Here's a New Habit to Cultivate:

[MineralMan]

When you encounter someone who looks different from yourself, dresses differently, speaks with an accent, or otherwise does not look like a white-bred (spelling intended) American, smile and say hello in a friendly way. It's an easy thing to do and will not take much time from your day or activities.

Not only will it help ease the level of fear and distrust in this country, it may also introduce you to new people and ideas.

It's easy to do, and beneficial on all counts.

[Greybnk48]

1. I've been doing that for years. n/t

[MineralMan]

2. So have I. But, I've noticed that not everyone does.

In fact, most people seem to avoid eye contact with the "others." We need to stop doing that and start recognizing people.

[yuiyoshida]

3. Maybe I am lucky to have lived in a very diverse city...

My high school classmates joked about our school being the UNITED NATIONS cause we truly had people there from all over the world. I grew up in the Shadow of NihonMachi (Japantown) but Most of the people I hung with were Hong Kong Chinese and we got along great.

There was no hostility over the fact of me being Japanese and I got along with all the other Asians in my neighborhood,...Filipino/Filipina, Koreans, Thai, Vietnamese and in school we met and made friends with many other kinds of people!

I learned a lot from my Chinese friends who would allow me to join their group when they went down to Chinatown to hang out and shop, and eat. We all shared Rice together and that was important to me.

Our school and life there taught me how to appreciate all the diversity in my city and I even come to love something as foreign to me as Mexican food! And, Brazilian... Turkish, Italian, and all the other kinds of food you would expect from an international city!

I feel blessed to have been so lucky to have grown up in a city with few prejudices, and many liberal ideals. I love San Francisco, and it will always be my home, even when I get to travel to far off places!

Lastly, I would love to invite all of you to visit San Francisco! I am sure if you do, you will visit the Golden Gate Bridge or Fisherman's Wharf, but please don't miss out on visiting Chinatown and the country's largest Japantown! Please be sure to set aside time to try some ethnic food that you have never tried before!

Just the other day I tried Sizzling Gambas, a Pinoy dish that was wonderful. You must try it if you love prawns! Please come and Enjoy the city by the bay!

[MineralMan]

4. San Francisco is a very diverse city with a lot of

people who celebrate that diversity. In that, however, it is not typical of most places in this country. This morning, I read a story in my local newspaper about a school in a nearby suburb where some student had written racist graffiti in a restroom at the school. the Twin Cities in Minnesota are also very diverse, but there are pockets here of pretty extreme bigotry. It saddened me, but if the school uses that as a teaching opportunity, it could turn out OK.

A friendly greeting to strangers never does any harm, and can be a good thing for everyone involved. Just a smile and a hello can break the ice of distrust and ignorance. It's the easiest possible way to open your own heart and spread that around, I think.

[yuiyoshida]

7. Its true that in Growing up in San Francisco I was never called

any name that was divisive. It wasn't until I logged on to the internet did people throw out hurtful names like "gook" "jap" "chink" or "nip" in my direction. It was logging on to the internet that made me aware that some people can be hateful. I never had anyone get in my face and tell me I was disgusting or different, maybe because most of the people around me, looked like me.

I always tell my friends the story of how, as a young child of 3, going to school, I thought I was like the other kids in my class. It made me wonder why it was, they could speak Cantonese and Mandarin and I couldn't. So I went home to my parents and asked them why I could not speak these languages when all my friends could. They told me because I was not Chinese but Japanese and showed me on a map where Japan was located and where China was located. I seemed to grow a new appreciation of my friends, and wanted so badly to, like them, have a second language.

I remember how disappointed I was, that my high school never offered Asian languages to teach. I was given a choice of German, Spanish, French and Latin. I was angry and told my teachers, DO I LOOK FRENCH TO YOU? My one teacher told me, that many people speak French including people like me. (Being a Pacific Islander, French is prominent in French Polynesia and Tahiti) So I was forced to take a language and hated that I could not learn Japanese until I graduated and went to Cal Berkeley.

There I took Japanese for three years but had to drop out my fouth year and could not graduate due to the fact that I could no longer afford to finish College. But at least I had a basic understanding of it and could get by if I was dropped into a city like Osaka or Tokyo.

I still hope to find a tutor one day and become more fluent in speaking and writing the language. Its always been my wish, since 3 years old to be able to speak a second language like my Chinese neighbors.

[MineralMan]

12. I hope you can find people with whom you can converse in Japanese on

a regular basis. That's the key to developing fluency, I think. You're right that it is unfortunate that the schools you attended offered only European languages. So it was when I went to school. We had only French and Spanish available. Since I already was conversational in Spanish, I took French through high school.

I learned Russian later, thanks to the Air Force, and have learned to be polite and get along in basic ways in several other languages. The more languages you know, the easier learning new ones is.

I have never had an opportunity to learn an Asian language, which is why I'm trying to learn a little Hmong. The children in the neighborhood correct me with great humor when I say something incorrectly. I get to meet them when my wife and I walk our dogs around the neighborhood. Like all children, they love the dogs, and the dogs love children. It's a great opportunity to interact.

[2naSalit]

5. Been doing that for decades already.

And it does help one gain perspective on the whole world beyond their immediate surroundings.

[MineralMan]

6. Excellent. I wish more people did that on a regular basis.

[2naSalit]

8. I grew up in a mlticultural environment

as my family is a mixed bag... half my siblings look like they have different parents and the NE states had quite the melting pot of cultures as well. When I went to classmates' homes to play there was a 50/50 chance that their parents didn't speak English at home. As an adult I find that at least half my friends are not US citizens or have dual citizenship with other countries, others are green card holders... another 10% are Indians, the American kind.

I would like to think that more people would have some sense of curiosity about the world.

[MineralMan]

9. I grew up in a small town that had about 1/3 Hispanic residents.

So, I sort of learned Spanish by osmosis in elementary school. I didn't realize it at the time, but the year I started first grade was the first year that Hispanic and Anglo students went to the same schools in my town. I lived near a school that had been a Hispanic-only school and was part of that first integrated class.

I didn't know anything about that, but my friends in first grade were mostly Hispanic. I went to their houses after school and they came to my house, as well. In their houses we spoke Spanish and snacked on tortillas and beans. In my house we all spoke English and ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. As kids we knew nothing else, at least among my new friends at school.

I didn't realize until years later that many in my home town had fought against that integration of the schools.

[2naSalit]

18. For a while

I attended a one-room schoolhouse on the coast of Maine, we were studying French by the 2nd grade. I was already using it a bit by then.

In the cities we had people from everywhere in Maine, NH and Mass.

[shenmue]

11. Smiles are free

[MineralMan]

13. They are, and painless, too.

[Rex]

14. I'm kinda lucky, smiling and saying hello is my default state.

No matter whom it may be. I notice smiles are contagious.

[MineralMan]

15. Yeah, mine too, I guess.

And, yes, smiles are contagious.

I'm sort of a student of polite behavior, I guess. One of the interesting things I've noticed is that American men use an actual bow as a greeting. It's done rather minimally, with a brief head nod. We don't think of it as a bow, but it actually is. We do it between our cars, on the street, and elsewhere, without really thinking about it. It's a recognition signal without any real significance other than recognition.

As a minor bow, it's an etiquette habit that goes back a very long way. We've forgotten that it is a bow, but it still serves the same purpose as the formal bows used in Japan.

[Rex]

16. Do that one too, if I had a hat on I would tip it forward slightly.

It is a mini-bow, funny never thought about it like that. It is a sign of respect and trust - we lower our head and eyes and place ourselves in a vulnerable position.

How about those folks that like to do the chin up, were you slightly raise your head and chin in a greeting. I think that is more modern.

[MineralMan]

17. Yes, that one's almost as common as the head nod.

It says, "Hey!" I usually respond with a nod, which says "Yeah."

I never wear a hat, really. Hat-tipping always seemed to me to be a great way to acknowledge someone, though.