I love my native city Budapest, which is very cosmopolitan involving tourists and citizens from all over the world. It is similar to ESL, you know. I have been going to the same shopkeeper for a long time because his shop sells cheeper and there is a great choice of goods. The customers call him as 'our Chinese shopkeeper' or 'Uncle Steve' although I don't think Steven would be his real first name.
One day just before Beijing Olympic games I went to him and asked, 'Do you think China will win the Olympics?'. And what do you think he answered?
He said he wasn't Chinese but Vietnamese.
I was ashamed.
Comments
Why do you think it is, noasl?
Kacika, people always mistaken me for a Chinese and spoken Mandarin with me. I just take it at the grain of salt and tell them that no, I'm not Chinese. Well, to tell you the truth, people always think that either I'm a Chinese or a Filipino but never a Malay. LOL
Emmy, should we do anything to know each other more?
AH_TK, I wanted to be nice but I failed. :-(
Emmy, do you mean 'I can not tell you Westerners apart either.'?
Kiriku, I was glad to read you story. Then I am not a stupid European if something similar happened also to you. Anyway I can't identify my compatriots abroad until they start to speak.
Hahaha, very funny. But you should not be embarrassed at all, it's very a normal thing since you are not Asian person. Let me tell you my story. It happened to me right here in our nation, Vietnam. One day, I did jogging around the lake and asked a women in Vietnamese: Excuse me, what time is it. To my surprise, she looked at me strangely and then spoke out series of foreign language (it must be Japanese, I guessed). I felt both funny and ambarrassed at the same time ...:)(
Mickey, it was only me who was embarrassed. Poor Ucle Steve probably had got used to being Chinese. :-(
Rick, but there are so many countries in Asia! And even in China there are so many different nationalities. We, Westerners should learn how to make the difference and identify a big nation like Chinese.
Mickey, I felt so illiterate when I couldn't identify him. And together with all the people of our area. They had called him 'our Chinese shopkeeper', they had liked him and they hadn't minded his nationality.
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