These are two comments I can’t really get my head around. Why would they think you can’t speak those languages? How could someone fake being fluent in a lanugage? Or was it a case of “No one 18 years old could be fluent in more than one”? There is a tendancy in the US and Canada to associate multilingualism with high intelligence (except, oddly enough, for bilingual hispanics) since there is a relatively much lower degree of bilingualism here, than, say, Europe (ie. “You speak French? You must be the smartest person in the world!” and son on). It can be a sign of intelligence but mostly it’s a sign of exposure.
The comment from your math teacher blows my mind. Even if he didn’t know it’s your native tongue (still stupid, but hey) if you were taking notes in that language, obviously you would be able to understand them afterwards! Obviously his logic circuits weren’t firing.
Do you have a gun?
Have you ever killed anyone?
Are you in a gang?
Why not offer to help someone who is having trouble with Spanish?Hello Againwell we have the same thing like rap miusci gun problems. like in smaller times i think it would be to um how to say… comparar…compare. i do help people not everyone is meanbut i feel bad because i alway be correcting my spanish teacher.
yeah i had the same like i would travel all over south ameica and be in culture shock too.
Actually, by School of the Americas, I was referring to the US based military training camp in Ft. Benning, Georgia, where the US trains military for Latin America.
Sorry I wasn’t more clear!
My cousin married a woman from Brazil. I have a question-what is the custom with names? Because she told us that the females of the family take their mother’s maiden name. How does that work?
Personally, I always liked hearing about different countries-and I can’t imagine asking such moronic questions. I mean, I think the best approach would be, “What is life like back in Such and Such Nation?”
You have my sympathies. High school can be tough-and that’s for us 'Merkins!
I would suggest in the future something more along the lines of " 'merican" so you don’t end up saying more than you intend;)
Also, I hate to flame you, but asking the poster about the School of the Americas, a subject about which only a liberal activist American would care, is essentially doing exactly what the poster complained about.
It is awfully hyprocritical to assume that only “dumb rednecks” ask stupid questions of people from other countries… :rolleyes:
I can answer that. My family is Brazilian and my parents moved back about five years ago. As far as I have seen, and I have spent a great deal of time in Brazil, this is not the case. Most of them seem to follow the pattern of Child’s name, Mother’s maiden name, Father’s name. Things could be different in the region she is from but I’ve never heard of such a thing.
Hello, I would like to say that I can relate, except that I am
an American in Brazil. I get a lot of strange questions and I
take a lot of shit regarding politics - I have had American
friends ask me stupid things like “Do you take a boat to work?”
and “Is it true that women dance naked in the streets during
Carnival?” and “Brazil, isn’t that the capital of Argentina?”
Sheesh - Like most of the other answers to the OP I must say
most of the dumber statements/questions I get from Brazilians
are just ignorance not stupidity. “is it true Americans only
eat hamburgers for lunch?” “Why are Americans so cold?”
(We are not cold, we are independent, as you get to know us we are
like everyone else). “Why do Americans love war so much?”
(witness American football and the fact that we always seem to
be sending our troops to war someplace)- But the one that sticks in
my craw the most is that in any competitive environment (work,
school, sports, family activities, at the bar [beer drinking is a
competitive activity] - you name it) there seems to always be some
outspoken bone head who goes out of his/her way to make me look
bad ONLY because I am an American, as if to point at the Gringo
and say “Look the Americans have no clothes”. Prejudice and
Ignorance SUCK no matter where you are!
Yup, the language is hard, but you must have passed the TOFEL
to get a student visa, and I dare say there are LOTS of Americans
who couldn’t manage even that. So cheer up, you are probably far
better educated then most of the ones who ask you all the stupid questions
and give you attitude because your “different”.
The last part of this rant
is about the fact that I generally avoid Americans anymore,
(I have been here almost five years now), because they
often have a habit of not making ANY effort to adopt to their
surroundings. The profile is (almost) always the same - here on
assignment, or through some sterilized “tour bus” situation,
didn’t take enough time to learn how to count to ten
in the local language, expect that everyone should conform to
their frame of thinking, then get frustrated at how uncivilized
and “third world” everything is. The BEST profile of Americans
I have encountered here are the Young adult “Walking tourist”, the
folks who work in the airline biz and people (like me) who married
Brazilians or otherwise have family here. The rest of the corporate
types and the middle class “touristas” should just remain out
of sight at the Hilton and stop making the rest of us look like
ass holes! (Do you take a BOAT to work, SHEESH!) :smack:
That was about me wasn’t it?
Sweet, I grew up Jewish in a very Christian area, so I can relate. Some of the questions people ask are unbelievably stupid. But many are asked out of a real desire to learn. Try and get the truth out there enough so that people start passing it on to eachother.
Heck, you could even type up sheets answering the questions people ask you the most.
Re-The Teacher
It’s amazing how people can be so smart and yet so stupid.
I grew up in very small midwestern towns. I never saw a person of color. There were no Jews or Catholics or Lutherans or Episcopalians. When I was 15 we moved to a larger city. When a classmate mentioned that another classmate was Jewish, I was stunned. Of course, I’d heard a lot about Jews from the Bible, but I assumed they were kind of mythical like the Moabites and Hittites. In retrospect my ignorance is astounding, but I wasn’t a bad or intolerant person – I’d just never been exposed to variety, through no fault of my own.
My point is that ignorance is excusable and can be remedied. Stupidity and cruelty, of course, are different matters.
You are not alone, no one understands the Jehovah’s Witnesses. They are virulently anti-catholic, so don’t expect to get along with them, and if they come to your house, slam the door in their faces. (Don’t worry about hurting their feelings, they are used to it! ;))
In (a weak) defense of the other kids, it is fairly common to have some strange ideas about foreign countries. Most 12th graders have probably not studied modern S. America, and I can see why they might think it is all jungle etc. which doesn’t excuse them being mean, but maybe they just have genuine curiosity?
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I grew up in IL, but went to school in the south. It was a standard joke the first semester to ask people from Alabama if they had slept with their sisters. Of course, it was embarrassing for some of them to answer…
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Hahahaha that is funny. i cant slam the door in there faces. that would make me a as bad as the people who didnt give me a chance. And anyway im starting a thread at the pit about it. so check it out.
