May 13, 2007

Random (Body) Conversations...
Here are two short conversations (for obvious reasons) which might start to show where and why stereotypes come from.
The first is an honest-to-truth conversation with one of the English teachers (ET) at my school.
ET: Hello. You have a fold in your eyelid!
Me: Yes, I do.
ET: Some people in China now have surgery to make a fold in their eyelid.
Me: OK.

The second happened in BeiJing, on my way to a youth hostel. After the normal "Where are you from? What do you do?", this comment was made.
Man: 你的鼻子很大。 (Your nose is big.)
Me: Uh, 谢谢你。 (Thank you.)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

By what standards is he calling you "bignose"? Compared to Jamie Farr (Klinger on MASH) you are not even close to the bignose category.

Shades of Monty Python's Life of Brian! Start a fight!

Stephen said...

I've actually asked cab drivers if they think that my nose is big (just as conversation to see what they say). Some say it is, some don't.
Apparently they think that Russians have really big noses!

Anonymous said...

I would be tempted to say something rude, any number of things come to mind. But, I'm sure you have thought of them all and then some....

Stephen said...

Yup
:)