JohnnyCanuck
@JohnnyCanuck@lemmy.ca
- Comment on As a Chinese American, if I wanna travel internationally, is it better to just say I'm American, or pretend to be a Chinese National (to hide from Anti-American sentinments)? 2 days ago:
My opinion is don’t do it. Just be yourself. For many situations, you’re only going to see the person for a couple of minutes, at most, so who cares what they think? If the conversation goes beyond that, you might find you want to make a connection, and now you’ve started the whole thing with a lie. Not a good look, and also you won’t feel good about it.
My perspective is as a white guy who travels extensively (almost 40 countries now, 6 continents).
As others have mentioned, people don’t judge you immediately based on where you come from. In my experience, they will most likely already have judged you based on your looks. The reaction will entirely depend on where you go, and to a smaller extent how you act.
For example, in (East) Africa, you probably won’t get treated as nicely as white people do, from what I’ve heard. And white people get stared and pointed at a lot (unless you’re in the full immigrant/expat part of a big city), harassed for money, and called mzuungu constantly. Generally this is all “in a nice way” for white people (but I got tired of it and didn’t like it), but talking to other travellers, if you’re “Asian”, it isn’t so “nice.”
In southeast Asia it will be a mixed bag depending on what you look like. You’ll probably fly under the radar, and have to deal more with people being shocked at your lack of speaking the local language. I saw this happen to Asian-American people a few times.
In Central and South America, excluding Peru and Brazil, be prepared for outright racism. Peru and Brazil have relatively large Chinese and Japanese descendant populations, but in the rest, I believe there is a lot of anti-Asian prejudice. They’ll call you “chino”, make eye/hand gestures, etc. Not all of this is in a hostile way, but I imagine it can get tiring or worse. Some will outright ignore you in stores and restaurants or even give you scowls. I saw all of this happen to other travellers, and heard even more stories.
I don’t know if I can talk about Europe or Australia. I don’t stand out there and I haven’t really talked to anyone who does. I imagine it really varies by country and maybe even neighbourhood.
One thing to remember is that in places where English is a second language, they can’t tell where you’re from based on accent as much. You could say you’re from Australia with your American accent and they’ll full on believe you.
Oh and another one, since you were talking about using Mandarin or Cantonese with an accent… There are very few places outside of China, Hong Kong, Taiwan where people will speak any Chinese, let alone recognize the accent. Maybe Malaysia and Singapore? English is the de facto language of travel pretty much everywhere. Acting like you don’t know it won’t get you anywhere. You’d have to do a fake Chinese accent while talking English. Practice your best Uncle Roger I guess.
Final Bonus Pro Tip: the best thing you can do for yourself when travelling to countries that aren’t primarily English, is learn how to say hello and thank you in the local language. If you initiate a conversation (e.g. respond to a stare) with a local language “hello”, you will get a smile and hello back and tension will ease. The rarer the language, the bigger the smile.
- Comment on Am I right to be afraid of germs / is my family disgusting or am I overreacting and this is germaphobia? (read post) 3 days ago:
Your immune system is not a perfect machine, but it’s evolved for thousands [sic] of years to be able to defend us against the bad germs we are exposed to.
Millions of years. Not thousands.
People also used to get sick a lot more and die a lot younger before we understood germs. The immune system isn’t magic, it helps protect us but if you get the wrong bug or too much of a bad bug, it can fail. Also, it evolved when we were living in caves and trees, not in cities and houses.
The ramifications of getting sick can go well beyond the acute symptoms you see (cold, cough, headache, vomiting, diarrhea, etc.) There can be long term, chronic, hidden affects you don’t realize, like heart or other organ problems.
Also, our immune system is not particularly good at fighting off parasites, and they can do real damage.
You shouldn’t walk around in a hazmat suit, but practicing basic hygiene and avoiding extreme exposure are important to short term and long term health.
And, washing your hands after you use the bathroom isn’t just for your own health, it’s also for the health of others. Not washing your hands is disrespectful to everyone else.
Thousands [sic] of years of evolution may not be perfect, but I trust it more than I trust these fucking corporate fucks, that’s for sure.
Right, it’s just corporate fucks and lobbying. Best to trust a comedian over the last 150+ years of fucking science. George Carlin was great, but come on. Spouting off his anecdotal feelings about health theory as fact? Yeesh.
- Comment on [deleted] 5 days ago:
I think Facebook groups are the main competitor from Big Tech. I know people who use FB Groups for similar things that I used to use Reddit for.
- Comment on [deleted] 6 days ago:
I think they mean something like Facebook groups. I.e. a big tech company that has forums similar to Reddit’s, at the scale Reddit has.
- Comment on [deleted] 1 week ago:
I get an error when I go to that link.
- Comment on Why does it seem like teenagers killing people is way more commonplace in the UK now? 2 weeks ago:
Username checks out 😅
- Comment on Dear Faith VII 2 weeks ago:
60000 KES (Kenyan Shillings) is about US$465
- Comment on Why are Americans so hung up on Epstein and his egg head island and "the files"? 2 weeks ago:
I understand that these people should, of course, be held accountable
Right, so who? And with what evidence?
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Oh yeah, that info is (probably) in the Epstein Files.
- Comment on Downvoting your ass 3 weeks ago:
Lay on your back and take my… Upvote
- Comment on I have no idea how to do my laundry 3 weeks ago:
Or dadjokes.
- Comment on Is shart a swearword? 3 weeks ago:
Oops, I sharted again, I played with a fart, Got lost in the shame, no diaper baby!
- Comment on Opinions are like buttholes. Everybody has one but you don't need to engage when someone shows you theirs 3 weeks ago:
Opinions are like butholes. Everyone has one, and if you present yours to others, expect them to engage.
- Comment on I'm glad i grabbed this wii fit balance board from the trash a decade ago, wow! 4 weeks ago:
I honestly don’t know lol. I just know I hated our game on it.
- Comment on Microsoft is withdrawing support for older printers' drivers 4 weeks ago:
You can still install the drivers, you just don’t get them through windows update. I hate when windows update touches my drivers without my permission, so this sounds like a win-win.
- Comment on I'm glad i grabbed this wii fit balance board from the trash a decade ago, wow! 4 weeks ago:
I worked on a game that supports it. It was total shit compared to paying with a controller. Nintendo dev tools were fucking archaic at the time which made it stuck to work with. What are you playing?
- Comment on We dont talk about what happened to Alex Pretti enough. 4 weeks ago:
Don’t take it as a personal attack maybe?
- Comment on An ice dance duo skated to AI music at the Olympics | TechCrunch 5 weeks ago:
Before 10 or 15 years ago you weren’t allowed music with voices, and most people used classical.
- Comment on Most food animals are smarter than a baby. 5 weeks ago:
I mean, I think they’re saying we should be eating baby animals, right? Because they’re dumber than babies, so therefore completely edible!
- Comment on Where do I find cool stickers? 1 month ago:
Skate shops. Skateboard companies make a lot of cool stickers.
- Comment on "A hill I'm willing to die on" is a weird phrase for what it means. 1 month ago:
Yeah, I was just more commenting on their use of the “hill to die on” thing than the quality or value of their argument. Like there wasn’t anything I was doing to indicate it was a hill I was willing to die on, certainly not any more than they were.
That said, it wasn’t just downvoting, several other people also jumped in to argue with them, and honestly they just seemed to be acting antagonistic for no reason.
And while downvotes aren’t always an indicator of a weak argument, they certainly can be.
- Comment on "A hill I'm willing to die on" is a weird phrase for what it means. 1 month ago:
So weird, someone just told me I was willing to die on a hill for my opinion when they were getting downvoted to oblivion for their opinion, and holding to it.
I.e., figuratively, they were on their hill taking shots from all sides, unwilling to yield, and yelling down to me - with my similarly opinioned compatriots - that I was willing to die on my hill. It was so bizarre and I was thinking about how they didn’t understand the meaning of the phrase, and then I came across this post.
This may not be the case here, but idioms like this can sound particularly weird when they’re in a language that isn’t your first language. This one doesn’t sound weird to me exceot when used in the wrong way lol.
So just to be clear, the phrase isn’t just about having differing opinions, nor actually putting your life on the line. It is about steadfastly holding to an unpopular (currently, or in the immediate context) opinion in the face of adversity. The more unpopular it is, the bigger the hill it seems to be, with fewer people defending it. In the military context the idiom derives from, hills were strategic goals and holding hills gave advantages. The harder a hill was to defend and hold, the more willing you need to be to die to defend it (literally). In the idiomatic sense, “dying” might be more like getting yelled at from all sides - or downvoted in a huge way…
You said you have a few opinions you would be willing to die for. That’s probably a bit more extreme than this phrase is intended for.
- Comment on Hydrofoil ferry sets 160-nautical-mile record in longest sea voyage 1 month ago:
Thanks. I’m not write sure why this whole conversation is even happening…
- Comment on Hydrofoil ferry sets 160-nautical-mile record in longest sea voyage 1 month ago:
inane [ɪˈneɪn]
adjective
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lacking sense or meaning; silly:
“don’t badger people with inane questions”
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- Comment on Hydrofoil ferry sets 160-nautical-mile record in longest sea voyage 1 month ago:
Also, the original article had a perfectly fine title. It’s pretty standard when posting to keep the title of the original article you’re linking to instead of editorializing it, unless you’re specifically going to fix something and note that.
Here, let me help you: copy, paste.
- Comment on Hydrofoil ferry sets 160-nautical-mile record in longest sea voyage 1 month ago:
Your comment was inane, which is why I gave the “no, you”.
- Comment on Hydrofoil ferry sets 160-nautical-mile record in longest sea voyage 1 month ago:
It’s missing key information, and without that information the title doesn’t make sense, and kind of isn’t as interesting. Now read your comment as if I wrote it back to you.
- Comment on Hydrofoil ferry sets 160-nautical-mile record in longest sea voyage 1 month ago:
Why did you change the title?
Article title is: Electric hydrofoil ferry completes record 160-mile voyage using standard fast chargers
- Comment on We need libraries, but instead of books, you borrow musical instruments. 1 month ago:
We have a tool library in Vancouver. I don’t think it’s unique?
- Comment on [deleted] 1 month ago:
In my opinion, no, don’t do it. It doesn’t add anything. But I’m old and crotchety.
- Comment on What if brains are eggs? 1 month ago:
What if you’re on a motor bike?