I think when people have no experience or don?ft have enough experiences with people of other cultures they tend to generalize things. Just like the Japanese girl friend of a poster in here who tends to think all Western foods are meat and potatoes, I find that a lot of the Westerners tend to generalize most of the Asians to be Chinese. This is observed from my experiences and experiences of other Asians.:souka:
Especially when white people get mad, even if you are a citizen of the Western country, they tend to say things like ?gGo back to China?h and yet many times these people they think are Chinese are actually Vietnamese, Laotians, Thais, Philippinos, Malays, Indonesians?cetc.
Now I have never had that said to me by a Westerner before because Westerners tend to think I am Japanese or Koreans. My conclusion is I don?ft think Western people really know what Chinese look like.
In Italy I had to argue I am not Japanese and people just don?ft believe me. :lol:
The first time I went to Europe with my sister, we had to argue with Western people within the tour group that we are truly sisters. We even had to pull out our passports to prove to them. They pointed out why we are of different nationalities. Well that's because we are immigrants from Malaysia and after we business immigrated to Australia, my sister kept her Malaysian Passport and just remain as a permanent resident of Australia while I changed my nationality to an Australian citizen. We had the same last name as written in the passport at that time to show them.
But now not anymore because after I got married my maiden name is no longer in my passport, so does that mean we are no longer sisters? What?! Also that South African girl actually said to me ?gI don't think you look like a Chinese so therefore you are not one.?h ?gWhat????h I said. Then I said "You have no idea what Chinese people are and how diverse we are."
kashii:
The thing is my sister looks quite different from me, she is tan looking and I am fair looking (pale skin). I mean I look like my father and she looks like my mum, what is so difficult to believe? And within the Chinese race we have so many provinces with different ethnic groups. The faces change from Southern part of China to the Northern part. The Southerners are darker, tanner and tend to look closer to Vietnamese while the Northerners look closer to Koreans and Japanese.:emblaugh:
There was also one incident where some Canadian girl in the tour got robbed in Paris. She claimed a Chinese in Paris robbed her.
I mean how would she know he is a Chinese, since Westerners can?ft tell from Asian to Asian? Generalizing again, not to mention the majority of the Asians in France are Vietnamese.
I was talking to my husband the other day about going out next Sunday to watch a movie, and he mentioned ?gMemoir of a Geisha,?h then he asked ?gMichelle Yeoh is in it, is she Malay??h
I paused and looked at my husband, then I said ?gNow... now, I know your wife me is a Chinese ( just not from China) and I appear very pale, but didn?ft I explain to you there are light skin Chinese and there are tan ones and usually the Southerners are tan and Northerners are pale. I know she was Miss Malaysia when she was young, but Malaysia is a multicultural country and you know this because I have explained to you before, there are 63 percent Malays, 28 percent Chinese and 9 percent Indians. Again I don?ft think Michelle looks like Malay; I don?ft think you know what Chinese or Malay looks like.?h:blush:
So unless more cultural understanding is achieved, these forms of misunderstanding and generalizing will continue.:note:
Lastly no offence to the Westerners of what I said, if I suggest anything offensive that is but don't worry Asians do the same.
Well tell your japanese girlfriend that se should see how a lot of japanese
girls are enjoing italian food in our restaurtants in these days in Rome.
100d type of pasta meet fish mashrooms (porcini) may types of
pizza and a good italian wine.....
Some of our plates are a little heavy depends not like the light
japanese cuisine.....anyway every time i go to a jp restaurant
after the meal i have more hungry then before.....ah ah
bye
Due to the cold weather and thus the inability for wheat to grow in Strasbourg, Alsace during the ancient times; people here ate potatoes rather than the baguette as staple food. Then as time has passed, due to the improvement of technology, when they began to be able to access wheat massively they have begun to eat more often the wheat products. Today, the people here besides the potatoes, they tend to eat more pasta and baguette than rice. They even have their own version of pasta, Alsacien pasta. Like I said earlier on in this thread in another post of mine, I don?ft find rice a very common food for the French people here in this province.
Pasta is also very popular in Australia among the European decent Australians as well as the Asian Australians.:bravo: :42:
Speaking of staple foods, I have had an experience where some Westerners think that Asians only eat rice in Ancient times. That is not true. The food style of a culture is certainly first of all determined by the natural resources that are available for its use. For example Chinese food. It is above all characterized by an assemblage of plants and animals that grew prosperously in the Chinese land for a long time. Chinese cooking is the manipulation of these foodstuffs as basic ingredients.
Starch Staples: millet, rice, kao-liang, wheat, maize, buckwheat, yam, sweet potato.
Legumes: soybean, broad bean, pea- nut, mung bean.
Vegetables: malva, amaranth, Chinese cabbage, mustard green, turnip, radish, mushroom.
Fruits: peach, apricot, plum, apple, jujube date, pear, crab apple, mountain haw, longan, litchi, orange.
Meats: pork, dog, beef, mutton, venison, chicken, duck, goose, pheasant, many fishes.
Spices: red pepper, ginger, garlic, spring onion, cinnamon.
:ramen: :gohan: :49: :150: :79: