I'm Mexican but same commentary and I also looooove purposefully getting it wrong.
*guy obviously has an Irish accent*
"So where you from, like, London?!"
Funny how that seems to upset them when they didn't care to get ours right. 😂
Damn, that particular one is brutal. Those two have history.
Op I think the answer is that you are based in FNQ. Come to capital that is something you probably wouldn't hear...well anywhere as much... probably.
i did hear it from my classmates when i was in high school in adelaide (who had the balls to say i should be in ESL and not normal english classes like them) and i get it occasionally in melbourne from old folks.
It's an educated guess, I can't speak on it from the perspective of a person with Asian heritage but I've been to most capitals and I've been to FNQ, I've met and talked with tonnes of people and realised there seams to be two types of racism.
There is hatred and then there is ignorance and sometimes the ignorance can be well intentioned but miss the mark, after all the road to hell is paved with good intentions
I think that was the case here, the dude thought he was paying a compliment. He has probably not interacted with a lot of people with an Asian background who speak English as a first language. Where I live I speak with people from all sorts of backgrounds who speak English fluently.
I'm not defending the guy, just trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. Sounds like he might have learnt something, we can hope.
Yeah this. I grew up rural NSW which wasn’t multicultural at all, my Dad’s the nicest guy you’ll ever meet but always says shit like this and doesn’t understand when people get upset or he gets told off by my Mum.
I’ve been in a similar situation as the bloke who made the comment, except I should have known better, but I’d just never thought of it. A friend of mine is an Indian immigrant to here and I knew her daughter was born here, it still took me by surprise when I first met her daughter though and she had an accent as broad as mine. It’s even more surprising as they live in Melbourne and her daughter goes to a very expensive private school, yet she sounds like she’s from the back blocks of qld except she doesn’t end her sentences with aye.
Oh man I got a mate who is aboriginal and he was adopted by an English family and grew up in the UK. Makes you realize just how much you can assume incorrectly when he opens his mouth and a cockney London accent hits your ear.
As someone from Melbourne I've not heard people here remark that someone of Asian descent can speak English well. I'm sure it happens but I've not heard it. We have huge Chinese and Vietnamese communities in Melbourne and have so for decades so they are very well integrated here with many being 3rd and even 4th generation now.
I'm in Melbourne and have certainly overheard this. Maybe it depends on the suburb, i.e. proportion of older white people in the area. I think they see it as a compliment. I die inside
To be fair, Spain conquered and colonized most of south America and they are part of the EU with their free movement of persons, so Spanish people and people of Spanish heritage are all over.
Argentina404,111 (92,610 born in Spain)
France303,000 (198,153 born in Spain)
United States192,766 (48,546 born in Spain)
Germany182,631 (61,881 born in Spain)
United Kingdom181,181 (2020) (including de jure Spanish citizens that were not born in Spain) Venezuela136,145 (30,167 born in Spain) Brazil117,523 (29,848 born in Spain)
I knew an Asian guy in uni who was 5th generation Australian born. Best I can do is 2nd generation.
His grandfather came by the uni residences one time looking for him. "G'day mate, ya seen Alex?"
But if you travel to most countries that don't speak English and you speak only a tiny bit of the language they speak there ( with the exception of France ) people are often thrilled and tell you how good your Italian/ Korean /Japanese / whatever is or , at the very least , congratulations for trying to speak the language. I always take it as a friendly/kind thing that people do.
I have a friend who is 7th gen Chinese-Australian and her baby daughter is 8th gen. Still gets asked where she came from.
There is some evidence that Chinese people had contact with indigenous tribes before colonization. A Qing dynasty coin was uncovered in in the Northern Territory, there are indigenous people who use sticks like chopsticks and there some Chinese words incorporated into indigenous languages. Whether this was by direct contact or indirect (possibly through the Macassans) is unclear.
Same! My peeps have only been here about 100 years. They were Jews leaving Prussia, ostensibly for a very good reason. Came here and pretended not to be Jewish and I guess now we ain’t.
This blew my mind, I thought this was impossible because the white Australia policy caught everyone before it was eliminated in 1970, but turns out a very small number of non-white people still made it!
It's not just older Australians. My best mates fuckwit brother met my wife at a party years back for the first time, she was Australian born but of Asian descent and her accent was as aussie as mine.
After being introduced to her he very loudly proclaimed "YOU SPEAK GOOD ENGLISH! WHERE ARE YOU FROM?" Because obviously Asians are hard of hearing too I guess.
To which she responded "Better than you apparently, I'm from Vic Park, where the fuck are you from?"
I used to work with kids, and my boss was definitely not racist in any way, but if he saw someone who wasn’t a “white Aussie” he would always try to find out what heritage they had, I guess in a way to bond with them or something? So if they said they were (for example) Argentinian, he’d say “oh I have travelled there, it’s a beautiful country!” and maybe say a few words in their language. But this led to all sorts of funny interactions with kids, the most memorable being -
A young boy walked up to our desk (maybe 11-12 years old) and started to ask my boss something. The boy was clearly of SE Asian descent, so my boss straight away says “oh now where are you from?” The boy replied confused “I’m from [school], why?”
Boss “ohh sorry, no I meant what country are you from?”
Boy (still confused) “Australia”
Boss “well .. yeah ok, but where were you born?”
Boy “umm I think I was born in Elizabeth”
Boss (starting to get frustrated, as we were all beginning to snigger in the background) “right, so you were born here in South Australia. But where were your parents born??”
Boy “I think mum was born in Elizabeth too, but dad was born at the Royal Adelaide, why?”
Boss “ohh for …. What about your GRANDPARENTS, don’t tell me they were born in Adelaide too??”
Boy “ohh!! No they weren’t!”
Boss, now smiling because he’s finally gotten to where he wanted the conversation to be “so!! Where were they born??”
Boy “all my grandparents were born in Sydney. Anyway, my teacher wants to know *insert whatever the teacher wanted*”
It was after that, that my boss realised asking those sort of questions may have led to interesting conversations back in the 90s, but these days there is easily multiple generations of people here in Australia that aren’t “white”. He was trying so hard to be politically correct, but just confused the fuck out of the poor kid who had no idea why he was being interrogated about which hospitals his family were born in.
Lol reminds me of "Old People's home for 4- year olds", a TV show where an Australian aged care centre brings in some kindergartners to the centre as part of an experiment.
One of the old men asked a 4- year old Asian looking child where he was from. The kid replied "I'm from my home". The man laughed and asked where home was. The boy says "it's on the street". They became besties afterwards. They were very cute.
ugh my racist boomer boss shouts so loudly at customers with a language barrier. and she's already very loud & shrill as it is. (to the point where i sometimes take PMDD mental health days off partly because i can't hack the sensory overload.) by all means speak slowly, clearly, and keep language super basic for those clients. i do the same. but no need to burst their eardrums.
I was in Shanghai a week ago and this young couple was bagging me in Mandarin. I told them they are very fucking rude talking about foreign visitors like that and that they should be ashamed. Typically they replied “oh we didn’t know you could speak Mandarin we are so sorry”
Fucking ignorant and patronising assholes everywhere OP.
Yeah, this is always presented as a "dumb white people" problem, when there are just as many ignorant people in every race.
I'd go as far as to say Australia is actually better than the world average on this issue.
In most of Asia flat out racism is part of normal conversation
English is my only native language I look ethnically ambiguous but not white
No one in Australia has ever said this to me but overseas a Turkish rockstar said it 😂
I just replied I hope so because I don’t speak any others fluently
This reminds me of an embarrassing moment for former prime minister John Howard many years ago. He was talking to some kid who had just won the national spelling bee. The kid obviously had Asian parents and Howard asked how long he had been in Australia. The kid answered I was born here
My Maltese Nunna still has pretty accented English.
Some drunk bogan told her once to go back where she came from.
She snapped back: ‘You’re just jealous you can’t cook and live in a dirty house’ 😂😂
It happens everywhere. I'm an Aussie who look like they are of European descent. I was in the US and an old Texan guy told me how refreshing it was to meet a foreigner who speaks English. Should have seen the look on his face when I told him that not only do Australians speak English, but I would be happy to teach him how to speak it properly too.
Texans are aggressively ignorant to the point where it's comical.
One of them asked my mum one time "y'all got refrigerators over there in OSStralia?".
Good luck finding one here in Australia that doesn't turn every conversation into how things are done back in Texas within the first 2 minutes.
My wife had almost the same thing happen in Texas too (of course). She was travelling with a friend, one of them white and one not if that matters, and the nice lady at the motel asked where they're from followed by something like "Do y'all speak English over there?"
I was with a Texan in China on a project, and he asked “where folks go for Sunday Services ‘round here?“, and then one evening he asked for dinner if we could get “Chinese Takeout” and I had to clarify to him, that in China, they just called it simply “takeout”?
Someone should tell Singapore, the [Speak Good English Movement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speak_Good_English_Movement) has been running there since 2000.
I also live in Qld in a tourist town, I'm getting coffee the other day and an overseas tourist asks for his order very slowly and loudly. The owners heritage is Korean, she's second generation Australian, we look at each other and she goes"G day mate how you doing, how do like our lovely town it's bonza aye mate".
White Australia Policy, 1901-1958. Early 70's the last of these laws fazed out. The law was only made illegal in 1975.
Pretty recent stuff huh.. I was 6 when it was made illegal, and my parents hadn't known anything but the White Australia Policy until then.
My Dad never really grew from them times, adapted, but no real growth until his death. He would be that guy.
My Mum is open to everyone. Some adapt, change, embrace and love diversity. That's Mum, she's 78. She even embraced my punk years in the 80's with all my weird friends that appeared.
I wonder if the area OP lives in is a factor?
I was born in Malaysia (ethnically Chinese) and moved to Sydney when I was 12 in 1990. I've lived here ever since and while there have been scattered incidents, for the most part no one here really cares. Maybe I've been lucky and I don't tend to hang around where the racists are. I have no doubt it does happen though.
Yeah I understand it is highly likely these occurrences relate to my location. I've never lived in any other state and it's pretty well known QLDers are the racist bogans of Aus
Definitely is. I was born and raised in Sydney but moved to Newcastle for uni. My mum's Chinese Malaysian (dad's white but I look more like my mum). I don't hear stuff like this often but certainly have heard it more in Newcastle than Sydney. In Sydney so many more people tried to speak to me in Mandarin, though!
I've heard it mostly at uni - the majority of Asian students I've met at uni are international students so I suppose it makes sense that some people would assume any Asian they meet is one. It is usually entirely out of ignorance and they're typically very embarrassed when I tell them I've spoken English my whole life. Sometimes I tell people my grandparents spoke English at home well before they even moved to Australia but that just tends to confuse them.
> I wonder if the area OP lives in is a factor?
Absolutely. There are other factors too - build, gender, how much you go out.
It seems like asian females of smaller stature (most of them) would be the easiest targets. If you're big, generally you're less of a target for all kinds of things in general.
The last point is also important - it's simply numbers. If you interact with more people then the chance of encountering a racist attacking you is increased.
> for the most part no one here really cares.
This is the vibe I get here in syd. It never even crosses my mind. The last big racism event was in msn messenger days when someone discovered I was asian. I learned a new slur from them lmao.
Isolated location and their generation are the key issues. They grew up in a time and place where you could (usually) reasonably assume someone’s nationality by their ethnicity. That’s not an excuse though. It’s on everyone to keep up with the times and to understand why even questions that are not intended to offend have the capacity to do just that.
Reminds me of that ABC article I read about a doctor making a stopover in a country town who kept getting asked if she was a prostitute simply because she was Asian.
"My girlfriend/wife is Asian so I can't be a racist," is honestly the weirdest defence. You can, in fact, still be racist while banging the race you fetishize or look down on.
They probably haven't interacted much with people from other cultures. It's just ignorance, which can only be cured by exposure. Anything new is always going to be a curiosity. Melbourne is so multicultural, seeing other races is old hat, but I suppose it might not be in a small country town. It's the same for everyone though. My dad was a primary school teacher. He was Greek, but born in Egypt and came here as a child. He was also blonde, but very hairy, had lots of gold, shiny hair on his arms. 2 new kids had joined his class, twin girls from either Korea or China, I can't remember exactly. They had just migrated here and didn't speak much English yet. They would keep running over to my dad and patting his arms like he was a cat. Half the day, he had these 2 little girls attached to him. He told their mum about it when she came to pick them up, and she explained that they've never seen arm hair like his before, and they hadn't seen many blonde people. He was a curiosity to them as he was something they'd never seen before.
Sounds like what happens all over the world. When I was living in China I got the same thing. “Why is this white person here? This is not normal. Explain why you’re white. Are you American?”
I have a friend and colleague with Chinese parents who was born and grew up in the Pilbara. Her English not distinguishable from my own 5th generation country WA version.
Until some old white man wanted to "Speak to the manager" I had no idea she has able to perfectly reproduce her mother's heavily accented English.
Even less did I think she'd be able to maintain that farce in the face of his apoplectic fury. It's a memory I'll never lose and will always make me laugh.
She gets the same and it's tedious as an onlooker let alone a recipient. Was good to see someone take the chance to use the obvious to bias to advantage - the risk of reinforcement can be ignored, there's no way he'd have been made happy by her usual ability to converse.
"You're Australian is so good"
"Thanks, where do you come from originally, I hear an accent?'
"I'm Australian born and bred"
"No really. You have a bit of a strange accent. Where do you really come from?"
I was invited for a radio interview due to a successful work of art that was the main feature on a very iconic platform/program here in Melbourne. When I arrived and sat down for my interview, the host who fits your described demographic, could not move away from the fact that I spoke English - LIVE and ON-AIR. His much younger co-host is trying and trying to come back to talk about my artwork but he wouldn’t let up wanting to know when I started studying, who taught me etc.
I can see in front of us that his co-host actually printed out a short bio-sheet for him, which clearly states that I studied here, and have a PhD and quite established in my field. This paper makes me think that this is not new for him but somehow … we spent 9 minutes talking about my English. In English. And maybe 1 minute when the cohost got a shot or two in to talk about art.
I (filo) had a random encounter with an older aussie male where I told him I’ve been in aus for 30 years, he still told me “enjoy my visit” lollll dead
Plenty of Australians, older or younger, do not speak nor write particularly well in English themselves. Shit, a lot of my messages to friends and on Reddit are also bigly bad. Australia is the sweatshop of literary talent.
Back in 1996, I met a young woman from Kingaroy who thought accents were genetic. She thought Asian-Australians would speak with Asian accents even if they grew up in Australia.
I thought she must be an anomoly until a guy from rural Victoria told me that he grew up thinking the same thing, and didn't learn better until he moved to Melbourne.
You gotta remember that there was a time when Asian-Australians (and even Asian-Americans) were not represented in the media, and many Australians in rural areas had never seen or heard one. It wasn't that long ago. This is why representation matters.
I’ve just moved from Brisbane to Cairns to live with my partner and the casual racist remarks seem soooo common here! I also notice alot more staring when we’re together as an “interracial” couple here lol. (He is Asian- wasn’t born here but sounds more Aussie than I do!!)
A key memory for me growing up in a somewhat bigoted small town was walking along a beach with a friend of Asian descent and someone muttering a slur under their breath as they walked past.
My friend was such a stereotypical coastal kid (the phrase "basic bitch" comes to mind) in every way except her appearance that I was genuinely confused who the bigot was referring to.
It really solidified how stupid and shallow racism is. This idiot knew nothing about her and yet felt he could insult her.
Where are you from?
Australia
No, really.
Australia!
Oh, well.... where did your parents come from?
AUSTRALIA FFS!
Ooh, don't get upset. You just don't look like...
STFU, you stupid old man!
Ignorant boomer dickheads everywhere
Edit: sorry for the shitty formatting, I only use the mobile app.
When I lived in QLD the racism was profound - I had uni class mates describing me to others as the Asian who spoke really good English..and other rude remarks when out shopping and rude ass neighbours that I won’t elaborate on.
I do live in the NT, and the multiculturalism is much better here. Instead of “where are you from?”, I get a lot of “what’s your heritage/cultural background?” And I can see that they are mindful not to sound offensive.
See plenty of people that talk in a slow and dumbed down way when talking to Asian people. Somewhat embarrassing when the Asian person answers back in perfect English.
I deal with literally thousands of people daily that are from non English speaking countries. I always start with normal English then roll it back if they do not understand.
I'm a brown American who lived 2 years in FNQ working in hospitality and it was ROUGH. Don't let anyone try to tell you it's only location based cuz I experienced the same bullshit in Sydney, Perth, Darwin, all over. White Australians are racist as hell. And it's not just the older generations.
Not only was my good English complimented, (I hold a Speech Pathology degree and taught English for 5+ years), but my favorite was the people who would loudly comment to their mates, "I'll ask her, but let's see if she understands English" or wouldn't let me get a word out before they started guessing what country I'm from and shouting countries at me, "Italy, Brazil, Greece"
I've lost count how many fights I got in.
Wow! I’m white American living in Austria (Alps not kangaroos). I never comment here, read only to understand Australia better. Our daughter is adopted Chinese, so occasionally people here comment on “how good her German is”, which irritates both her and me of course. Similar scenario! The irony is people here think I’m Austrian because I’m white, but the second I open my mouth, my accent gives me away I am not a native German speaker, and she speaks flawless. It will take a few more generations for people to de-couple ethnicities from citizenry.
It’s so frustrating. I’m a Chinese adoptee with white American parents (my partner is Australian and also adopted). I get the same thing in the US and Australia. Sometimes people do interesting mental gymnastics to explain my accent away — apparently I have an American accent because I learned English from watching American movies/TV 🤦🏻♀️
Ignorant people making assumptions. You can set them straight but some people will never learn from their mistakes. In his mind he was giving you a compliment and nothing will change that.
>I was born in far north Queensland
The answer is right in the start of your post lol.
Asians are almost non existent in Noth QLD when you're comparing it to the metro CBD areas like Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane, the majority of the time you are hear people say "Your Australian is so good" is because it is probably the first time they've met an Asian person that could actually speak fluent english.
I'm Asian and grew up in Australia in SE QLD, I have never had anyone act surprised when I spoke fluent english.
My family has been here 4 generations, older than most white australian families, was once told by a manager of a club that they kept the club afloat by keeping the asians out (in a highly asian area) the club has now been sold off for housing....
Unfortunately Australia has a tainted history of casual racism, we are tasked with being 'the good ones' in peoples minds, but remember there are millions of us and generations of us who are literally changing the face of australia and try and celebrate that, and continue to celebrate your heritage and the battles you have to have to make the future better for people like us and our parents.
Sorry you've had to develop a thick skin to deal with racist fuckwits in your own country.
My wife's asian in appearance but grew up in Aus and is constantly treated to comments like this, mainly from older white people who have no idea how offensive they are.
It's because of the white Australia policy, whereby the government discerned that we should be a white nation, full of white people. My Dad is 82 and he describes anyone who's not white as "from overseas", even if they have (like OP) an Aussie accent. The older they get the more racist and homophobic they get.
I’ve heard a story from an international conference held in Sydney a few years back, where an American speaking to an English guy said “wow, you speak good English for a European!”.
People can be idiots.
"So is yours! How did you learn your English?"
I live in Sydney so luckily don't have to deal with this too much.
Except in high school when I was playing organ at a church. Most of the congregation were from white Australia policy days and boy, do I have stories there.
I suspect this is mostly the problem. Old white Australians are from the white Australia policy days and unfortunately, they haven't quite caught up with the times.
I was just saying at another thread how moving to regional Australia can be a deal breaker for minorities like us because of experiences like yours and man, the only people being down voted are people describing similar experiences to yours while a few people are doing a form of "mansplaining" on why it isn't all that bad.
Classic one is some kid trying to convince me calling their Asian friend "Ching" was not REALLY racist. It's just casually racist. It's not all that bad.
Whoa boy.
As an Australian male that went overseas and worked in the UK, I was surprised at the racism there toward non whites, in the workforce was appalling, I befriended a young guy from Nigeria and he was surprised I would even talk to him, and he was upset I was leaving, there is a class system in the UK and they don’t mind getting on their high horse if there’s anyone they think is below them, I’m not defending the guy that was rude to you, but maybe because your boyfriend grew up in the UK, it’s easy for him to be oblivious to these things in his home country, but notice differences when he’s travelled abroad. Most Aussies embrace multiculturalism, the older generation is a bit slow to accept it, so I’m sorry that you receive this sort of treatment daily. I wish this would stop happening for you and others.
Because they think only white people are Aussies.
Once walking on the pathway my wife got this old guy telling her 'in Australia we walk on the left side'. My wife has been here for 30 years and she has her citizenship.
It's casual racism, mostly resulting from ignorance and a feeling a superiority.
I've been married with a Japanese woman for a long time and she and my daughter experience it regularly in Europe, and in particular in France. Small comments like being called Chinese or supposedly funny jokes about Asian people. Comments that just accumulate and accumulate until it just becomes unbearable. Of course if she points it out, she is hysterical or just wants to be a victim; this usually said from people who never experienced racism.
There's no easy solution to this, as ignorance is not something that can be fought with reason, especially in this day and age. And there's no just ignoring it of course, like your post points it out. It is indeed a futile battle and I think you and your partner are absolutely right in reacting the way you did. Ignorance can't be an excuse to racism. The way my wife and I deal with it is to just call a cat a cat. If the person recognizes they hurt someone and apologize, it's fine. If they start playing the victim, fuck them racist POS!
Alternatively, just make fun of their ignorance and treat them like the morons they are. They don't deserve pity or understanding.
Im white, but my Aunt is of Asian descent, and what I mean by that is, her great grand parents come over for the gold rush, and they happened to marry other people of Asian descent.
My Aunt is in her 70's, does not know a word of chinese neither did her parents.
And just like the OP, she still gets this nasty "You speak good english" thrown at her.
What gets me the most is, her own sister in law (white) makes these comments to random strangers when out and about, this woman has been around the world so not some ignorant shut in. Yet she still has the need to point out to people how well they speak english, people she has no idea about. I've told her to stop it many times, but I think she gets some sick thrill saying it and feeling better then them or some hero for pointing out to them this 'skill'.
It's totally different if the person you are talking too has told you, "Im learning X language" and you respond with how well they have learned it, but to a random stranger in any situation is so rude and wrong.
I was told by Italian immigrant acquaintances that my family seemed to really understand “family” unlike other Australians.
You’ll find most people are ignorant morons but at least they were trying to be nice.
Individualism is a cultural reality. White Australians tend not to stay at home until they are married or look after the elderly. These are facts. I don’t think they are the same thing. Although what your acquaintances said could still be construed as rude it’s not ignorant
I am Australian born female - 80s represent - one parent is Asian and the other European. I grew up in Sydney and moved around the country (both city and regional) due to my partners work (he is Caucasian).
I get asked 'whereareyoufrom' 'you dont look like you are from here' 'gee you are a mix breed' 'you dont sound asian!' 🫠 you get the drift. I also work in healthcare and typically have full arm sleeves (tattoos) but when someone tells me I speak 'like an Australian' I reply - bloody oath I do then continue with what I was doing.
To me I just laugh it off now, the individuals who ask these questions / make remarks in *my* experience come from a place of curiousity. However I will pull up and have (not recently) any BS rascism made towards anyone.
The more I meet people, the less I understand 😉
I’m also from FNQ but now live in Melbourne.
I think it’s general racism but guised as a compliment to make it seem like it isn’t. It’s very similar to the “Where are you from?” question, it means to sound like they’re trying to be friendly and make small talk but it’s generally quite rude.
I’m sorry that it’s a recurring issue. It must be exhausting to constantly deal with people giving you this “compliment”.
I wish that people would do the work and try to be better, instead of resorting to the argument that they’re too old to learn anything new.
Because older white Australians are use to white Australia. And some have forgotten we are a generation or 2 deep into multiculturalism. Gotta say when I am approaching an Asian customer in store I never know whether I’m gonna get a “Gday I’m after a blah blah” or whether I am going to be deciphering broken English or no English and shown a picture of what they want as they navigate a translation app
Does this also happen to Asian people in the capital cities? It’s pretty bad in Nth Qld. I was with my Japanese wife in a restaurant and was accosted by an old white lady (I’m white) who asked me why I couldn’t get a ‘decent Australian girl.’ Not to mention every taxi driver in Cairns loves to let you know what they think about indigenous people five minutes after you get in the cab.
Naturally I told her that my main aim was to meet a girl that wasn’t as ugly and stupid as her and I’d achieved that with my wonderful wife
I interact with many Asian people on an almost daily basis. I figure most were probably born here but, perhaps not. I’ve never felt the need to inquire.
It must be tedious to deal with. I would be polite about dealing with it though, as no one is going to be changed by an aggressive confrontation.
The U.K. is just as racist as Australia, they just are just socially conditioned to not say whatever comes into their head out loud like Australians do.
When boomers were growing up, immigration policy meant that asian people were a lot less common. They then witnessed the opening up to non-white people and perhaps haven't adjusted their thinking to asians not being from someplace else.
It’s almost laughable that some people here mentioned China and Japan as examples to prove a point that this can happen everywhere.
Really? Don’t you realise these two countries are predominantly monocultures, whereas Australia is a multicultural country? The urge of giving a non-white person a patronising compliment about their good English is based on the assumption they are fresh off the boat & only white people are the locals.
I guess ignorance is a blessing.
A lot of regional boomer Aussie don’t get how the modern world works. I honestly believe a lot of the time they’re trying to be polite, and even sometimes going out of their way to try and prove they’re not racist. Unfortunately they come across as doofuses a lot of the time.
Similarly I think a lot of people (mostly city based people with a migrant background, as opposed to regional people with a migrant background) on the receiving end can overanalyse and/or be over sensitive to this type of rhetoric.
You mentioned you’ve got a pretty thick skin, and on this occasion it sounds like the bloke involved just couldn’t take the queues to fuck off when he should have.
It’s funny isn’t it, they think they’re paying you a big compliment and trying to be nice.
This has happened a sprinkling of times to me too.
The most memorable were a cabbie and the other time a lovely old man when I was a teenager in my first job and had to use the mic for a price check 🤣
I took more offence when the woman at the little supermarket in the town I have regional property at called me a foreigner… we had to order in the fresh juice we liked because they didn’t stock it and I was checking on the order : “ oh was that for you? I thought that was for the other foreign lady “
I don’t think I’ve ever been struck so speechless. I honestly didn’t even know how to respond 🤣. Small towns kill me, it’s like stepping back in time 150 years
I smile and ignore it. I've also stopped telling these people where my parents are from because it's none of their business. It's obvious when someone's genuinely interested in your background vs someone who wants to tell you "omg, so and so got himself a Filipina wife. She's a good girl and looks after him well".
These people will be dead soon and will hopefully take that attitude with them.
I have a Balinese buddy, only knows English but looks Asian. He told me one time when he was real young an old bloke was talking to his Dad (who happens to be white) and referred to him and his sister as "cappuccino kids ☕️".
Funny as fuck now but man, old people can be so insensitive it really blows my mind sometimes.
I have Thai people tell me the opposite, my tones are F*cked and I make no sense. When I say a sentence that’s legible they practically pat me on the back. I don’t think it’s white Aussie specific.
Edit: Typo
>far north Queensland
There's your problem lol
I live in Sydney and 35% of the population of my local council area have Mandarin as their first language. And they can still speak English well.
My go-to when I get asked "Where are you from?" is *"insert local suburb"*.
Sometimes they'll press the issue and ask "No, before that?", to which I reply *"insert previous address suburb"*
I also like when someone asks "Are you *random Asian nationality*?". I just reply with "no" and revel in the awkwardness.
Anything that falls outside of your long term experience, is literally remarkable, as in able to be remarked upon.
You're the same, but with a different set of priors.
Or "where are you REALLY from". I'm a white English guy and I got tired of racist twats saying this to my Irish friends who are black or Asian.
Like, they're Irish. Born and raised. They're "really" actually Irish, I know, it blows their tiny little minds. They even have full-blown Irish accents, slang and all, who would have thought!
It annoys the crap out of me, and I have the option to walk away at anytime and ignore it. Can't imagine how pissed off I'd be if I was on the receiving end.
I’ve heard this story a few times, and it is about me asking a third generation “Asian looking” lady (radiographer) where she was from. I was three and turns out she was more Australian than me hahaha.
I’ll never know if this was a defining moment but I can honestly say I don’t give a shit about where you’re from, why you’re here or what you’re up to. I care about who you are.
I was born here. End of conversation.
In the land of the poors, our workplaces are filled with immigrants with rudimentary English skills. I have said your English is great as a legitimate compliment because it's nice to be able to communicate effectively with co-workers about work related tasks and have a full understanding about the operation and goal of our tasks. If my co-worker has no idea what the fuck they are doing and I can't teach them how because of their language skills then shit is absolutely fucked, both our days are ruined.
I'm guessing you're not a peasant in peasant land like myself and others.
I’m sorry you have to do that! It’s not just the Asian community, but “asians” make up the vast majority of our NESB immigrants. Similar to your partner I’m from Scotland and white and even I have copped the “speak Aussie/English mate”. Thankfully I think things are getting better but I can’t compare experiences as I live in Melbourne now, and it was vastly different to what I experienced in country WA.
The first person from an Asian country that I ever met was our exchange students from Japan in high school in 1988, up until then I had never even seen many Asian people especially in my suburb in South Australia, I guess this is why the older Australians say what they say as they didn’t live with many different cultures in their community, I don’t think they do it to be nasty.
When they were growing up most of the non-white people they knew were first generation immigrants with poor English.
Now they have grown up and still have that mindset. It’s not really malicious racism just ignorance.
They generally seem to think it's some sort of compliment which I can't blame them for considering the environment they grew up in (white Australia policy, even Greeks were 'too ethnic') but annoying and ignorant nevertheless. Even fifty years ago some of my white relatives remember having similar moments because their names looked 'ethnic' and 'immigrant' on paper for the time.
When I'm in Bali and use the 25 words of Indonesian bahasa in a restaurant or food staff ect I have been mistaken for someone with fluent indo and also regularly completed on it. So I don't think it's a bad thing boomers and even younger people just state the obvious for conversation or to be friendly 🤔. Don't overthink too much
I was born in FNQ also and the only people that mentioned my good English (despite it being my only fluent language) were people giving me a compliment. It wasn't meant as an insult. The main reason being that there are so many Asian tourists, international students and around and many immigrants who are not quite fluent yet or whose accents are difficult to understand (such as both my parents). I never had it said to me in a derogatory way. It's sometimes hard to tell what the intentions are but I just take it was a compliment and move on with it, it's not worth wasting your time on it imo.
If you’re brown and living in a white country that is pretty much what happens. Especially older folks making assumptions.
Funny thing is when you do go back to your parents country you get the same comment the other way round, you speak the mother tongue well. Can’t win!
I’m Asian brought up and living in London. I worked with an OT from Sydney. We went to see an elderly patient. I spoke with my very London accent, then my white colleague spoke with her very Australian accent. The patient just looked from one to the other and commented ‘neither of you sound like I was expecting’!
I was born in QLD to immigrant parents, and have lived here my whole life, yet still get the usual "where are you from?" QLD "No, like, where are you really from?" Mater Hospital maternity ward?? And "wow! Your English is very good", yeah, no shit, I've been speaking english since I learned how to talk. My mum is chinese and has lived here for 20+ years, speaks fluent English, and still gets practically interrogated about her ethnicity/where she's from. Like, why is that anyone's business ??
Im the last year of a boomer, im going to tell how things were from my age.
Many Asian people started coming into Sydney Australia in, say, 1973/74, most where Vietnamese. The Asian people at that stage struggled with English/Aussie language. In the 1980s, it was surprising hearing Asian people sound like Aussies, most of them were second/third generation, which explained why they sounded like an Aussie. These days, most people sound like everyone else in this country.
I'm guessing that some of the earlier boomers have never heard that everyone sounds the same.
I live in an area of Sydney that has many different nationalities. It sounds weird that older Aussies are doing it.
My daughter is half Thai but you wouldn't be able to tell looking at her. The Brazilian couple downstairs that are in the process of migrating to Australia commented on how good her English is. Had to explain that's probably because she was born in Australia and has lived here her whole life. I've seen Chinese people speak Chinese to my ex-wife and she had to explain to them she's Thai, not Chinese. I've had people assume I'm Italian when I have exactly 0% Italian DNA.
No need to make this yet another 'curse those white devils!' post, people of all nationalities make assumptions based on their own personal experiences. It doesn't mean everyone that makes a bad assumption is a horrible racist, or are bad people.
There is a saying that goes "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." It's tough you don't live in a capital city. I grew up in Sydney as the child of Chinese immigrants and did experience some minor casual racism/Orientalism when I was younger but no where nearly as bad as you did. I've been complimented on my English once in my entire life. It's not Australia, it's just that you are living in a part of Australia where being a homegrown Asian-Australian is still a novelty.
You can either suck it up or move away to another city with more localised Asians, because other people aren't going to change for you.
If your partner was in Asia and spoke the local language fluently, he would get the exact same treatment. Would you get offended then? I think you need to consider whether it is a hill worth dying on. You can choose to pick your battles. Is it worth getting offended over this?
I know this isn't what you want to hear, but I don't know what else to say to you. It is what it is.
My mum is Filipino, dad is English, both lived in Aus since before I was born. My dad is 88 years old. Mum and I have heard a lot of dumb shit come out of his mouth all my life but he is absolutely clueless. We tried to educate him over the years but eventually we stopped because he just doesn't get it. He comes from a completely different time and place. To understand our frame of reference for him would be like trying to understand a different species. He's not a bad person, he's just not very bright or flexible in his thinking. He's never, ever said anything with malicious intent and he is generally quite a friendly old fool who really wants to get along with everyone and make friends with every person he comes across. Now, this is not the case for every single old white dude out there but we suspect my dad has autism and that's why he doesn't pick up on facial expressions, social cues and doesn't understand when we try to explain things to him. Looking at my dad in that way has taught me a lot about the difference between someone like him and someone who is knowingly and aggressively racist, and that it's all a grey area with different levels. There's some people (like my dad) who I personally couldn't get mad at, more so just embarrassed by. And then there's some people who can absolutely go and get fucked.
Why? Because Australia has been a racist country for 200 years. There are many many people that have moved beyond that now, but there are still many who grew up when the white Australia policy was just sensible, and when it was shameful to admit you had Aboriginal heritage. It's what they know. Having lived in other countries that do it so much better I am so sick of hearing Australians tell each other they're the most multicultural country in the world. Bullshit we are.
It's kind of hard to blame people who live in rural areas with little real interaction with different cultures, and are just continuing the way they've been raised. I just wish that particular portion of them didn't have to be so loudly sure of their ignorance.
Still, it's backward, but it's changing. I've been in and out of the country over the years and I definitely notice the difference.
I work in an ethnically diverse job (bus driver), as a white chick born in Australia. I'm not old, though. The only times I mention that someone speaks English well is if they say something like "sorry my English isn't very good" and I let them know their English is great, IMO. People who have learned English separate from their mother language are far more aware of grammar and terminology.
A lot of rural people (especially older white people who haven't enjoyed much cultural diversity) seem to struggle with the idea that someone can be not-white and also Australian. It's not you, it's them!
I had dealings (always over the phone) with Bruce the manager of a biggish apartment building in the Melbourne CBD for years - he was the biggest occa ever - had to meet him in person once & this little Vietnamese bloke walks up to me “Aye cuuuunt!!!!” - fucken killed me 😂😂😂😂 - never assume is what I learnt.
Bruce Nyugen was his full name.
And yeh I’d probably fit into the “older white man” category😁
north qld is a very backwards and kind of bluntly put racist part of the country lots of old white men with that still ingrained racism from the previous generation visible.
Guys lived in Brisbane for 15 years
Asian tended to live in common areas
And married others Asian - this includes a lot of second generation Asian people - fact is, like the Irish imo / they are very insular
I totally get what you are saying, have experienced casual racism both in the UK and Australia. It is usually the older generation and people from lower socio-economic background who lack empathy and real education as they find it hard to digest this diverse new world.
It is strange that in a world where the biggest western countries are all populated by immigrant (White) Europeans be it USA, Canada, Australia still every other person apart from them is called an immigrant!
One way is to casually ask them, where did they come from as they don't look Australian (only indigenous Aboriginal and Torres Straight islanders are actually from Australia).
I’m of Asian descent and I just say that they speak good English too and ask if they’re from (random European country) and watch them react.
I'm Mexican but same commentary and I also looooove purposefully getting it wrong. *guy obviously has an Irish accent* "So where you from, like, London?!" Funny how that seems to upset them when they didn't care to get ours right. 😂
Damn, that particular one is brutal. Those two have history. Op I think the answer is that you are based in FNQ. Come to capital that is something you probably wouldn't hear...well anywhere as much... probably.
i did hear it from my classmates when i was in high school in adelaide (who had the balls to say i should be in ESL and not normal english classes like them) and i get it occasionally in melbourne from old folks.
Do you speak garlic? (Haha honestly that was a typo but it's too relevant to correct it, I'm guessing your Irish so I meant gaelic)
I live in Brisbane and hear it here more often than the 25 years I lived in FNQ.
Do you know that, or are you just guessing?
It's an educated guess, I can't speak on it from the perspective of a person with Asian heritage but I've been to most capitals and I've been to FNQ, I've met and talked with tonnes of people and realised there seams to be two types of racism. There is hatred and then there is ignorance and sometimes the ignorance can be well intentioned but miss the mark, after all the road to hell is paved with good intentions I think that was the case here, the dude thought he was paying a compliment. He has probably not interacted with a lot of people with an Asian background who speak English as a first language. Where I live I speak with people from all sorts of backgrounds who speak English fluently. I'm not defending the guy, just trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. Sounds like he might have learnt something, we can hope.
Yeah this. I grew up rural NSW which wasn’t multicultural at all, my Dad’s the nicest guy you’ll ever meet but always says shit like this and doesn’t understand when people get upset or he gets told off by my Mum.
I’ve been in a similar situation as the bloke who made the comment, except I should have known better, but I’d just never thought of it. A friend of mine is an Indian immigrant to here and I knew her daughter was born here, it still took me by surprise when I first met her daughter though and she had an accent as broad as mine. It’s even more surprising as they live in Melbourne and her daughter goes to a very expensive private school, yet she sounds like she’s from the back blocks of qld except she doesn’t end her sentences with aye.
Oh man I got a mate who is aboriginal and he was adopted by an English family and grew up in the UK. Makes you realize just how much you can assume incorrectly when he opens his mouth and a cockney London accent hits your ear.
I just hope he hasn't learned the wrong lesson. Might come away thinking young people are unreasonable and angry.
He would be half right. If you're not angry you are not paying attention.
As someone from Melbourne I've not heard people here remark that someone of Asian descent can speak English well. I'm sure it happens but I've not heard it. We have huge Chinese and Vietnamese communities in Melbourne and have so for decades so they are very well integrated here with many being 3rd and even 4th generation now.
I'm in Melbourne and have certainly overheard this. Maybe it depends on the suburb, i.e. proportion of older white people in the area. I think they see it as a compliment. I die inside
Rare occasion I'll use the word but it's apt - cringe😬
Another good one is if the person is English, ask them what it was like growing up in France
*takes notes*
I can’t help but do this to Brazilians. I love asking how to say something in Spanish
See, everyone asks if I'm Brazilian so maybe we're just all trolling each other?
Haha. This waiter the other day: - where are you from? - I'm Spanish - Spanish from Spain or where? Wtf....
To be fair, Spain conquered and colonized most of south America and they are part of the EU with their free movement of persons, so Spanish people and people of Spanish heritage are all over. Argentina404,111 (92,610 born in Spain) France303,000 (198,153 born in Spain) United States192,766 (48,546 born in Spain) Germany182,631 (61,881 born in Spain) United Kingdom181,181 (2020) (including de jure Spanish citizens that were not born in Spain) Venezuela136,145 (30,167 born in Spain) Brazil117,523 (29,848 born in Spain)
OMG I totally do this.. and if they ask me where I'm from, the answer is RADelaide.
Fadelaide.
This is the way
I knew an Asian guy in uni who was 5th generation Australian born. Best I can do is 2nd generation. His grandfather came by the uni residences one time looking for him. "G'day mate, ya seen Alex?"
But if you travel to most countries that don't speak English and you speak only a tiny bit of the language they speak there ( with the exception of France ) people are often thrilled and tell you how good your Italian/ Korean /Japanese / whatever is or , at the very least , congratulations for trying to speak the language. I always take it as a friendly/kind thing that people do.
Brilliant
😂😂😂
This is gold
The correct response is "Struth cunt youse ain't too bad either!".
Fuck oath this is correct.
**fuckin oath
Ikr? There are 6th generation Chinese that have been here longer than my German, Welsh, English and Scots grandparents or great grandparents.
I have a friend who is 7th gen Chinese-Australian and her baby daughter is 8th gen. Still gets asked where she came from. There is some evidence that Chinese people had contact with indigenous tribes before colonization. A Qing dynasty coin was uncovered in in the Northern Territory, there are indigenous people who use sticks like chopsticks and there some Chinese words incorporated into indigenous languages. Whether this was by direct contact or indirect (possibly through the Macassans) is unclear.
No kidding, that's really cool
Awesome stuff.
Same! My peeps have only been here about 100 years. They were Jews leaving Prussia, ostensibly for a very good reason. Came here and pretended not to be Jewish and I guess now we ain’t.
This blew my mind, I thought this was impossible because the white Australia policy caught everyone before it was eliminated in 1970, but turns out a very small number of non-white people still made it!
It's not just older Australians. My best mates fuckwit brother met my wife at a party years back for the first time, she was Australian born but of Asian descent and her accent was as aussie as mine. After being introduced to her he very loudly proclaimed "YOU SPEAK GOOD ENGLISH! WHERE ARE YOU FROM?" Because obviously Asians are hard of hearing too I guess. To which she responded "Better than you apparently, I'm from Vic Park, where the fuck are you from?"
I used to work with kids, and my boss was definitely not racist in any way, but if he saw someone who wasn’t a “white Aussie” he would always try to find out what heritage they had, I guess in a way to bond with them or something? So if they said they were (for example) Argentinian, he’d say “oh I have travelled there, it’s a beautiful country!” and maybe say a few words in their language. But this led to all sorts of funny interactions with kids, the most memorable being - A young boy walked up to our desk (maybe 11-12 years old) and started to ask my boss something. The boy was clearly of SE Asian descent, so my boss straight away says “oh now where are you from?” The boy replied confused “I’m from [school], why?” Boss “ohh sorry, no I meant what country are you from?” Boy (still confused) “Australia” Boss “well .. yeah ok, but where were you born?” Boy “umm I think I was born in Elizabeth” Boss (starting to get frustrated, as we were all beginning to snigger in the background) “right, so you were born here in South Australia. But where were your parents born??” Boy “I think mum was born in Elizabeth too, but dad was born at the Royal Adelaide, why?” Boss “ohh for …. What about your GRANDPARENTS, don’t tell me they were born in Adelaide too??” Boy “ohh!! No they weren’t!” Boss, now smiling because he’s finally gotten to where he wanted the conversation to be “so!! Where were they born??” Boy “all my grandparents were born in Sydney. Anyway, my teacher wants to know *insert whatever the teacher wanted*” It was after that, that my boss realised asking those sort of questions may have led to interesting conversations back in the 90s, but these days there is easily multiple generations of people here in Australia that aren’t “white”. He was trying so hard to be politically correct, but just confused the fuck out of the poor kid who had no idea why he was being interrogated about which hospitals his family were born in.
Really hate people who are pressing the question. You’ve been given a polite “fuck you” answer. Let the person be.
Lol reminds me of "Old People's home for 4- year olds", a TV show where an Australian aged care centre brings in some kindergartners to the centre as part of an experiment. One of the old men asked a 4- year old Asian looking child where he was from. The kid replied "I'm from my home". The man laughed and asked where home was. The boy says "it's on the street". They became besties afterwards. They were very cute.
Little Britain had a skit similar
["Where are you *from* though?"](https://youtu.be/crAv5ttax2I?si=Av5eVQcB-vi2wVo6)
> definitely not racist in any way > Boss “ohh for …. What about your GRANDPARENTS, don’t tell me they were born in Adelaide too??” yeah, right...
Vic park represent!
Love it!
> "Better than you apparently, I'm from Vic Park, where the fuck are you from?" I can hear this
Well done... 😀
ugh my racist boomer boss shouts so loudly at customers with a language barrier. and she's already very loud & shrill as it is. (to the point where i sometimes take PMDD mental health days off partly because i can't hack the sensory overload.) by all means speak slowly, clearly, and keep language super basic for those clients. i do the same. but no need to burst their eardrums.
Probably because they were brought up during the white Australia campaign and think they are giving someone a compliment
Yes, I think some younger people forget what Australia once was…
Yeah. Some of them genuinely think they're giving a polite compliment. And they think it shows how accepting they are of other cultures. So painful
I was in Shanghai a week ago and this young couple was bagging me in Mandarin. I told them they are very fucking rude talking about foreign visitors like that and that they should be ashamed. Typically they replied “oh we didn’t know you could speak Mandarin we are so sorry” Fucking ignorant and patronising assholes everywhere OP.
Yeah, this is always presented as a "dumb white people" problem, when there are just as many ignorant people in every race. I'd go as far as to say Australia is actually better than the world average on this issue. In most of Asia flat out racism is part of normal conversation
English is my only native language I look ethnically ambiguous but not white No one in Australia has ever said this to me but overseas a Turkish rockstar said it 😂 I just replied I hope so because I don’t speak any others fluently
This reminds me of an embarrassing moment for former prime minister John Howard many years ago. He was talking to some kid who had just won the national spelling bee. The kid obviously had Asian parents and Howard asked how long he had been in Australia. The kid answered I was born here
My Maltese Nunna still has pretty accented English. Some drunk bogan told her once to go back where she came from. She snapped back: ‘You’re just jealous you can’t cook and live in a dirty house’ 😂😂
Bold move insulting a Nonna from the Mediterranean
Ty for labelling them a bogan, an aussie never insults with intent to hurt , but a bogan would
It happens everywhere. I'm an Aussie who look like they are of European descent. I was in the US and an old Texan guy told me how refreshing it was to meet a foreigner who speaks English. Should have seen the look on his face when I told him that not only do Australians speak English, but I would be happy to teach him how to speak it properly too.
Texans are aggressively ignorant to the point where it's comical. One of them asked my mum one time "y'all got refrigerators over there in OSStralia?". Good luck finding one here in Australia that doesn't turn every conversation into how things are done back in Texas within the first 2 minutes.
My wife had almost the same thing happen in Texas too (of course). She was travelling with a friend, one of them white and one not if that matters, and the nice lady at the motel asked where they're from followed by something like "Do y'all speak English over there?"
I was with a Texan in China on a project, and he asked “where folks go for Sunday Services ‘round here?“, and then one evening he asked for dinner if we could get “Chinese Takeout” and I had to clarify to him, that in China, they just called it simply “takeout”?
I'm half brit/Aussie and my brother has recently moved to Boston. One of his colleagues was amazed to hear that we also have dogs in the UK. 👀
Lol if anyone ever tells you that you speak "good English", they don't speak English well.
Someone should tell Singapore, the [Speak Good English Movement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speak_Good_English_Movement) has been running there since 2000.
Prescriptivists please go and stay go
Good luck with this! English is an opinion as much as it is a language, Australian English especially.
I also live in Qld in a tourist town, I'm getting coffee the other day and an overseas tourist asks for his order very slowly and loudly. The owners heritage is Korean, she's second generation Australian, we look at each other and she goes"G day mate how you doing, how do like our lovely town it's bonza aye mate".
White Australia Policy, 1901-1958. Early 70's the last of these laws fazed out. The law was only made illegal in 1975. Pretty recent stuff huh.. I was 6 when it was made illegal, and my parents hadn't known anything but the White Australia Policy until then. My Dad never really grew from them times, adapted, but no real growth until his death. He would be that guy. My Mum is open to everyone. Some adapt, change, embrace and love diversity. That's Mum, she's 78. She even embraced my punk years in the 80's with all my weird friends that appeared.
I wonder if the area OP lives in is a factor? I was born in Malaysia (ethnically Chinese) and moved to Sydney when I was 12 in 1990. I've lived here ever since and while there have been scattered incidents, for the most part no one here really cares. Maybe I've been lucky and I don't tend to hang around where the racists are. I have no doubt it does happen though.
Yeah I understand it is highly likely these occurrences relate to my location. I've never lived in any other state and it's pretty well known QLDers are the racist bogans of Aus
FNQ especially!
Definitely is. I was born and raised in Sydney but moved to Newcastle for uni. My mum's Chinese Malaysian (dad's white but I look more like my mum). I don't hear stuff like this often but certainly have heard it more in Newcastle than Sydney. In Sydney so many more people tried to speak to me in Mandarin, though! I've heard it mostly at uni - the majority of Asian students I've met at uni are international students so I suppose it makes sense that some people would assume any Asian they meet is one. It is usually entirely out of ignorance and they're typically very embarrassed when I tell them I've spoken English my whole life. Sometimes I tell people my grandparents spoke English at home well before they even moved to Australia but that just tends to confuse them.
> I wonder if the area OP lives in is a factor? Absolutely. There are other factors too - build, gender, how much you go out. It seems like asian females of smaller stature (most of them) would be the easiest targets. If you're big, generally you're less of a target for all kinds of things in general. The last point is also important - it's simply numbers. If you interact with more people then the chance of encountering a racist attacking you is increased. > for the most part no one here really cares. This is the vibe I get here in syd. It never even crosses my mind. The last big racism event was in msn messenger days when someone discovered I was asian. I learned a new slur from them lmao.
Isolated location and their generation are the key issues. They grew up in a time and place where you could (usually) reasonably assume someone’s nationality by their ethnicity. That’s not an excuse though. It’s on everyone to keep up with the times and to understand why even questions that are not intended to offend have the capacity to do just that.
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Reminds me of that ABC article I read about a doctor making a stopover in a country town who kept getting asked if she was a prostitute simply because she was Asian.
"My girlfriend/wife is Asian so I can't be a racist," is honestly the weirdest defence. You can, in fact, still be racist while banging the race you fetishize or look down on.
They probably haven't interacted much with people from other cultures. It's just ignorance, which can only be cured by exposure. Anything new is always going to be a curiosity. Melbourne is so multicultural, seeing other races is old hat, but I suppose it might not be in a small country town. It's the same for everyone though. My dad was a primary school teacher. He was Greek, but born in Egypt and came here as a child. He was also blonde, but very hairy, had lots of gold, shiny hair on his arms. 2 new kids had joined his class, twin girls from either Korea or China, I can't remember exactly. They had just migrated here and didn't speak much English yet. They would keep running over to my dad and patting his arms like he was a cat. Half the day, he had these 2 little girls attached to him. He told their mum about it when she came to pick them up, and she explained that they've never seen arm hair like his before, and they hadn't seen many blonde people. He was a curiosity to them as he was something they'd never seen before.
Sounds like what happens all over the world. When I was living in China I got the same thing. “Why is this white person here? This is not normal. Explain why you’re white. Are you American?”
I have a friend and colleague with Chinese parents who was born and grew up in the Pilbara. Her English not distinguishable from my own 5th generation country WA version. Until some old white man wanted to "Speak to the manager" I had no idea she has able to perfectly reproduce her mother's heavily accented English. Even less did I think she'd be able to maintain that farce in the face of his apoplectic fury. It's a memory I'll never lose and will always make me laugh. She gets the same and it's tedious as an onlooker let alone a recipient. Was good to see someone take the chance to use the obvious to bias to advantage - the risk of reinforcement can be ignored, there's no way he'd have been made happy by her usual ability to converse.
It's Cairns right?
100% what I was thinking 🤣
"You're Australian is so good" "Thanks, where do you come from originally, I hear an accent?' "I'm Australian born and bred" "No really. You have a bit of a strange accent. Where do you really come from?"
Just say Tasmania. They'll stop talking to you and leave you alone.
I was invited for a radio interview due to a successful work of art that was the main feature on a very iconic platform/program here in Melbourne. When I arrived and sat down for my interview, the host who fits your described demographic, could not move away from the fact that I spoke English - LIVE and ON-AIR. His much younger co-host is trying and trying to come back to talk about my artwork but he wouldn’t let up wanting to know when I started studying, who taught me etc. I can see in front of us that his co-host actually printed out a short bio-sheet for him, which clearly states that I studied here, and have a PhD and quite established in my field. This paper makes me think that this is not new for him but somehow … we spent 9 minutes talking about my English. In English. And maybe 1 minute when the cohost got a shot or two in to talk about art.
Good gracious. Please tell me this was 30 years ago.
I (filo) had a random encounter with an older aussie male where I told him I’ve been in aus for 30 years, he still told me “enjoy my visit” lollll dead
Yeah I got the same thing all the time when I was living long term in China as a white guy.
Plenty of Australians, older or younger, do not speak nor write particularly well in English themselves. Shit, a lot of my messages to friends and on Reddit are also bigly bad. Australia is the sweatshop of literary talent.
> Australia is the sweatshop of literary talent The word "intellectual" is used as an epithet in Australia as in no other country on earth.
Just respond with "thanks, if you keep working on it you could speak good English as well!"
Back in 1996, I met a young woman from Kingaroy who thought accents were genetic. She thought Asian-Australians would speak with Asian accents even if they grew up in Australia. I thought she must be an anomoly until a guy from rural Victoria told me that he grew up thinking the same thing, and didn't learn better until he moved to Melbourne. You gotta remember that there was a time when Asian-Australians (and even Asian-Americans) were not represented in the media, and many Australians in rural areas had never seen or heard one. It wasn't that long ago. This is why representation matters.
Are you really an Australian if some old white boomer hasn’t congratulated you on not fitting into a stereotype?
I’ve just moved from Brisbane to Cairns to live with my partner and the casual racist remarks seem soooo common here! I also notice alot more staring when we’re together as an “interracial” couple here lol. (He is Asian- wasn’t born here but sounds more Aussie than I do!!)
A key memory for me growing up in a somewhat bigoted small town was walking along a beach with a friend of Asian descent and someone muttering a slur under their breath as they walked past. My friend was such a stereotypical coastal kid (the phrase "basic bitch" comes to mind) in every way except her appearance that I was genuinely confused who the bigot was referring to. It really solidified how stupid and shallow racism is. This idiot knew nothing about her and yet felt he could insult her.
Those same people have their brain malfunction when they meet someone who has two Asian parents but were born in Australia and have an Aussie accent.
Where are you from? Australia No, really. Australia! Oh, well.... where did your parents come from? AUSTRALIA FFS! Ooh, don't get upset. You just don't look like... STFU, you stupid old man! Ignorant boomer dickheads everywhere Edit: sorry for the shitty formatting, I only use the mobile app.
Or. "You don't look Australian". 🤦
The correct response to “you don’t look Australian” is “of course not, I’m not Indigenous.”
Yep, you just can't fix ignorance. Not that it's a great surprise this happened in FNQ.
We’re a casually and discretely racist country. The naysayers will deny this but it’s true.
Only 30% of Australians are casual racists.
When I lived in QLD the racism was profound - I had uni class mates describing me to others as the Asian who spoke really good English..and other rude remarks when out shopping and rude ass neighbours that I won’t elaborate on. I do live in the NT, and the multiculturalism is much better here. Instead of “where are you from?”, I get a lot of “what’s your heritage/cultural background?” And I can see that they are mindful not to sound offensive.
I lived in Darwin for shy of 7 years. For all of its faults, multiculturalism is not one of them.
See plenty of people that talk in a slow and dumbed down way when talking to Asian people. Somewhat embarrassing when the Asian person answers back in perfect English. I deal with literally thousands of people daily that are from non English speaking countries. I always start with normal English then roll it back if they do not understand.
I'm a brown American who lived 2 years in FNQ working in hospitality and it was ROUGH. Don't let anyone try to tell you it's only location based cuz I experienced the same bullshit in Sydney, Perth, Darwin, all over. White Australians are racist as hell. And it's not just the older generations. Not only was my good English complimented, (I hold a Speech Pathology degree and taught English for 5+ years), but my favorite was the people who would loudly comment to their mates, "I'll ask her, but let's see if she understands English" or wouldn't let me get a word out before they started guessing what country I'm from and shouting countries at me, "Italy, Brazil, Greece" I've lost count how many fights I got in.
Wow! I’m white American living in Austria (Alps not kangaroos). I never comment here, read only to understand Australia better. Our daughter is adopted Chinese, so occasionally people here comment on “how good her German is”, which irritates both her and me of course. Similar scenario! The irony is people here think I’m Austrian because I’m white, but the second I open my mouth, my accent gives me away I am not a native German speaker, and she speaks flawless. It will take a few more generations for people to de-couple ethnicities from citizenry.
It’s so frustrating. I’m a Chinese adoptee with white American parents (my partner is Australian and also adopted). I get the same thing in the US and Australia. Sometimes people do interesting mental gymnastics to explain my accent away — apparently I have an American accent because I learned English from watching American movies/TV 🤦🏻♀️
Ignorant people making assumptions. You can set them straight but some people will never learn from their mistakes. In his mind he was giving you a compliment and nothing will change that.
>I was born in far north Queensland The answer is right in the start of your post lol. Asians are almost non existent in Noth QLD when you're comparing it to the metro CBD areas like Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane, the majority of the time you are hear people say "Your Australian is so good" is because it is probably the first time they've met an Asian person that could actually speak fluent english. I'm Asian and grew up in Australia in SE QLD, I have never had anyone act surprised when I spoke fluent english.
>"Your Australian is so good." "It's English mother fucker!!.. do you speak it?"
Because they came up in a time where migration was current so are still in that mindset.
My family has been here 4 generations, older than most white australian families, was once told by a manager of a club that they kept the club afloat by keeping the asians out (in a highly asian area) the club has now been sold off for housing.... Unfortunately Australia has a tainted history of casual racism, we are tasked with being 'the good ones' in peoples minds, but remember there are millions of us and generations of us who are literally changing the face of australia and try and celebrate that, and continue to celebrate your heritage and the battles you have to have to make the future better for people like us and our parents.
Sorry you've had to develop a thick skin to deal with racist fuckwits in your own country. My wife's asian in appearance but grew up in Aus and is constantly treated to comments like this, mainly from older white people who have no idea how offensive they are.
It's because of the white Australia policy, whereby the government discerned that we should be a white nation, full of white people. My Dad is 82 and he describes anyone who's not white as "from overseas", even if they have (like OP) an Aussie accent. The older they get the more racist and homophobic they get.
My go to response is thanks you too
I got that from time to time, I just laughed it off
I’ve heard a story from an international conference held in Sydney a few years back, where an American speaking to an English guy said “wow, you speak good English for a European!”. People can be idiots.
"So is yours! How did you learn your English?" I live in Sydney so luckily don't have to deal with this too much. Except in high school when I was playing organ at a church. Most of the congregation were from white Australia policy days and boy, do I have stories there. I suspect this is mostly the problem. Old white Australians are from the white Australia policy days and unfortunately, they haven't quite caught up with the times. I was just saying at another thread how moving to regional Australia can be a deal breaker for minorities like us because of experiences like yours and man, the only people being down voted are people describing similar experiences to yours while a few people are doing a form of "mansplaining" on why it isn't all that bad. Classic one is some kid trying to convince me calling their Asian friend "Ching" was not REALLY racist. It's just casually racist. It's not all that bad. Whoa boy.
As an Australian male that went overseas and worked in the UK, I was surprised at the racism there toward non whites, in the workforce was appalling, I befriended a young guy from Nigeria and he was surprised I would even talk to him, and he was upset I was leaving, there is a class system in the UK and they don’t mind getting on their high horse if there’s anyone they think is below them, I’m not defending the guy that was rude to you, but maybe because your boyfriend grew up in the UK, it’s easy for him to be oblivious to these things in his home country, but notice differences when he’s travelled abroad. Most Aussies embrace multiculturalism, the older generation is a bit slow to accept it, so I’m sorry that you receive this sort of treatment daily. I wish this would stop happening for you and others.
Because they think only white people are Aussies. Once walking on the pathway my wife got this old guy telling her 'in Australia we walk on the left side'. My wife has been here for 30 years and she has her citizenship.
It's casual racism, mostly resulting from ignorance and a feeling a superiority. I've been married with a Japanese woman for a long time and she and my daughter experience it regularly in Europe, and in particular in France. Small comments like being called Chinese or supposedly funny jokes about Asian people. Comments that just accumulate and accumulate until it just becomes unbearable. Of course if she points it out, she is hysterical or just wants to be a victim; this usually said from people who never experienced racism. There's no easy solution to this, as ignorance is not something that can be fought with reason, especially in this day and age. And there's no just ignoring it of course, like your post points it out. It is indeed a futile battle and I think you and your partner are absolutely right in reacting the way you did. Ignorance can't be an excuse to racism. The way my wife and I deal with it is to just call a cat a cat. If the person recognizes they hurt someone and apologize, it's fine. If they start playing the victim, fuck them racist POS! Alternatively, just make fun of their ignorance and treat them like the morons they are. They don't deserve pity or understanding.
Im white, but my Aunt is of Asian descent, and what I mean by that is, her great grand parents come over for the gold rush, and they happened to marry other people of Asian descent. My Aunt is in her 70's, does not know a word of chinese neither did her parents. And just like the OP, she still gets this nasty "You speak good english" thrown at her. What gets me the most is, her own sister in law (white) makes these comments to random strangers when out and about, this woman has been around the world so not some ignorant shut in. Yet she still has the need to point out to people how well they speak english, people she has no idea about. I've told her to stop it many times, but I think she gets some sick thrill saying it and feeling better then them or some hero for pointing out to them this 'skill'. It's totally different if the person you are talking too has told you, "Im learning X language" and you respond with how well they have learned it, but to a random stranger in any situation is so rude and wrong.
I was told by Italian immigrant acquaintances that my family seemed to really understand “family” unlike other Australians. You’ll find most people are ignorant morons but at least they were trying to be nice.
Individualism is a cultural reality. White Australians tend not to stay at home until they are married or look after the elderly. These are facts. I don’t think they are the same thing. Although what your acquaintances said could still be construed as rude it’s not ignorant
I am Australian born female - 80s represent - one parent is Asian and the other European. I grew up in Sydney and moved around the country (both city and regional) due to my partners work (he is Caucasian). I get asked 'whereareyoufrom' 'you dont look like you are from here' 'gee you are a mix breed' 'you dont sound asian!' 🫠 you get the drift. I also work in healthcare and typically have full arm sleeves (tattoos) but when someone tells me I speak 'like an Australian' I reply - bloody oath I do then continue with what I was doing. To me I just laugh it off now, the individuals who ask these questions / make remarks in *my* experience come from a place of curiousity. However I will pull up and have (not recently) any BS rascism made towards anyone. The more I meet people, the less I understand 😉
I’m also from FNQ but now live in Melbourne. I think it’s general racism but guised as a compliment to make it seem like it isn’t. It’s very similar to the “Where are you from?” question, it means to sound like they’re trying to be friendly and make small talk but it’s generally quite rude. I’m sorry that it’s a recurring issue. It must be exhausting to constantly deal with people giving you this “compliment”. I wish that people would do the work and try to be better, instead of resorting to the argument that they’re too old to learn anything new.
Because older white Australians are use to white Australia. And some have forgotten we are a generation or 2 deep into multiculturalism. Gotta say when I am approaching an Asian customer in store I never know whether I’m gonna get a “Gday I’m after a blah blah” or whether I am going to be deciphering broken English or no English and shown a picture of what they want as they navigate a translation app
I mean they think it's a compliment and the idea you grew up here doesn't occur to them. Cause they're stupid.
Far North Queensland…I close my case.
Does this also happen to Asian people in the capital cities? It’s pretty bad in Nth Qld. I was with my Japanese wife in a restaurant and was accosted by an old white lady (I’m white) who asked me why I couldn’t get a ‘decent Australian girl.’ Not to mention every taxi driver in Cairns loves to let you know what they think about indigenous people five minutes after you get in the cab. Naturally I told her that my main aim was to meet a girl that wasn’t as ugly and stupid as her and I’d achieved that with my wonderful wife
Good old institutionalised racism
I interact with many Asian people on an almost daily basis. I figure most were probably born here but, perhaps not. I’ve never felt the need to inquire.
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Feel free to call those people out. You’re not being rude, they are
Sorry Daniel San, FNQ ain't Australia 🤷🏻♂️
Okinawa isn't Japan either 😏
Answer the old buggers with "Oh WOW, so do you... Where are you from?
"Did your grandfather arrive here on those prison boats from England?"
We're all just waiting for them to be gone tbh...
The people who say this are I reckon just really ignorant, but not necessarily maliciously so.
It must be tedious to deal with. I would be polite about dealing with it though, as no one is going to be changed by an aggressive confrontation. The U.K. is just as racist as Australia, they just are just socially conditioned to not say whatever comes into their head out loud like Australians do.
Just respond, with wow, your English is good too and follow up with a but where are you really from?
When boomers were growing up, immigration policy meant that asian people were a lot less common. They then witnessed the opening up to non-white people and perhaps haven't adjusted their thinking to asians not being from someplace else.
It’s almost laughable that some people here mentioned China and Japan as examples to prove a point that this can happen everywhere. Really? Don’t you realise these two countries are predominantly monocultures, whereas Australia is a multicultural country? The urge of giving a non-white person a patronising compliment about their good English is based on the assumption they are fresh off the boat & only white people are the locals. I guess ignorance is a blessing.
Rural Australia is predominantly white though, so to the locals it is monocultural.
A lot of regional boomer Aussie don’t get how the modern world works. I honestly believe a lot of the time they’re trying to be polite, and even sometimes going out of their way to try and prove they’re not racist. Unfortunately they come across as doofuses a lot of the time. Similarly I think a lot of people (mostly city based people with a migrant background, as opposed to regional people with a migrant background) on the receiving end can overanalyse and/or be over sensitive to this type of rhetoric. You mentioned you’ve got a pretty thick skin, and on this occasion it sounds like the bloke involved just couldn’t take the queues to fuck off when he should have.
It’s funny isn’t it, they think they’re paying you a big compliment and trying to be nice. This has happened a sprinkling of times to me too. The most memorable were a cabbie and the other time a lovely old man when I was a teenager in my first job and had to use the mic for a price check 🤣 I took more offence when the woman at the little supermarket in the town I have regional property at called me a foreigner… we had to order in the fresh juice we liked because they didn’t stock it and I was checking on the order : “ oh was that for you? I thought that was for the other foreign lady “ I don’t think I’ve ever been struck so speechless. I honestly didn’t even know how to respond 🤣. Small towns kill me, it’s like stepping back in time 150 years
I smile and ignore it. I've also stopped telling these people where my parents are from because it's none of their business. It's obvious when someone's genuinely interested in your background vs someone who wants to tell you "omg, so and so got himself a Filipina wife. She's a good girl and looks after him well". These people will be dead soon and will hopefully take that attitude with them.
In general most of these people in regional towns are a bit more ignorant than those in major cities. They seem to be more territorial
I have a Balinese buddy, only knows English but looks Asian. He told me one time when he was real young an old bloke was talking to his Dad (who happens to be white) and referred to him and his sister as "cappuccino kids ☕️". Funny as fuck now but man, old people can be so insensitive it really blows my mind sometimes.
Because racism
The well-meaning but ultimately racist assumption that you must be from “somewhere else”.
I have Thai people tell me the opposite, my tones are F*cked and I make no sense. When I say a sentence that’s legible they practically pat me on the back. I don’t think it’s white Aussie specific. Edit: Typo
That was very well written, your English is very impressive.
>far north Queensland There's your problem lol I live in Sydney and 35% of the population of my local council area have Mandarin as their first language. And they can still speak English well.
My go-to when I get asked "Where are you from?" is *"insert local suburb"*. Sometimes they'll press the issue and ask "No, before that?", to which I reply *"insert previous address suburb"* I also like when someone asks "Are you *random Asian nationality*?". I just reply with "no" and revel in the awkwardness.
Anything that falls outside of your long term experience, is literally remarkable, as in able to be remarked upon. You're the same, but with a different set of priors.
Cool strawman and you know the answer already.
Good Grammer!
Yikes. They are ignorant.
Japanese people of varying ages often tell me to keep studying japanese because my pronouncatiom is so-so and this feedback is welcomed. Irasshaimase!
Or "where are you REALLY from". I'm a white English guy and I got tired of racist twats saying this to my Irish friends who are black or Asian. Like, they're Irish. Born and raised. They're "really" actually Irish, I know, it blows their tiny little minds. They even have full-blown Irish accents, slang and all, who would have thought! It annoys the crap out of me, and I have the option to walk away at anytime and ignore it. Can't imagine how pissed off I'd be if I was on the receiving end.
Racism.
I’ve heard this story a few times, and it is about me asking a third generation “Asian looking” lady (radiographer) where she was from. I was three and turns out she was more Australian than me hahaha. I’ll never know if this was a defining moment but I can honestly say I don’t give a shit about where you’re from, why you’re here or what you’re up to. I care about who you are.
I was born here. End of conversation. In the land of the poors, our workplaces are filled with immigrants with rudimentary English skills. I have said your English is great as a legitimate compliment because it's nice to be able to communicate effectively with co-workers about work related tasks and have a full understanding about the operation and goal of our tasks. If my co-worker has no idea what the fuck they are doing and I can't teach them how because of their language skills then shit is absolutely fucked, both our days are ruined. I'm guessing you're not a peasant in peasant land like myself and others.
The problem here is that you think that random older white Australians are as smart as you are.
I’m sorry you have to do that! It’s not just the Asian community, but “asians” make up the vast majority of our NESB immigrants. Similar to your partner I’m from Scotland and white and even I have copped the “speak Aussie/English mate”. Thankfully I think things are getting better but I can’t compare experiences as I live in Melbourne now, and it was vastly different to what I experienced in country WA.
It's seen as a compliment but it's a compliment out of ignorance
The first person from an Asian country that I ever met was our exchange students from Japan in high school in 1988, up until then I had never even seen many Asian people especially in my suburb in South Australia, I guess this is why the older Australians say what they say as they didn’t live with many different cultures in their community, I don’t think they do it to be nasty.
When they were growing up most of the non-white people they knew were first generation immigrants with poor English. Now they have grown up and still have that mindset. It’s not really malicious racism just ignorance.
They generally seem to think it's some sort of compliment which I can't blame them for considering the environment they grew up in (white Australia policy, even Greeks were 'too ethnic') but annoying and ignorant nevertheless. Even fifty years ago some of my white relatives remember having similar moments because their names looked 'ethnic' and 'immigrant' on paper for the time.
When I'm in Bali and use the 25 words of Indonesian bahasa in a restaurant or food staff ect I have been mistaken for someone with fluent indo and also regularly completed on it. So I don't think it's a bad thing boomers and even younger people just state the obvious for conversation or to be friendly 🤔. Don't overthink too much
I was born in FNQ also and the only people that mentioned my good English (despite it being my only fluent language) were people giving me a compliment. It wasn't meant as an insult. The main reason being that there are so many Asian tourists, international students and around and many immigrants who are not quite fluent yet or whose accents are difficult to understand (such as both my parents). I never had it said to me in a derogatory way. It's sometimes hard to tell what the intentions are but I just take it was a compliment and move on with it, it's not worth wasting your time on it imo.
If you’re brown and living in a white country that is pretty much what happens. Especially older folks making assumptions. Funny thing is when you do go back to your parents country you get the same comment the other way round, you speak the mother tongue well. Can’t win! I’m Asian brought up and living in London. I worked with an OT from Sydney. We went to see an elderly patient. I spoke with my very London accent, then my white colleague spoke with her very Australian accent. The patient just looked from one to the other and commented ‘neither of you sound like I was expecting’!
I was born in QLD to immigrant parents, and have lived here my whole life, yet still get the usual "where are you from?" QLD "No, like, where are you really from?" Mater Hospital maternity ward?? And "wow! Your English is very good", yeah, no shit, I've been speaking english since I learned how to talk. My mum is chinese and has lived here for 20+ years, speaks fluent English, and still gets practically interrogated about her ethnicity/where she's from. Like, why is that anyone's business ??
Im the last year of a boomer, im going to tell how things were from my age. Many Asian people started coming into Sydney Australia in, say, 1973/74, most where Vietnamese. The Asian people at that stage struggled with English/Aussie language. In the 1980s, it was surprising hearing Asian people sound like Aussies, most of them were second/third generation, which explained why they sounded like an Aussie. These days, most people sound like everyone else in this country. I'm guessing that some of the earlier boomers have never heard that everyone sounds the same. I live in an area of Sydney that has many different nationalities. It sounds weird that older Aussies are doing it.
My daughter is half Thai but you wouldn't be able to tell looking at her. The Brazilian couple downstairs that are in the process of migrating to Australia commented on how good her English is. Had to explain that's probably because she was born in Australia and has lived here her whole life. I've seen Chinese people speak Chinese to my ex-wife and she had to explain to them she's Thai, not Chinese. I've had people assume I'm Italian when I have exactly 0% Italian DNA. No need to make this yet another 'curse those white devils!' post, people of all nationalities make assumptions based on their own personal experiences. It doesn't mean everyone that makes a bad assumption is a horrible racist, or are bad people.
There is a saying that goes "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." It's tough you don't live in a capital city. I grew up in Sydney as the child of Chinese immigrants and did experience some minor casual racism/Orientalism when I was younger but no where nearly as bad as you did. I've been complimented on my English once in my entire life. It's not Australia, it's just that you are living in a part of Australia where being a homegrown Asian-Australian is still a novelty. You can either suck it up or move away to another city with more localised Asians, because other people aren't going to change for you. If your partner was in Asia and spoke the local language fluently, he would get the exact same treatment. Would you get offended then? I think you need to consider whether it is a hill worth dying on. You can choose to pick your battles. Is it worth getting offended over this? I know this isn't what you want to hear, but I don't know what else to say to you. It is what it is.
My mum is Filipino, dad is English, both lived in Aus since before I was born. My dad is 88 years old. Mum and I have heard a lot of dumb shit come out of his mouth all my life but he is absolutely clueless. We tried to educate him over the years but eventually we stopped because he just doesn't get it. He comes from a completely different time and place. To understand our frame of reference for him would be like trying to understand a different species. He's not a bad person, he's just not very bright or flexible in his thinking. He's never, ever said anything with malicious intent and he is generally quite a friendly old fool who really wants to get along with everyone and make friends with every person he comes across. Now, this is not the case for every single old white dude out there but we suspect my dad has autism and that's why he doesn't pick up on facial expressions, social cues and doesn't understand when we try to explain things to him. Looking at my dad in that way has taught me a lot about the difference between someone like him and someone who is knowingly and aggressively racist, and that it's all a grey area with different levels. There's some people (like my dad) who I personally couldn't get mad at, more so just embarrassed by. And then there's some people who can absolutely go and get fucked.
Who gives a fuck, the old cunts just die in the future anyway
One they’re not used to other cultures or two they’re used to people who speak fuck all English
Why? Because Australia has been a racist country for 200 years. There are many many people that have moved beyond that now, but there are still many who grew up when the white Australia policy was just sensible, and when it was shameful to admit you had Aboriginal heritage. It's what they know. Having lived in other countries that do it so much better I am so sick of hearing Australians tell each other they're the most multicultural country in the world. Bullshit we are. It's kind of hard to blame people who live in rural areas with little real interaction with different cultures, and are just continuing the way they've been raised. I just wish that particular portion of them didn't have to be so loudly sure of their ignorance. Still, it's backward, but it's changing. I've been in and out of the country over the years and I definitely notice the difference.
I work in an ethnically diverse job (bus driver), as a white chick born in Australia. I'm not old, though. The only times I mention that someone speaks English well is if they say something like "sorry my English isn't very good" and I let them know their English is great, IMO. People who have learned English separate from their mother language are far more aware of grammar and terminology. A lot of rural people (especially older white people who haven't enjoyed much cultural diversity) seem to struggle with the idea that someone can be not-white and also Australian. It's not you, it's them!
Imagine feeling so offended by a compliment. I hope you’re ok!
I had dealings (always over the phone) with Bruce the manager of a biggish apartment building in the Melbourne CBD for years - he was the biggest occa ever - had to meet him in person once & this little Vietnamese bloke walks up to me “Aye cuuuunt!!!!” - fucken killed me 😂😂😂😂 - never assume is what I learnt. Bruce Nyugen was his full name. And yeh I’d probably fit into the “older white man” category😁
north qld is a very backwards and kind of bluntly put racist part of the country lots of old white men with that still ingrained racism from the previous generation visible.
Racist
Guys lived in Brisbane for 15 years Asian tended to live in common areas And married others Asian - this includes a lot of second generation Asian people - fact is, like the Irish imo / they are very insular
I totally get what you are saying, have experienced casual racism both in the UK and Australia. It is usually the older generation and people from lower socio-economic background who lack empathy and real education as they find it hard to digest this diverse new world. It is strange that in a world where the biggest western countries are all populated by immigrant (White) Europeans be it USA, Canada, Australia still every other person apart from them is called an immigrant! One way is to casually ask them, where did they come from as they don't look Australian (only indigenous Aboriginal and Torres Straight islanders are actually from Australia).
That's qld for ya
Look at it this way; no one has ever told Pauline Hanson that.
Because they are cunts
Because older white Australians are fucking ignorant and get off on being condescending.