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  #31  
Old 07-26-2008, 02:54 PM
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Originally Posted by aklim View Post
What's your point? That I am being offensive by shortening the word Japanese to Jap? If I had called them "slant eyes" you could say that. Got anything else that backs up your theory?
aklim,

growing up in los angeles, when the word "jap" was thrown my way (i am korean, btw), those that threw it did not use it in a kind, polite way. so no, its not as innocuous as you might think. moreover, the term jap was used as a derogatory term during ww2 in all anti-japanese propaganda and commonly used by soldiers as well. unfortunately, the term stuck here in america. some still use it in a very derogatory way, while others like yourself, do not find it offensive. maybe you feel that the term has been watered down and/or find no historical negative meaning behind it, but my feeling is that from reading many of your posts, you are not an ignorant person and can be reasoned with to understand that it is not just a shortened word and that you should not use it as you have in the past.

i hope you can understand and digest the above.

now for the posts above where people have said "i wish we could just throw off all this hyphenated-american stuff". sh#t, i would LOVE that. similarly, i wish i could go to an all 100% white town and not be stared at like i dont belong. just my experience folks: when i travel internationally or even here domestically where there is not a good mix of different backgrounds, ethnicities, etc, i still get stared at. yes, its true. i recall about 8 years ago, i had a layover in iowa of all places. i could *feel* the stares. not too far away from me, a young girl whose family that was sitting next to me said in a hushed voice "what is he?" while pointing. jesus H christ: "i'm a person. i'm an american. i eat, sleep and **** just like you, young child", i felt like saying in my head. and on the other end of the spectrum, i've had old white ladies say "You speak english so well!". i mean, WTF. i came here when i was 2 years old, im in my late 30s, all my education/cultural background is 100% USA. but i still get this from time to time.

that's just one man's experience and until you've walked in my shoes, you may never understand where i'm coming from (and vice versa).

so ive come to expect it and accept it for what it is. i used to get peeved about it, but i know that the vast majority of people aren't ignorant, so i try my best to ignore the ignorant.

bob

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  #32  
Old 07-26-2008, 03:20 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bob_98sr5 View Post
similarly, i wish i could go to an all 100% white town and not be stared at like i dont belong. just my experience folks: when i travel internationally or even here domestically where there is not a good mix of different backgrounds, ethnicities, etc, i still get stared at. yes, its true.

i recall about 8 years ago, i had a layover in iowa of all places. i could *feel* the stares. not too far away from me, a young girl whose family that was sitting next to me said in a hushed voice "what is he?" while pointing. jesus H christ: "i'm a person. i'm an american. i eat, sleep and **** just like you, young child", i felt like saying in my head.

and on the other end of the spectrum, i've had old white ladies say "You speak english so well!". i mean, WTF. i came here when i was 2 years old, im in my late 30s, all my education/cultural background is 100% USA. but i still get this from time to time.

that's just one man's experience and until you've walked in my shoes, you may never understand where i'm coming from (and vice versa).
I was in a small town that was mostly white. Some clown came in and was also stared at and people wondering about him. He was white but just from somewhere else. People are usually curious about the "Out of normal" things. You can be here, there or overseas. It is par for the course. A new neighbor comes in and you also look. I know I do. An accident on the road. Why does the rest of the traffic slow down? To look and stare.

So you are different and the child lacks the vocabulary to finesse it. I don't take offense to that. I asked those questions myself when I was young and so did you.

Yes, I get that way too. Problem is that a lot of foriegn looking people tend not to speak English well. Look at the mexican, nam, etc, etc that don't have a grasp of the language. Now, I know it is all fine and dandy to say that just because 9 guys with blue hats slap you, the 10th might not. Still, we do go by odds in real life.

As a chinese (won't shorten it so as not to offend Da Nag ), I got that, get that and probably will get that sort of thing. Hell, even among chinese, there is still that issue of the new guy in town. I'm not even going to bother.
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  #33  
Old 07-26-2008, 05:35 PM
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  #34  
Old 07-26-2008, 07:24 PM
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aklim,

i believe you missed my point: while your life experience may be different, you completely glossed over the fact that others have different experiences too. and just because you were not personally harmed or offended does not make it right to be not cognizant of or intelligent enough to say "ah, that might not be the right thing to say anymore".

You wrote:

Quote:
I got that, get that and probably will get that sort of thing. Hell, even among chinese, there is still that issue of the new guy in town. I'm not even going to bother.
funny, didn't i just say the exact thing in my last sentence? of course, conveniently left of your quote of my reply. if you think i am ignorant of the world and how it works, you clearly do not know who i am, but i appreciate your presumptions.

moreover, you conveniently did not even address the historical context of the word "jap" as not being just an abbreviation and that the overt, negative connotation is much worse than you'd like to admit. further you mock da nag by not abbreviating chinese, as to make a very juvenile point to which there is not even a like parallel.

aklim, one day your lack of tact may bite you in the ass. in fact and as a recent example, our company just fired someone just like you for calling black people "colored" and referring to mexicans as "those south of the border folks" one too many times.

ignorance is bliss, sir.
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  #35  
Old 07-26-2008, 08:42 PM
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I go through this as well and regularly I get the customary " You speak English well " comment often. I have been here since I was 14 and generally if you are not white, they assume you are a FOB immigrant and English is out of your realm. They are also not aware that in many countries, English has been taught as long or longer than it has been instructed in the US. What annoys me most is when I and my wife are in hick towns, the stares get to your nerve big time, probably they see an Indian/Mexican married to an Oriental and find it pretty amusing
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  #36  
Old 07-26-2008, 10:01 PM
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I remember one day when I was maybe third grade suddenly realizing there was such a thing as ethnicity though I did not really know what it all meant. I went home and asked my Dad what we were. He said..."Scotch, Irish, German, Dutch and a little bit of Indian.".....and then smiled.

Actually we are nearly all Germanic blood.

I always thought Dad's answer was a classic. The point being that it mattered not where your ancestors came from but the content of your character, though Dad wouldn't have said it so elegantly.

Tom W
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  #37  
Old 07-26-2008, 10:13 PM
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Originally Posted by t walgamuth View Post
I remember one day when I was maybe third grade suddenly realizing there was such a thing as ethnicity though I did not really know what it all meant. I went home and asked my Dad what we were. He said..."Scotch, Irish, German, Dutch and a little bit of Indian.".....and then smiled.

Actually we are nearly all Germanic blood.

I always thought Dad's answer was a classic. The point being that it mattered not where your ancestors came from but the content of your character, though Dad wouldn't have said it so elegantly.

Tom W
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  #38  
Old 07-26-2008, 11:59 PM
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Lots of cool things come from Asia, cars, sake, women, mini excavators, Yanmar, Anime, and Katana. China also has a charming form of captalism/communisum, who would have thought oil and water can sort of mix.
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  #39  
Old 07-27-2008, 12:03 AM
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China also has some sweet looking women, check out these Chinese army chicks and tell me you wouldn't wanna join this army....... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-10CHBHV38&feature=related
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  #40  
Old 07-27-2008, 09:46 AM
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A pair of Jews were waiting to be served at a Chinese restaurant and having a conversation about the many ethnic groups that have Jewish members in them, when the waiter brought their food.
"Excuse me," an inquisitive guest asked, "do you have Chinese Jews?"
"No." said the waiter "We have apple jews, orange jews, and grapefruit jews."
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  #41  
Old 07-27-2008, 01:39 PM
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Some of my relatives emigrated to Uruguay following WWII. One of them married a woman who carried dual British and Argentinean citizenship. She was educated in Scotland. All of their children were educated in local Montevidean private schools through high school and then American or British schools for university. They are all native Spanish speakers and also speak English and French. One of them married a Dutch girl and so their kids also speak Dutch. One of my 1st cousins married a nice Baptist boy from Texas. That cousin is now an ESL teacher in Houston. She is amused that the children and adults all think she's an American because, well, she looks like a honkie, ok? But her Spanish is of course, excellent, very high-class, and well educated. Spanish is her first language, of course. And though she holds passports from the UK, USA, Argentina and Uruguay, she in her heart is Uruguayan. Her older brother lives in Kew (London) and considers himself English. Her younger brother is the only one who stayed in Uruguay but he is also the most American (put himself through TAMU while working in Walmart).

I think as time goes by we will see more and more people like that.

Good luck figuring out their nationalities, ethnicities, creeds, allegiances, etc.

B
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  #42  
Old 07-27-2008, 06:49 PM
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Another perspective.

http://www.theamericanscholar.org/su08/narrative-johnson.html
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  #43  
Old 07-27-2008, 07:16 PM
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Originally Posted by Gurkha View Post
What annoys me most is when I and my wife are in hick towns, the stares get to your nerve big time, probably they see an Indian/Mexican married to an Oriental and find it pretty amusing
To be fair, back when I was a kid and we'd go to my dad's hometown in India, my mom and older brother would get stared at by the whole town (me and my younger brother blended in color wise). Granted that was 20-30 years ago, not anymore.
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  #44  
Old 07-27-2008, 09:02 PM
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Originally Posted by tankdriver View Post
To be fair, back when I was a kid and we'd go to my dad's hometown in India, my mom and older brother would get stared at by the whole town (me and my younger brother blended in color wise). Granted that was 20-30 years ago, not anymore.
There is a inquisituve stare and then there is the WTF are ya doin here colored person stare, its the later that irks me, I don't really mind the former one as thats part of human nature.
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  #45  
Old 07-27-2008, 10:18 PM
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For those of us who have traveled in those areas oriental usually refers to Japan, China,and Mongolia, while Asian generally go from Viet Nam to Afghanistan. Although Iran over to Iraq and the Arab Gulf are often refereed to as being in Asia, because Asia starts/ends at the Ural mountains in Russia, these people are not what I would consider Asian, as in having the facial characteristics of an Asian.

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