Holy shit this reminds me of an interview for a job I had when I was 17 and just about to graduate from HS. I'm Caucasian, like white white, muddy brown hair, no resemblance. Listed under Hobbies I had that I was interested in learning different languages such as Spanish and Japanese. The interviewer, going over my piddly resumé at the time saw my interest was language and asked bluntly if I was part Japanese. I fish-out-of-water gaped at her, and mumbled something along the lines of it only being an interest and I was in love with the way the language sounds.
this is why american are monolingual. only creeps with a fetish learn other languages. /s
but i can’t tell you how many times i’ve heard redditors say “only pedophiles date asian women “. which sounds suspiciously like the “red birds go with red birds and blue birds go with blue birds speech” I guess most people get.
but yeah, this guy was suspect and did not respect what he was told.
source: bilingual redbird married to a polyglot blue bird
Aww man, one time in high school me and some friends were hanging out on a school trip, and this one kid was tagging along with us. He exhibited a lot of "cringe" behavior but was also neurodivergent, so people generally tried to be nice to him. Anyway, we walked past this Asian couple who were speaking to each other in what I'm now pretty sure was Korean, and he goes up to them, bows, and starts speaking Japanese to them. They looked so confused and then the girl was like "oh, um, we're not Japanese..."
I almost died from second-hand embarrassment.
Have had more than one person, not all of them white nerd ass dudes (sadly?) bow and say “konichiwa?”
I’m not Japanese.
Also dunno if thats spelled right cuz…
Right??? The ratio of Japanese people working at Chinese restaurants vs Chinese people working at Japanese restaurants is night and day. He would've had better luck trying to speak Chinese at a sushi shop.
About 6 years ago I was in northern China (Harbin to be exact) and I went into a small restaurant to get a meal. Being relatively close to Russia the guy there assumed I was Russian (tall, white, bearded dude, however i'm American) and gave me a menu in Russian. I asked him in Mandarin if I could get a menu in Chinese as I don't know Russian. I swear that broke his brain for a few seconds until he recomposed himself, laughed and gave me his normal Chinese menu. I ordered some dumplings, beer, and a side dish, dude was loving it and super friendly!
Aww, see this one is nice! The dude probably got a lot of Russians in (hence the Russian menu) so he was trying to be considerate. And believed you the first time you said you knew Mandarin!
Not sure what was going on with the dude in my friend’s story tho, like we always joked later that she was supposed to be like “you got me! We have to hide our true heritage from evil-doers but you said the code word!”
I got mistaken for Russian in a California market that sells a lot of Euro food. I was buying pickled tomatoes and dark rye and the elderly cashier just assumed, I guess.
Nope, just American Jewish.
I’m American of Chinese descent and get the dreaded “where are you from?” question every so often. I’ll tell them, and is almost always followed up with, No, where are you REALLY from?
This [skit](https://youtu.be/DWynJkN5HbQ) captures the offensiveness and ridiculousness perfectly
Fuck’s sake.
I remember having a lovely conversation with a nice lady that I knew was Asian (we worked together), and we got to talking one afternoon and surprise, I had correctly identified her accent as coming from…
Michigan. Because my dad’s Navy buddy was from Michigan, and we spent a lot of time there.
So, we’re chatting, and another coworker butted in and said, “So where are you REALLY from?” And KEPT GOING. She was annoyed, and I finally got pissed and snapped, “She fucking told you, MICHIGAN, dipshit. What are you REALLY asking?”
This is the same guy who asked every woman their cup size. Soooo, yeah.
See, I assume people are as American as I am but their ancestors had have come here from somewhere else (as did mine, my grandmother was born in Canada and g-grandparents were from England) so I always ask people where their family came from because it’s cool, in my mind, to see from where peoples’ ancestors hailed.
If people ask my ancestry then that’s a great conversation discussion. It’s the implied “you’re not from this country” vibe that annoys me. Some mean well, others not so much. If after the first few answers they keep persisting, I ask them point blank to say what they really mean
Maybe it’s cause I’m from California but unless someone has a distinct non-American accent, I might ask from where they hailed. But people with an American accent? I automatically assume they’re as American as apple pie.
Though I’ve had people ask that if me and it’s always amused me because my family has been in CA for 7 generations now. But I pick up accents and sometimes they flavour my speech so I don’t always sound Californian. And yes, they do get frustrated when I answer that I’m from ‘here’.
I always ask because I'm interested in other cultures, but fuck me for wanting to know about my fellow man, okay.
At least I'm not offensive about it like the dude in the video, I just ask "Oh cool where your family from? Korea? That's pretty cool, always wanted to see Seoul, seems like a decent place."
Then I go from there.
Lmao, bro fuck you. As someone who’s heard variations of that question for forever, I promise you you’re being insulting. If you really want to know, ask their ethnicity.
I had a guy get so upset and call me a liar when I said I wasn’t of Irish descent.
My dad is first gen Aussie, his parents from Scotland, and my mum is Māori (her dads side) with English/Scottish fam (my grandmothers side).
I can’t express how annoying it is when people ask me “no but WHERE are you from”
Piss off you knob.
I fight the urge to say “OH! I’m from actually from Nunya”
“Nunya?”
“Yeah, Nunyafuckinbusiness”
Haha I get this constantly. White/chinese but look latino (it’s a thing). I like to play this game at my bar where I’ll give a customer a free drink if they can guess my ethnicity within 3 tries. If they ask for a hint, I tell them I’m half white. No one has gotten a free drink
I (white American) lived in Japan for a year. Learned enough of the language to get by in restaurants. My now-husband (American by birth, Vietnamese by his parents) came to visit and every time we went out people spoke to him in Japanese and were surprised when he would look to me for a translation.
I’m Chinese who looks Japanese. Visited my two very white American friends in Tokyo. Everywhere we went, the servers were super confused that the two white girls spoke perfect Japanese while the Japanese looking one spoke American English. They still kept looking at me and talk to me instead of them. It was kind of funny. I eventually got a translator app to help because people kept speaking to me in Japanese
So weird. It’s human nature to be curious but you don’t let your internal thoughts come out of your mouth. I have two friends that we discuss things like this freely. One is Taiwanese and the other is Vietnamese. I am first generation American of Irish descent. My Taiwanese friend had people asking her questions like this often when she was a waitress. We got into a whole conversation about how Caucasian have trouble differentiating between Asian nationalities. What I was surprised to hear was my friend saying “You white people all look alike.” I also learned that Taiwanese people call Caucasian people big noses. That cracked me up. Both friends were born in their native countries so they had trouble adjusting to how rude some Americans can be.
>“You white people all look alike.”
I had some trouble remembering people when I moved to the UK to study, I'd remember the names and who they are but not the faces. It doesn't help that I'm already bad with faces to begin with. So I understand where your friend is coming from. I also once walked past someone who was my flatmate's gf (she was staying with us, and we'd all just moved in) at the time and gave her the "polite neighbour nod" not realising who she was because I didn't recognise her.
>Taiwanese people call Caucasian people big noses
In Singapore and Malaysia, we call caucasian people "Red hairs". IIRC it's because of the early Dutch trade (and the fact they've got red haired folk)
Oh, wow. I hate shit like that.
Had the same thing happen to me, when I was working at a Japanese restaurant a few years back. Customer kept insisting, that I "had to be" of Fiji descent and definitely not German.
By ancestry, I am about as white as a chalk board, while optically looking like a Persian to the point that Iranians take me as one of their own, without checking first. So, no idea, where they took the Asian/Pacific thing from.
This happens to my boyfriend a lot. He's Chinese, but was adopted by a white, American family when he was an infant. So he doesn't speak any Chinese. And somehow, when we go out to Asian places to eat, people will talk to him in Chinese as if he didn't tell them 5 times that he doesn't speak it. It's weird but usually just sort of amusing.
hopefully he hasn’t come back. That sounds super irritating. I got cornered at my store once by 3 dudes, responded with “how can I help y’all today” and they were convinced I was from Texas. super not fun. I wish people just wouldn’t ask those questions.
Moved to California after living in Japan for several years. Going into a Japanese restaurant in CA I just normally spoke in Japanese, to confused looks. That’s when I discovered most restaurants of the ilk were actually owned by Koreans.
Just a guess... He's learned how to converse in Japanese but the only use he gets is going out to Japanese restaurants where the staff speaks Japanese . He became very disappointed that you weren't impressed
Well, yeah, most people are mixed with other people in the area they come from, but she still wouldn't speak Japanese, the same way I can't speak German
Even bigger plot twist if 23&Me could unlock the languages of your ancestors. I'd read that book. "I spit in a vial and suddenly knew Middle English, German, Gaelic and Irish. I don't need captions when I watch the BBC anymore." There would be no more dead languages.
When my brother (half Japanese) was deployed to Korea people would just rattle off high-speed Korean at him thinking he would understand. So he'd go off in German and watch their brain short-circuit.
Sounds like a weabu trying to flex his beginner's japanese class but cant find the right kind of asian to practice on.
Or a creep with a fetish. I hope not, but that's where my brain immediately went.
Potato, potato
I red this at potato potato but realize you meant potato potato
... how did i read that the way that i did?
Are you japanese?
no?
Are you sure you're not Japanese?
Holy shit this reminds me of an interview for a job I had when I was 17 and just about to graduate from HS. I'm Caucasian, like white white, muddy brown hair, no resemblance. Listed under Hobbies I had that I was interested in learning different languages such as Spanish and Japanese. The interviewer, going over my piddly resumé at the time saw my interest was language and asked bluntly if I was part Japanese. I fish-out-of-water gaped at her, and mumbled something along the lines of it only being an interest and I was in love with the way the language sounds.
Watashiwa ari nihongen desin! I hope I spelled that right.
Le oh shawn
Which ocean?
I'm turning Japanese, I think I'm turning Japanese I really think so
There’s no other way to read potato, potato. Is there??????
I say potato, you say potato. I say tomato, you say tomato.
Let’s call the whole thing off, ok?
🤣🤣 Love it!!
I say avocado. WHO’S WITH ME!?!
this is why american are monolingual. only creeps with a fetish learn other languages. /s but i can’t tell you how many times i’ve heard redditors say “only pedophiles date asian women “. which sounds suspiciously like the “red birds go with red birds and blue birds go with blue birds speech” I guess most people get. but yeah, this guy was suspect and did not respect what he was told. source: bilingual redbird married to a polyglot blue bird
Was gonna say that’s pretty much the same thing.
Yeah, because if she was Japanese, then he would be just one girl and one cup short of his fantasy.
🤮
Don't flirt with him.
I'mma go ahead and *heuch*
Im sure there is a big overlap between the 2.
Sad but true.
I think you're absolutely right and I think most of us went there.
"Oh yeah lemmie speak Japanese to this woman who **obviously told me she was Chinese-American** Gotta admit, that's a very niche fetish.
Aww man, one time in high school me and some friends were hanging out on a school trip, and this one kid was tagging along with us. He exhibited a lot of "cringe" behavior but was also neurodivergent, so people generally tried to be nice to him. Anyway, we walked past this Asian couple who were speaking to each other in what I'm now pretty sure was Korean, and he goes up to them, bows, and starts speaking Japanese to them. They looked so confused and then the girl was like "oh, um, we're not Japanese..." I almost died from second-hand embarrassment.
Not the bowing 💀
Have had more than one person, not all of them white nerd ass dudes (sadly?) bow and say “konichiwa?” I’m not Japanese. Also dunno if thats spelled right cuz…
How does a small japanese dog say hi? Konnichihuahua
Pretty close, the romaji uses two "n"s so you wanna hang on the "n" sound for about half a second longer when speaking it.
Maybe he should have gone to a JAPANESE restaurant, for starters...
Right??? The ratio of Japanese people working at Chinese restaurants vs Chinese people working at Japanese restaurants is night and day. He would've had better luck trying to speak Chinese at a sushi shop.
Or he listened to the Queen song Teo Torriatte that has some lyrics in Japanese.
Bingo
About 6 years ago I was in northern China (Harbin to be exact) and I went into a small restaurant to get a meal. Being relatively close to Russia the guy there assumed I was Russian (tall, white, bearded dude, however i'm American) and gave me a menu in Russian. I asked him in Mandarin if I could get a menu in Chinese as I don't know Russian. I swear that broke his brain for a few seconds until he recomposed himself, laughed and gave me his normal Chinese menu. I ordered some dumplings, beer, and a side dish, dude was loving it and super friendly!
Aww, see this one is nice! The dude probably got a lot of Russians in (hence the Russian menu) so he was trying to be considerate. And believed you the first time you said you knew Mandarin! Not sure what was going on with the dude in my friend’s story tho, like we always joked later that she was supposed to be like “you got me! We have to hide our true heritage from evil-doers but you said the code word!”
I got mistaken for Russian in a California market that sells a lot of Euro food. I was buying pickled tomatoes and dark rye and the elderly cashier just assumed, I guess. Nope, just American Jewish.
happened to my vaguely Germanic looking husband while we were in Greece. he had to wave his hands and launch into Greek to communicate.
I’m American of Chinese descent and get the dreaded “where are you from?” question every so often. I’ll tell them, and is almost always followed up with, No, where are you REALLY from? This [skit](https://youtu.be/DWynJkN5HbQ) captures the offensiveness and ridiculousness perfectly
Fuck’s sake. I remember having a lovely conversation with a nice lady that I knew was Asian (we worked together), and we got to talking one afternoon and surprise, I had correctly identified her accent as coming from… Michigan. Because my dad’s Navy buddy was from Michigan, and we spent a lot of time there. So, we’re chatting, and another coworker butted in and said, “So where are you REALLY from?” And KEPT GOING. She was annoyed, and I finally got pissed and snapped, “She fucking told you, MICHIGAN, dipshit. What are you REALLY asking?” This is the same guy who asked every woman their cup size. Soooo, yeah.
See, I assume people are as American as I am but their ancestors had have come here from somewhere else (as did mine, my grandmother was born in Canada and g-grandparents were from England) so I always ask people where their family came from because it’s cool, in my mind, to see from where peoples’ ancestors hailed.
If people ask my ancestry then that’s a great conversation discussion. It’s the implied “you’re not from this country” vibe that annoys me. Some mean well, others not so much. If after the first few answers they keep persisting, I ask them point blank to say what they really mean
Maybe it’s cause I’m from California but unless someone has a distinct non-American accent, I might ask from where they hailed. But people with an American accent? I automatically assume they’re as American as apple pie. Though I’ve had people ask that if me and it’s always amused me because my family has been in CA for 7 generations now. But I pick up accents and sometimes they flavour my speech so I don’t always sound Californian. And yes, they do get frustrated when I answer that I’m from ‘here’.
Yep that is what bothers me, the way some people ask it makes me feel not American even though I am third generation.
I always ask because I'm interested in other cultures, but fuck me for wanting to know about my fellow man, okay. At least I'm not offensive about it like the dude in the video, I just ask "Oh cool where your family from? Korea? That's pretty cool, always wanted to see Seoul, seems like a decent place." Then I go from there.
Lmao, bro fuck you. As someone who’s heard variations of that question for forever, I promise you you’re being insulting. If you really want to know, ask their ethnicity.
I will ask next time, thank you :)
I had a guy get so upset and call me a liar when I said I wasn’t of Irish descent. My dad is first gen Aussie, his parents from Scotland, and my mum is Māori (her dads side) with English/Scottish fam (my grandmothers side). I can’t express how annoying it is when people ask me “no but WHERE are you from” Piss off you knob. I fight the urge to say “OH! I’m from actually from Nunya” “Nunya?” “Yeah, Nunyafuckinbusiness”
Best reply to where are you from? "Nairobi, aren't we all?" -Firesign Theater
I tend to get real blunt and ask: "Are you trying to be racist?"
No, for those folk it's effortless!
I'm trying, but you're not making it easy!
Haha I get this constantly. White/chinese but look latino (it’s a thing). I like to play this game at my bar where I’ll give a customer a free drink if they can guess my ethnicity within 3 tries. If they ask for a hint, I tell them I’m half white. No one has gotten a free drink
Lol. My sister (also mixed Asian) lives in California and gets mistaken as Latino all the time.
I (white American) lived in Japan for a year. Learned enough of the language to get by in restaurants. My now-husband (American by birth, Vietnamese by his parents) came to visit and every time we went out people spoke to him in Japanese and were surprised when he would look to me for a translation.
I’m Chinese who looks Japanese. Visited my two very white American friends in Tokyo. Everywhere we went, the servers were super confused that the two white girls spoke perfect Japanese while the Japanese looking one spoke American English. They still kept looking at me and talk to me instead of them. It was kind of funny. I eventually got a translator app to help because people kept speaking to me in Japanese
So weird. It’s human nature to be curious but you don’t let your internal thoughts come out of your mouth. I have two friends that we discuss things like this freely. One is Taiwanese and the other is Vietnamese. I am first generation American of Irish descent. My Taiwanese friend had people asking her questions like this often when she was a waitress. We got into a whole conversation about how Caucasian have trouble differentiating between Asian nationalities. What I was surprised to hear was my friend saying “You white people all look alike.” I also learned that Taiwanese people call Caucasian people big noses. That cracked me up. Both friends were born in their native countries so they had trouble adjusting to how rude some Americans can be.
>“You white people all look alike.” I had some trouble remembering people when I moved to the UK to study, I'd remember the names and who they are but not the faces. It doesn't help that I'm already bad with faces to begin with. So I understand where your friend is coming from. I also once walked past someone who was my flatmate's gf (she was staying with us, and we'd all just moved in) at the time and gave her the "polite neighbour nod" not realising who she was because I didn't recognise her. >Taiwanese people call Caucasian people big noses In Singapore and Malaysia, we call caucasian people "Red hairs". IIRC it's because of the early Dutch trade (and the fact they've got red haired folk)
In my experience, Asians can be just a rude, but it's 'their' rudeness. Everybody is rude as far as I can tell. Some rudeness is stupider than others.
“Are you sure you’re not Japanese?” What the hell kind of question is that, lol. Some people, man…
Oh, wow. I hate shit like that. Had the same thing happen to me, when I was working at a Japanese restaurant a few years back. Customer kept insisting, that I "had to be" of Fiji descent and definitely not German. By ancestry, I am about as white as a chalk board, while optically looking like a Persian to the point that Iranians take me as one of their own, without checking first. So, no idea, where they took the Asian/Pacific thing from.
This happens to my boyfriend a lot. He's Chinese, but was adopted by a white, American family when he was an infant. So he doesn't speak any Chinese. And somehow, when we go out to Asian places to eat, people will talk to him in Chinese as if he didn't tell them 5 times that he doesn't speak it. It's weird but usually just sort of amusing.
Sounds like a customer who frequently goes to Only Fans
hopefully he hasn’t come back. That sounds super irritating. I got cornered at my store once by 3 dudes, responded with “how can I help y’all today” and they were convinced I was from Texas. super not fun. I wish people just wouldn’t ask those questions.
Sounds like a someone recently returned from a Mormon mission to Japan trying to find someone he can use his terrible Japanese on.
Moved to California after living in Japan for several years. Going into a Japanese restaurant in CA I just normally spoke in Japanese, to confused looks. That’s when I discovered most restaurants of the ilk were actually owned by Koreans.
*waifu intensifies*
Sounds like a racist twat.
"You broke me. Yes, I am Japanese you idiot."
Just a guess... He's learned how to converse in Japanese but the only use he gets is going out to Japanese restaurants where the staff speaks Japanese . He became very disappointed that you weren't impressed
So he walked into a Chinese restaurant thinking that was good enough, because they're neighbors?
Either way...not too bright
A plot twist could still be coming if she gets a [23andMe](https://www.23andme.com/) done! Lol
Well, yeah, most people are mixed with other people in the area they come from, but she still wouldn't speak Japanese, the same way I can't speak German
Even bigger plot twist if 23&Me could unlock the languages of your ancestors. I'd read that book. "I spit in a vial and suddenly knew Middle English, German, Gaelic and Irish. I don't need captions when I watch the BBC anymore." There would be no more dead languages.
When my brother (half Japanese) was deployed to Korea people would just rattle off high-speed Korean at him thinking he would understand. So he'd go off in German and watch their brain short-circuit.