# Other Nationalities **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 23, 2016, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-nationalities/746912 "2016-02-23T21:11:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Doyle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doyle/32/439_2.png) [@Doyle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doyle)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2016, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-nationalities/746912/1 "2016-02-23T21:11:23Z")
On a given day, how many people do you meet from another country? For me, generally none, unless I go into the city, where I might run across several. How about you? ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2016, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-nationalities/746912/2 "2016-02-23T21:14:26Z")
A few, every day. One, my wife is from another country. On top of that, the firm for which I work has offices in North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. There’s always someone visiting the home office, in addition to the people from other countries who work here in this office. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2016, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-nationalities/746912/3 "2016-02-23T21:16:50Z")
I am from another country. I guess I meet myself every day. Why do you ask? ---
**Author:** ![Iggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iggy/32/3364_2.png) [@Iggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggy)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2016, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-nationalities/746912/4 "2016-02-23T21:24:49Z")
I’m American. I live in the Cayman Islands. My housemates are British. The team I supervise includes a Jamaican with dual Barbadian citizenship and a Jamaican with dual Canadian citizenship. In my office there are St Lucians, Canadians, Americans, Caymanians, and a lady from the Turks and Caicos. Over the years we have had staff from Scotland, India, and Nigeria as well. In the supermarket many of the staff are Filipino. The owner of the gas station is Honduranian. The security guard at an office building I regularly visit is Nepalese. I just got my hair cut by a lady from Brazil. The restaurants down the street are owned by Australians and Italians. And so on. When I first arrived on island I was pick up by a Scotsman, introduced the Australian head of the company, and set up with a place to crash with a South African the same day. Next morning I was meeting my Japanese, South African, Mexican, British, Irish, Austrian, and Bruneian colleagues. Living in Cayman it is easy to interact with people from more than a dozen countries every single day. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2016, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-nationalities/746912/5 "2016-02-23T22:04:14Z")
**Moderator Action** Since this is basically polling for personal experiences, let’s move this to IMHO. Moving thread from General Questions to In My Humble Opinion. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2016, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-nationalities/746912/6 "2016-02-23T22:04:54Z")
> [@Doyle](#): > > On a given day, how many people do you meet from another country? Another country than what, the one you’re a citizen of or the one you’re currently living in? If you mean the former, then for many immigrants, _all_ the people they meet in a given day are likely to be from “another country”. ---
**Author:** ![dolphinboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dolphinboy/32/330_2.png) [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2016, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-nationalities/746912/7 "2016-02-23T22:16:49Z")
I live in Montana and except for the occasional Canadian on vacation, I rarely meet people from other countries here, but I travel for business and meet lots of people from other countries. ---
**Author:** ![JcWoman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jcwoman/32/2889_2.png) [@JcWoman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JcWoman)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2016, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-nationalities/746912/8 "2016-02-23T22:22:06Z")
My experience ranges from only a few most days to a lot on other days. Most of the time I work with people from India, Pakistan, Canada and the UK. A couple times a year I have to work business meetings with our international customer base. I was asked to lead a little focus group at one last year to get consensus on priorities on some new features for our software. I don’t remember all the nations represented in my little group but I do remember that I couldn’t get Germany, Emirates, Canada and Russia to agree and decided to let them pick their own priorities rather than ending up in WWIII. That was a notable experience! 😃 Working in a really international business is interesting. I’m pretty used to hearing a huge variety of accented English so communication is rarely a problem. It’s fun to ask people where they’re from and find out it’s one of the little countries. For example once I was in a training class with a lady from Botswana. It was interesting to talk to her about her country. ---
**Author:** ![Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maggie_the_Ocelot)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2016, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-nationalities/746912/9 "2016-02-23T22:52:24Z")
_blink_ I’m in Los Angeles. I doubt I’ve ever had a day when I _didn’t_ encounter someone from another country, unless I didn’t leave the house. The idea that someone wouldn’t ever see anyone but others from their country is weird and confusing to me. Also, it sounds hella boring. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2016, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-nationalities/746912/10 "2016-02-23T22:53:41Z")
Most every day, as the neighbor lady is Nicaraguan by birth. ---
**Author:** ![Enginerd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bcef8e/32.png) [@Enginerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enginerd)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2016, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-nationalities/746912/11 "2016-02-23T23:32:42Z")
Every work day, at least. At my office I have Chinese, Japanese, Bulgarian, Mexican, Nepalese, and Swiss professional coworkers, as well as Iraqi and Guatemalan students. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2016, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-nationalities/746912/12 "2016-02-23T23:42:49Z")
I live in Dublin. In work my boss is from Poland and I have one or two other colleagues from other parts of Europe but our office is overwhelmingly Irish. However, on the bus to work I’ll typically encounter people from Asia, Africa and North/South America on a daily basis. ---
**Author:** ![MLS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MLS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MLS)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2016, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-nationalities/746912/13 "2016-02-23T23:47:32Z")
Since I’m retired, many days I don’t see anyone except my family. That includes my husband, who was born in Ukraine. When I was working, though, I saw lots of people not born in the USA. In my last job, my boss (and owner of the company) was a Muslim Arab from Lebanon. My previous two jobs, we had a lot of Asian people. I recall specifically people from India, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Korea and Viet Nam. Also a couple of British guys. When I go to the supermarket I see people who look and sound as if they grew up in India or a primarily Spanish-speaking country. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2016, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-nationalities/746912/14 "2016-02-24T00:44:36Z")
Many, I work in international development. I’d say half the people I work with weren’t born in the US. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2016, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-nationalities/746912/15 "2016-02-24T01:00:23Z")
Dozens to hundreds depending on the day. I work in a high level position in an industrial facility that depends on industrious foreign labor to succeed (they are legal immigrants and quite good at what they do). The majority of the foreign born are from Portugal but we have scattered examples from all over including China, Brazil, West Africa, Nigeria, Cambodia and Vietnam that I know fairly well and work with directly and frequently. Most of my remote coworkers are still in India. I am sure there are plenty of other countries represented but I do not know every single person’s background. ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2016, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-nationalities/746912/16 "2016-02-24T01:24:41Z")
I’m American but live in Indonesia so interact every single day with Indonesians. I know a few Americans, but my main friends and associates, aside from being Indonesian, are Australian, Indian, British, New Zealander, French, Singaporean, Japanese, and probably a few other nationalities I’m overlooking. Except for the members of my immediate family, on any given day it is much more likely that I’ll interact with people whose citizenship differs from my own than it is that I’ll talk to other Americans. Earlier in my international days, I thought this was pretty cool. But eventually I stopped noticing. True story: for a few years my job entailed attending social events where I often had to make small talk with American businesspeople stationed in Indonesia. One of my stock questions was, “So, are you the only foreigner in your office or one of several?” When people answered, “I’m the only non-Indonesian working for company X,” I would express admiration for their ability to integrate successfully into the local environment. Only after I had been doing this for a year or so did it dawn on me that I was the only non-Indonesian in MY office :smack:. I was so accustomed to thinking of my co-workers as just people that I kind of forgot they were (or rather I was) “foreign.” ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2016, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-nationalities/746912/17 "2016-02-24T01:37:29Z")
It depends on how you define “meet”. I work with people daily from a wide range of countries; at least 11 or 12 I could name. But many of them have been around since November. If you mean “meet” as being introduced to a stranger or meeting someone for the first time, then drop that to maybe one every other week or so. (I’m in a warehouse-type situation and with a company that prides itself on diversity) ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2016, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-nationalities/746912/18 "2016-02-24T01:56:06Z")
When I was younger, I was guaranteed to meet a person from another country, as my mother was born in Germany. (Actually, in East Germany.) These days, not so much. My wife is from the USA, as are all my neighbors and co-workers as far as I know. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2016, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-nationalities/746912/19 "2016-02-24T01:59:49Z")
> [@Doyle](#): > > For me, generally none How do you determine the nationality of people you meet? ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2016, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-nationalities/746912/20 "2016-02-24T02:13:21Z")
> [@Isamu](#): > > How do you determine the nationality of people you meet? I do by whether or not they speak French _and_ don’t seem to understand English. If both are true, they’re from Quebec. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-nationalities/746912.md?page=2)