Sunday, May 08, 2005
How to distinguish foreigners from Americans
Some little kids noticed me when I got out of my brother-in-law's car near my in-laws' house Sunday afternoon. One of the kids yelled, "Foreigner! Foreigner!" in Chinese to his siblings and parents. Another kid said to him, "He's not a foreigner, he's an American. The ones with long noses are Americans."
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5 comments:
Clyde, aka Big Nose, Said:
I can confirm those kids are right!
I had a very similar encounter with a child of about 10.
As we rode the elevator, he asked me if I was a foreigner or an American.
When I replied "both" he looked kind of shocked.
Is this a new thing? I have to admit that this experience was the first time I heard of anybody suggesting "foreigners" and "Americans" are different.
Or maybe I just don't hang around little kids that much... (thank goodness!)
What exactly makes an American different from a foreigner in these cases?
Your guess is as good as mine--in my case, it seemed to be some sense that Americans look different than (other) foreigners.
Used to be that all foreigners were Americans by default--at lot of my European colleagues have experienced being called "Americans" (much to their dismay...)
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