Oh lord. Insult of insults today :rofl:

[Heddi]

I was kvetching with a co-worker today about just...work and life and..stuff. I was looking at a facebook link about the Korean KFC Double-Down, where it's a cheeseburger in between two fried chicken patties. I said "Oh, your husband's Korean, right? Tell him to bring me one of these next time he goes."

She reminds me that no, her husband is Taiwanese.

At that point, I remembered that I had made that mistake before, so I apologized. I really was sincerely sorry because 1) she's my friend and I should pay attention to these things and 2) I didn't want to come off as a "oh they're all the same anyways" which isn't my view or whatever, but I know she gets that alot.

So I said "oh gosh! I'm really sorry about that. I know I've made that mistake before and I'm sorry. It's kind of rude of me to have made that mistake again. I'm sure it gets annoying for you and your husband to get the "oh what's the difference?" nonsense from people, and I'm sorry if I contributed to that."

She said "Oh Heddi, it's really no big deal. But you know, I appreciate your sincerity in apologizing for it, which you didn't have to do by the way. No one ever does, though, when they make that mistake and you're right, we do get a lot of "oh Korea and Taiwan and China...they're all the same country, right?", so it means a lot that you cared enough to realize that, I don't know, other people are jerks."

Then....here's the part where I died inside.

"you know what? That's one of the reasons I really like you. You admit when you're wrong and really don't want to hurt people's feelings. YOU ARE SO SELF AWARE, and that's what I like about you."

Gaaahhh!!! At least she didn't tell me that she liked my desire to be more mediocre

[defacto7]

1. I wonder if it's anything like

a Canadian and a US citizen traveling together in Europe and someone asks, "Are you both from America?" The guy from the states says, "No, He's Canadian, I'm American."

.. a little different twist on your faux pas.

[AlbertCat]

7. How about even more locally....

NC is just like Alabama.

Uh....no....


Or at least it wasn't until the Teabaggers bought off the legislature. But they're working on making it so!

[whatthehey]

9. But most questioners would both understand and accept that answer

and actually be confused with "yes we are both American and so is President Santos of Colombia."

"American" as a demonym almost exclusively refers to US citizens in normal speech. Correcting it would be like correcting somebody who said "I love most classical music, from Bach to Hamerik"

Very few people use "United States resident" in vernacular terms.

[defacto7]

11. True...

But if you talk to some Canadians I know they would be very upset. It may be vernacular in the US but not necessarily to many of our northern or southern neighbors. Logically, it is quite presumptuous, although it has become the habit of the US to claim the vast definition of America.

It's just for argument. I presume America to be the US as well, but I like to think I can be sensitive to the majority of Americans who don't happen to be US citizens and who do care about the definition.

[whatthehey]

15. The perception though is global

It is a minority in CA and some parts of Central/South America who are the outliers. Search any English language foreign newpaper you like, from the London Times to the Times of India (love the latter myself. Far higher quality writing than here) and "American......" will always refer to US unless continental reach is specified, often as a focus of the article. Speaking of American warships being deployed to patrol the waters bewteen Argentina and the Falklands when those are Argentine gunboats would be perversely confusing for the sake of contrived inclusion. It's not just US exceptionalism that made this so. Oscar Wilde, Stephen Fry, Charles Dickens, wrote quite well about their time in America. They didn't mean Canada or Mexico, and they were/are certainly not exponents of American exceptionalism.

It's not technically correct, and it may rankle a few, but it is globally the norm and globally understood.

[defacto7]

16. ...and more and more globally disliked.

I'm not arguing the definition or its history, you must know that by now. This was a comment based on my working experience in Europe, Asia, Canada, and South America if that helps, even though it seems to me off point considering the lightness of the original comments. You can change the point to "accepted definition" but it doesn't change my experience. The number of times I have heard it questioned makes the math lean to the unusual probability that its acceptance is only as deep as people of other nations are forced to ingest, and surely you can see beyond mere history of the definition to the real issue, the United States in the present world perception. It's fairly clear to me that the US in the eyes of the world is very different than in the nineteenth or even twentieth centuries as you have quoted in comment. "American" exceptionalism is a cliché that doesn't reflect the combination of distrust, lost trust, lost naiveté, and even fear that is based on world changes, or on the other hand the joy found in thoughts of the demise of "demon America".

The accepted definition is neither here nor there since the rankling is only an itch you may not have noticed, but a festering itch is no comrade.

[Mariana]

2. There is a bliss in being simple

that I fear you have not had, Heddi. You are plagued by self-awareness.

I'm very sorry for you.

[AtheistCrusader]

3. There are subtle differences.

I've always seemed to have the gift of detecting, fairly reliably, where people are from. I don't make a huge deal out of it like a game or a party trick, but when it somehow comes up, I've shocked more than a few friends/co-workers.

I don't know how I picked it up, I can't even explain the differences in any meaningful way. With people of European, or east Europe/west Asia descent, that's harder for me. I have to hear them speak.

But it is a gift, not everyone can do it, and not everyone can be expected to know it. Just like I have a tin-assed ear, I can't tell one musical note from another. Can't be helped.


"Gaaahhh!!! At least she didn't tell me that she liked my desire to be more mediocre "

AHahahaaa nice
That post is the gift that keeps on giving.

[onager]

4. Anyone who thinks only white folks are racist...

Should hear the Koreans and Japanese trash-talking each other.

For a while back in the 1990's I was traveling quite a bit between Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. So I got an earful.

On Taiwan the friction was between the natives and the mainland Chinese who poured in with Chiang Kai-Shek after the Chinese revolution. Do a search on "228 Massacre" to learn why.

During one of my trips, the Taiwanese govt. put up a shiny new plaque, in a public park, honoring Chiang Kai-Shek. Local folks tore the plaque down and threw it into a fish pond.

Still, Taiwan is a beautiful place and I really enjoyed being there. I especially loved the National Museum.

As you enter the museum, there's a massive timeline painted on the walls. The timeline shows what was happening in the world in different eras (the following are just my smartass examples, not actual entries). It was a really neat way to check your Western cultural privilege:

China - printing press, paper, schools of ethics and philosophy, ceramic art
Europe - living in caves, worshipping trees
A bit later...
China - invention of gunpowder, dedicated civil service, advances in art & sculpture
Europe - living in mud dugouts, worshipping rocks

[trotsky]

5. It's a curse, Heddi.

Self-awareness is a horrible curse.

[Heddi]

6. sigh. if only I could be LESS self aware

More mediocre....

[onager]

8. Just don't charter a boat with a mediocre captain...

[FiveGoodMen]

10. Mediocre?

If not for the courage of the fearless crew...

[onager]

12. A sing-along that ain't "Kum-ba-ya!"

http://m.

[FiveGoodMen]

13. !

[Gelliebeans]

14. Lol