Often times, people back in Europe (where the society is pretty homogeneous in terms of race, ie. people are not that used to seeing and interacting with people of different races) comment that the Asian people all appear to look very similar, and are very difficult to tell apart. I suppose the hair and eye color are at first an important distingushing feature, which suddenly dissappears with the Asians (at least from our point of view). Personally, I never had that problem (Oh, are you really my classmate? Sorry, I can't tell, you look exactly the same as everybody else.), though admittedly it makes recognizing people from far away or from the back a bit more complicated.
Naturally, the local people would laugh with this notion of Asian similarity, and can not only recognize their friends in the crowd, but also in most instances tell the nationality of an Asian person (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Philippino etc.) A mind-boggling idea in the heads of most Europeans without significant Asian experience.
But this works the other way as well. Just yesterday, I went to buy some noodles in the little cafeteria here. I ordered and went to sit down with my friends. 15 minutes later, as my noodles still hadn't arrived, I reminded the lady at the counter - she put on an anguished face, said that she had forgotten, and proceeded to start making my noodles. I went back to sit down. 15 minutes later, the noodles still weren't there. I went to ask the lady again - she put on an exasperated look and said: "I just gave you your noodles a minute ago!!"
After I made it clear that she indeed didn't give me any noodles, the story changed: "Ooh, I'm so sorry, I gave the noodles you ordered to a different foreigner, you know, you all look the same, it's not my fault, I really can't tell you guys apart"
The strange part is, the only other foreigner who came by the cafeteria (and who ended up taking the food) was a latino guy from Central America. I'm sorry, but do I really look just the same as a latino guy?
Upon further investigation, I realized the explanation here is "Well, all the foreigners have colored hair, colored eyes, they really all look the same."
Something's gotta give.
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2 comments:
Hehehe, tak jsem konece docetla tvuj blog (po mem skoro mesicnim vypadku) a musim rict, ze se vzdycky dobre pobavim :-). A tady s tvym poslednim prispevkem nemuzu vic nez souhlasit. Mexiko je sice jine nez Asie (a asi trochu bliz nam Evropanum), ale s tim rozlisovanim mistnich a naopak jejich rozlisovanim cizincu je to tu podobny. Pro vsechny tu jsme Americanky a kdyz reknem, ze jsme z Evropy, tak jsme Nemky nebo Francouzsky... "vzdyt je to jedno, proste gringos" :-)
Taky bych mela asi hodit svoje poznatky z cest na papir nebo do elektronicke podoby, ale jsem na to moc lina a ted uz ani nebudu mit cas... Tak snad priste to vyjde ;-). Fotky ale na FB najdes az se vratim (snad i s nejakym tim komentarem :-).
Tak papa, posilam pozdrav z Cancùnu
oh I still remembered the story. but i think the guy who had stolen your meal is actually from Jordan, Middle East, whose hair is blacker than yours, and taller, most importantly, he doesn't wear glasses.
i think this kind of case happens to me as well, cuz' sometimes i just don't remember which westerner i have talked to and which hasn't, so everytime when i see a person resembling my friend, i will just come up to them and ask if they are XXX. and most of the time i get to meet new friends in this case.
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