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All the Chinese-born people I know would be pretty surprised if any non-Chinese person could read Chinese. My experience is that attitudes are often quite diff
by stcredzero 8y ago
All the Chinese-born people I know would be pretty surprised if any non-Chinese person could read Chinese.
My experience is that attitudes are often quite different if you look like a Chinese person.
- kenver 8y agoI don't think that attitude is unique to Chinese people. My experience is based on my name rather than looks. Whenever people from my father's country ask me my name, they suddenly expect me to speak their language - and then to tell me what a shame it is when I don't. I've seen the same for British Germans, Polish and Vietnamese too!
- stcredzero 8y agoOne of my computer science professors who defected from Cold War Hungary was very anxious to meet me. It turns out that my Korean Catholic name is also a perfectly cromulent Hungarian name!
- swampthing 8y agoWell, that makes sense. If they thought you were a Chinese person, I could see why they would have asked you if you could read Chinese.
- stcredzero 8y agoBy that point in the conversation, however, I had already conveyed that my parents were from Korea, and I was born and had grown up here.