Melting pot FTW Right? We shouldn't really look at each other by our ethnicity. Canada for one is not a place where we/I judge each other/others by ethnicity, and I'd like to keep it that way.
Cheers!
Haha true that.I don't look at my friends through an ethnic lens either but I do try to accommodate and even encourage them holding on to their unique ethnic entity(by "holding onto", i mean in a positive sense).
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that Canada had the "salad bowl" analogy instead of the outdated "melting pot" one followed in the US. Nowadays slowly but surely even the Us education system is replacing the melting pot with the salad bowl. In the melting pot we would end up with an identity that would be similar to that of a figure out of a cookie cutter...or worse yet...a poster child for gap.The salad bowl otoh prefers that people enrich the nation as a whole due to their diversity while being united. I'm sure you know this already but I thought ill just post it in order to explain away my previous post.
I know the Chinese/Korean names of all my close friends from that region of the world...not just the "western name" they adopt when they move here ( Which I found a puzzling concept, given that changing ones name just to not inconvenience others implies that they are trading away a major part of their identity for the sake of people who could not even bother themselves to try learn your name even partially). It does not take much effort to get the pronunciation correct...and Asian names often have unique meaning behind their names. For example..if I rem correctly, Hui Lee Tzu means something along the lines of "study well". (lol did i get that right, or did i confuse it with something else?)..the same goes for south Asian names as well. In my book , retaining such stuff is way better than being yet another "William" or "Janet".
To be honest, any East Asian/SEA who when asked, gives his/her East Asian/SEA name instead of a western name immediately climbs up a few ladders in my opinion of him/her. I have noticed that even those who offer up a western name when introduced for the first time, would appreciate me calling them by their own name when I do convey to them that I prefer to use their original name if they do not mind. And no..lol I don't go about asking "Hey tell me your Chinese name" to every east asian I meet
, but i do make it a habit of learning the real names of the ones I've known for a while. I've found that there is a wealth of information to be learned from those who hail from other countries/cultures if we are but willing to listen and get in their comfort zones...people do appreciate others showing an interest in their culture. Its a win-win for both of us. When people trade such experiences with each other they come to realize that there is far too much commonality than differences in many cases....Like for example..how both the Viets and I both prepare/eat mangoes the same way.lol
Well anyways...my post, as usual seems to have gone off in a tangent. Time to end this preachy sounding essay
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Cheers.