao ma??? Where you from? China? Japan? Korea? Konnichiwa? Anyong haseyo?? Ni hao ma, mei li?”
Yeah, I love how he basically went through all the major east Asian languages there, and when I started talking on my cell in English with no trace of a foreign accent, he was basically all blown over that I didn’t speak with a “chinky” accent, perhaps. He interrupted and spoke in slow, enunciated English, “Hey, where you from? You—speak—English? You-- understand—me?” Moron. Didn’t he just hear me speaking it?
I’m wary of the question because I’m used to receiving some fairly moronic follow up questions and comments.
There was an old county judge, who had long since gone senile and retired to private practice, and I had the same conversation with him on multiple occasions –
Former Judge: Are you Filipino?
Me: No … actually my parents are from India.
Former Judge: Ah, you must be South Indian, because they’re darker skinned.
Me: No, actually. Ethnically, my family is from the northeast of India.
Former Judge: Ah. … You know, when I was serving in WWII, I spent a lot of time in the Phillipines.
Me: (Looks around for the nearest exit)
After a while, I would skedaddle any time I saw the old coot coming down the street. One day I was chatting with an actual judge. We happened to be in his courtroom at the time, because it was vacant, but we were standing behind the bench, close to the door to his chambers. I saw Old Coot open the giant courtroom doors at the other end and I quickly said goodbye to the actual judge and slipped out through his inner chamber.
Next time I stopped by the prosecutor’s office, he was grinning at me: “Judge X said you saw Old Coot and hightailed it out of there!”
Thanks for your reasonable response. I do get that asking normally ‘where are you from’ within a few seconds of meeting someone is a standard American thing to do, and to be honest it doesn’t bother me that much. Not how we do things in the UK, I suppose, but like you say it’s just a cultural difference.
It does bother me, though, when people either
[ol]
[li]come out and ask me when they wouldn’t ask an American. like when I’m ordering coffee and the barista asks me (and didn’t ask the people in the queue in front of me). That does get on my tits a bit – it really reinforces that I am an outsider, even though of course you are right I am an outsider![/li]
[li]start a roll-call of stupid stereotypes or other banality. What you get if you answer ‘the UK’ that you don’t tend to get if you answer ‘Kansas’ is a parade of stereotypes or stupid jokes or stories about someone who studied abroad in Ireland. It is horribly obnoxious to be told ‘but your teeth aren’t that bad!’ upon meeting people relatively often.[/li][/ol]
So my complaint is not so much with the question, but with being put on the spot or with stupid stereotypes. I think this is often exaggerated, but Americans do combine a lot of ignorance about the outside world (seriously, every story on even CNN is either about America or about America’s interactions with or imperial adventures in some other place), with a lack of travel (it’s expensive and far to most places, plus the feudal system means people don’t want to take time off), with a strange willingness to tell you all about your own country.
Maybe I’m just mixing with the wrong crowd (possibly, actually: I think a lot of it has to do with college students wanting to show off how ‘cosmopolitan’ they are), but that does get grating and is not just a cultural difference.
Spark, I’ve had Americans tell me “You don’t look Spanish!” or “You don’t sound Spanish!” Some of them got insulting about it, “no way, you don’t look Spanish! C’mon, where are you really from?” OK, they’re not just saying “you don’t look like I believe Spaniards look”, they’re calling me a liar! Where I come from (which was still in Spain last time I looked), the proper response to that is “I dare you to repeat that in the street.”
I happen to be from Spain and there are thousands of Spanish women whose general description fits mine to a T, but those people expect every Spaniard to sound like Antonio Banderas. Heck, I even have the same coloring as P… but, according to them, I don’t look Spanish. Several of them were also confused about the location of Spain, thinking it was “next door to Colombia”.
I don’t have a problem with people asking “where are you from?”, but there are too many times when what comes behind that is completely unacceptable. Once you’ve had enough of those bad experiences, the sentence which has been known to lead to them already makes you defensive.
As a recent emigrant to the UK from North America, I just got asked this question by a very interesting source – the obscene caller who somehow got my mobile number. He went from making weird growling noises when I answered, to saying “You’ve got an accent, where are you from?” AS IF…
I mean “exotic” in the sort of biological sense, as the opposite of “indigenous”, not making any particular implication about a person’s appearance except that they don’t necessarily look local. I also understand that it can be an annoying or offensive question for the recipient, hence the comment about delicacy. Obviously your example is at the “indelicate” end of that spectrum.
I also said “ESPECIALLY” if they are exotic looking – but I am interested in ancestry regardless of what someone looks like or how long their family has been in the area, especially coming from North America which has so many people whose ancestors came from so many different places.
I get those questions a lot because of my last name, complete with multiple requests to pronouce it. When I don’t want to deal, I say in the most up-beat way: “Absolutely!” complete with a big smile. If they persist, I say “yes!” with an eve bigger smile. That usually does the trick.