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USA - Here follow some US-specific facts and cultural references that non-USians are expected to know..
Something I have wanted to verbalise for a very long time but couldn't because I'd just come across as a raving lunatic. I'm Australian, but I was born in China. I lived there and then in Ireland during my formative years. So yes, word to everything on the list.
Especially number 6 & 10.
Something I have wanted to verbalise for a very long time but couldn't because I'd just come across as a raving lunatic. I'm Australian, but I was born in China. I lived there and then in Ireland during my formative years. So yes, word to everything on the list.
Especially number 6 & 10.
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Case in point - my Firefox browser's spellcheck just flagged my spelling of 'Americanised'. Apparently I need to spell it as 'Americanized'. Ah, there we go - no more red squiggly line underneath.
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The latest thing that got to me was the whole SPN fiasco with the episode title - "The Kids Are Alright" - people were bitching because apparently that's not how you spell 'alright', it is meant to be 'all right' (which to me have differing implications). After the 4th post with the same complaint I wanted to scream at them. Yes, it is a small thing, but it definitely shows a lack of consideration and awareness of the rest of the world.
In conclusion - ALRIGHT! PENALISE! FORMALISE! ETC.!
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That's dumb anyway! That's a quote, not an original title, so correcting the spelling would make the title objectively wrong. I say this with authority. :D
Also, -ise spelling is so much easier than -ize, because in American spelling, some things are -ize and some are -ise, and (I think) it's one of those things you have to memorise. There's no rule to fall back on. This is the number one reason I don't bother trying to correct myself into American spelling when I'm in the US.
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See, it isn't even a big deal, but the fact that 'educated' Americans make the same assumptions about spellings and the Bill of Rights encompassing all other English speaking countries. Well, I'm not sure if that's arrogance, ignorance or a sense of blind entitlement. None of which is comforting.
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I had to learn these things. From books! (Or TV!) So that my American aquaintances (they remained aquaintances for a good reason) wouldn't roll their eyes at me and give me the 'how can anyone be that ignorant' look. Bah. I also teach what I know to my ESL students as an example of how weird Americans are. "A university... is a college?"
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In relation to the health care system - exactly. The Australian health care system isn't perfect but it gets me by.
I blame the media for saturating the youths of today with so much American jargon. It just makes me annoyed - I mean if I'm considerate enough to get to know their little quirks and accept them (the spelling), the least they can do is respect my quirks and NOT correct me spelling.
"A university... is a college?"
O.M.G. Some days it just isn't worth it.
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I admit, I agree with Number 6 primarily as a fan of anime. I'm perpetually annoyed how the majority of anime dubbed for American TV are stripped of all cultural references and in-jokes. It just makes NO SENSE to me.
I grew up reading British and other non-American scifi/fantasy (which, being for adults was generally not rewritten to reflect American conventions) and watching the BBC ... surely if I could survive the experience, other kids can too.
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of anime dubbed for American TV are stripped of all cultural references and in-jokes. I understand your pain. I can't watch dub, I just can't. It hurt too much.
I grew up watching Taiwanese/HongKong television, much Japanese anime and then was later introduced to American television. I love all of them, but having grown up watching such different texts with all their cultural references and jokes intact it left me quite aware of the differences in the different cultures. I appreciate that.
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Also, I didn't know you lived in Ireland. Did I forget, or do you just not talk about it much?
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In regards to the top comment - I say this with authority. :D - You are indeed the Authority and full of awesome!
It is making assumptions that get to me so much as the lack of any further inspection or understanding of other English speaking culture. Everyone makes assumptions, it is just the way humans are, but at times assumptions without review can be a very negative thing.
no one ever again asks me to explain "my country's" actions. Personally I'd find that extremely rude (unless it was a joke between close friends), I have cut people off for less. And you shouldn't stop using 'school' when talking about 'uni', everyone I know does it. School is the all encompassing term for everything from primary to tertiary level studies. At least I think that's what it means.
It isn't something I talk much about - I left China when I was 9, and then spent the following 2 years in Dublin, Ireland. I loved Ireland; people were so friendly, and I loved the school, never felt excluded even when the whole school would go to communion every couple of weeks.
When I arrived in Perth, well - I pretty much hated the place on sight, it took about 2 to 3 years to stop hating the place. I hated the weather, I hated the television (going from cable to like 4 channels was just evil), and I hated the people, because omfg, Perth has some truly racist pricks, and the complete utter lack of respect for any other culture but there’s pretty much meant I despised the place.
It is now home, and while it isn’t perfect I kind of love it.
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Everyone makes assumptions, it is just the way humans are, but at times assumptions without review can be a very negative thing.
That's true, yeah. It doesn't annoy me too much if people are open to being corrected; it's unwarranted certainty that really gets under the skin.
No kidding re: rudeness. It's like once their brain switches to the 'politics' setting, anything goes. (Brain damage sustained while participating in a debate team? Faulty extrapolation about social norms from data collected on the internet?) Luckily, none of my friends have ever said it to me--only their frineds. Also, I'm relieved you agree about school. I've had people laugh at me for that, but we go to classes! We read textbooks! We take tests and write essays!
Did you speak English when you got to Ireland? I've never really had much interest in the UK, although my family's only two generations removed, but it can't be too bad if even the school kids are nice. :D It's kind of hard for me to imagine people not being instantly enamoured of WA, but possibly that's because I'm not exactly the sort racist assholes target, unless it's with a 'Damn immigrants! You agree of course?' tirade. It definitely has its fair share of issues, and then some. I'm surprised Ireland didn't have some of the same problems, though--was it [even] more homogenous, not very many non-whites around?
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it's unwarranted certainty that really gets under the skin. Exactly. That denies any form of questioning or thoughts - the whole my way or the highway always makes very uncomfortable.
I try not to talk 'politics' with people that are not family, with family we can forgive, with other people, um, the cold war was probably warmer compared to some of the political, um, discussions I have had with people. But alas that was in my youth, I'm much more careful now. I sometime think people use uni because it differentiates them from others who are attending TAFE. Personally I think it is stupid, but hey, names and associated prestige is a highly important factor.
Nope. Not one word of English. I had to memorise 10 English words per day (spelling and meaning), and dad made me read the Bible during the school breaks. Told me to underline every word I didn't understand and find it on the dictionary. Dad's philosophy at the time was that I had to try to understand a culture in order to live in it. The Bible, well, the Bible was a bit of an eye opener. I went to an all girl private school - Our Lady of Victory (private schools are government owned in the UK), and nationality wise - well, I was one of the two none-Caucasian student in the school. The other girl was a black Irish girl. No one treated me any differently, every one tried to help with my English, and there was no singling out because I was Chinese or different. It was more out right curiosity and people honestly wanting to help. Had loads of friends, and overall it was just an awesome experience.
I have been called a chink, told to 'go back to my own country', expression of surprise at the fact that I can speak English, oh and basically been blamed for bad employment rate at one point. I admit the last one really threw me, the first hurt, and the latter 2 made me really furious.
Ireland was definitely homogenous – practically all whites, I don’t know whether it was because I was just lucky at where I lived or whether they are honestly that nice but my parents and I, while in Ireland never encountered any racist comments. But that may be going back to the discussion of gender invisibility, which can be argued as another form of racism. All I know is that when I first begun school in Ireland I didn’t speak one word of English, and instead of children making fun of me because of the way I looked or spoke they welcomed me, was honestly interested in my own culture, and took the time to explain their culture to me. WA, not so much.
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I sometime think people use uni because it differentiates them from others who are attending TAFE.
Oh, snob appeal. I see that. Also, I admit that part of the reason I say 'school' sometimes is to devalue university. There's so much cultural weight on this one form of personal/professional development, and it's not really much different from going to TAFE or reading an Idiot's Guide To book. And the intellectual standards aren't necessarily any more rigorous.
Memorising vocab - that's amazing, seriously. An Indian dude I knew about a decade ago said he had to learn English the same way, although I don't think he had to read the Bible. No way could I learn words that quickly. Did your parents speak English at home to reinforce it?
I've been stunned by some of the things that come out of Australians' mouths. They seem like great people all around, and then all of a sudden - anti-immigrant rants from white immigrants, or anti-Aboriginal rants, or total cluelessness about things you wouldn't think you could manage not to know. They could at least have the grace to be ashamed about it like the rest of us, right? "Go back to your own country" is so ridiculous.
It seems like it gets worse the more diversity there is. It could be partly a gender thing, and also that the people are generally at least more polite in Ireland (the fact that the kids took time to compare/share cultures with you is awesome), but I think it's also that if there's only a handful of non-white families, there's no threat to culture/jobs/kids/[insert important value or commodity supposedly negatively affected by immigration or racial diversity here]. And the parents probably haven't had a chance to imprint the proper anti-X attitudes onto their kids. WA has a bit more diversity, on top of the long-standing racism, which probably exacerbates the problem and feeds into the paranoia ("See? They ARE everywhere!").
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Exactly! The snob appeal. I tell people who are amazed by universities and degrees – I have a piece (well, 2 now) of paper that is too expensive to be toilet paper. Or as another friend said – a degree basically tells future employers that you can learn.
Memorising vocab - that's amazing, seriously. An Indian dude I knew about a decade ago said he had to learn English the same way, although I don't think he had to read the Bible. No way could I learn words that quickly. Did your parents speak English at home to reinforce it?
No. My family didn’t (doesn’t) speak English at home; my mother couldn’t speak English (still can’t, she refuses to learn) and they didn’t want me to lose all my cultural roots. It is a bit different when you are surrounded by another language so completely. I could speak to my parents in Chinese but everyone else, everything else in my life was in English – if I wanted to communicate I had to learn the language. Also, you’d be surprised how easy it can be when you are watching a huge amount of television and talking to people of the particular country. I use to come home from school, dad would sit with me and teach me 10 words, and I would learn its spelling, meaning and pronunciation, and then the next morning as dad is walking me to school he would quiz me on the words I learned. It is actually highly effective.
When you are learning a new language to speak it fluently there’s this melting point where your brain stop translating all the words from your native language to the one you are learning, and it starts to process the language as it is. That’s the crucial point, because you are in effect on your way to speaking like a native of that country. It is interesting because it also caused me to lose track of what I was saying. I still remember around the 4th to 5th of year of me learning English I started to lose track of what language I was speaking in, and even lost track of what language other people were saying. There were times that I stared at people for several seconds because I could not process what they were saying. Sound were been received I just couldn’t make it make sense to me. Those were freaky times.
Australia – well, Australia is a melting point of different cultures, but it is a white country. It doesn’t try to promote the other cultures within the country because it doesn’t want to. Though that may be more of a WA thing rather than an Eastern states thing. It always makes me amused as most of their ancestors are immigrants themselves, but because they look white they and because they take on so many Australian characteristics that they forget where they are from.
The anti-aboriginal sentiments is disgraceful, and the government continues to not help manners. I don’t even know what to say to this anymore.
there's no threat to culture/jobs/kids/ AGREED! I have nothing more to add to this because it is pretty much the main point. As for WA’s history of racism, oh
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As for WA’s history of racism, oh boy, especially with the influx of the new immigrants it is only going to get worse before it gets better.