summercomfort | small things

small things

it's too easy to make assumptions, to just categorize someone based on some little factoid. And yet I can't help doing it, just as others can't help doing it. I guess it's because this assumption being true is probable. If I hear that someone like anime, I would make the assumption that they know of Naruto. But then there's all these other assumptions that can be made. For example, I generally assume that if someone is white, they have had an open home life where they call their parents by their first names, they had an allowance system that gave them >$10/week, they grew up with not-fish pets, they know how to eat with knife and fork, and they know how to talk to strangers.

What is it that irks me so much? I guess it's when one's understanding of a person just stops at that. And when they do, I do, too. I stop giving more information. It's like "since you prefer to assume these things and aren't willing to go further... you will never get another opportunity. Not from me, at least." Objectively, that's really not the best way to approach these things. I should take it upon myself to offer more. But I don't. Should I?

I am, of course, oh so guilty of this. "So you're from SoCal, eh?" Or my casual "white people" comments. What questions can I ask to find out more about something I don't know at all? It's technically all right to ask about a minority culture, because it's "exotic", but how do I approach all those other distinctions?

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I generally assume that if someone is white, they have had an open home life where they call their parents by their first names, they had an allowance system that gave them >$10/week

What?! Where on earth did you get this idea?

High school? Friends parents always introduced themselves with their first names "Hi, I'm David.", and friends would always call them "Mom" or "Miriam". And they would go shopping every weekend and seemed to always have a 20 in their wallet...? Also I remember reading in some magazine a line like this: "Some parents subscribe to the allowance rule of "same as age". However, $5 may be a little high for a 5 year old, while $15 might be too low for a 15 year old."

I see, it's because you grew up in urban California. In Indiana, you called your parents "Mom" and "Dad". I didn't have an allowance (things were decided on a per-good basis), but I think some of my friends did. If you really wanted money, you got a summer job detasseling corn.

detasseling corn? Man. Summer jobs around here were "work for your parents' software company" or some such.

Call their parents by their first names

Huuuuh? I mean, not that I'm a white-people expert or anything... but really? I've only known one person who called his parents by their first names and it was a constant battle for several years between his stubbornness and his parents' sense of propriety. He was almost thrown out of the house over it.

I just remember that in high school, friends parents always introduced themselves with their first names, and friends would always call them "Mom" or "Miriam". So what are you supposed to call your parents? And more importantly for me, when Friend's mom introduces herself as "Miriam", should I call her Miriam or "Mrs. B----"?

Oh, you mean calling other people's parents by their first names.

I'm a terrible person to ask about that, unfortunately. I was famous among my friends for being almost physically incapable of referring to my friends' parents by anything other than Mr. or Ms. Blank. Even if they said it was okay for me to use their first names. It just didn't seem right to me.

I think there's a big difference between kids calling their parents by their first names, and kids' friends calling these parents by their first name. I called my parents 'Mom' and 'Dad', and I call my aunt and uncle 'Aunt Barb' and 'Paul'. On the other hand, I think it's weird for parents who are under 60 to want to be addressed with a title. It's like, who the fuck are you such that you can't be called by your given name?

If someone introduces themselves with a first name alone, then generally you should call them by that name. Full names provide ambiguity---I know that if, for some reason, I wanted someone to call me 'Mr O'Brien', I would introduce myself as 'Jeremy O'Brien', not as simply 'Jeremy'.

Hmm.... interesting.

What if you're introducing your parents? Would you say "this is Jianfeng" or would you say, "This is my Dad"?

Hmmmm, it depends.

Sometimes, you might say both at the same time---"this is my dad, Jianfeng"

Other times, you say "this is my dad", and Dad fills in the (somewhat) requisite "Hi. I'm Jianfeng. Hajimemshite."

Interestingly enough, a number of my friends called my Aunt Barb, "Aunt Barb". I know one of Cat's friends called Cat's mom "Mom"... that doesn't happen very often. Sometimes, people resort to "Cat's mom", even, but it's borderline rude....

I can tell you that parents almost never introduced themselves. Either your friend would introduce them as "this is my Mom" or it would be obvious who they were. If they did introduce themselves, it would be like "Hi, I'm Little Johnny's father".

So what would you call him? "Johnny's father"? or Mr.----?

Mr. Smith, of course. Who calls their friend's parents by their first names? (City folk, most likely...) The only exception are people you have known for a really, really long time and are close with. Also "Johnny's Father" is a silly thing to call someone ;)

With Chinese families, you, um, magically* know the parents' last names and age relative to your parents, and so would call them "younger-uncle Xia" and "younger-aunt Ma".

----
* your parents tell you before you walk in the door.

Also, this seems to be based off of some kind of meeting-of-families event. You know your friend's last name before you meet their parents.

but that doesn't work with Chinese families because the mom keeps her maiden name.

I'm city folk, and I always called my friends' parents by Mr/Ms. ______, or I bent over backwards not to let the issue come up.

Well, you're southern city folk. ;)

Small-to-moderate-sized-town Florida here. No one I've known calls their own parents by their first names, but I used to call a friend's dad "Dr. Jeff," and he called my parents "Aunt Karen" and "Uncle Dan." And my allowance was pretty small. But of course this wasn't supposed to be a survey.

Because I'm A) a shut-in and B) white, I don't have a lot of trouble with people thinking they know who I am within a few seconds of meeting me. If I did, I think my first impulse would be the same as yours: I will be as foreign as they are making me. I'm not going to waste time on this person or get to know them well enough that their attitude will bother me. I'm not sure whether/when this is a good or bad response. Maybe it's not such a good idea if this is a person I need to work closely with for my job or something. But what's the alternative? What do you mean by "taking it upon yourself to offer more?" ("I'm not just a sheltered white boy; I also go treasure hunting on weekends!" doesn't really dispel the initial stereotype, it just adds information.)

Also, at some point during college I figured out that any statement beginning "Objectively, I should..." is false. Objectively, facts is facts. Should exists only in the realm of the subjective. I've felt a little better about procrastination and so on since I realized that.

Thanks for your helpful factoids.

An example of "offering more" would be "I don't *just* watch anime..." because I find so many people who come to a very swift judgment based on that. This post all started because someone in STEP commented to me, "So I hear you're an expert at anime but don't speak any Japanese" in the tone of "well this is an interesting bug specimen..." And I wasn't sure how to respond to that, since I *do* like anime and I don't speak Japanese enough for practical application, and yet in the space of 30 seconds, I couldn't think of any speedy and witty way of dispelling this. Especially since she already *has* this attitude...

I think your impressions of white people are based on a sample size of upper-class suburban white people. My mom never gave me an allowance, and by the time I hit high school I had long since stopped asking her for money. I earned it babysitting, working aftercare jobs, and at one point helping someone do her taxes. By the end of high school, I was giving my mom money to help out with bills.

I generally avoided calling my friends' parents by anything, or I called them by Mr/Ms _______. Now I might call them by their first name, but that's partly because I'm sort of almost an adult now myself. And I only do it when I think the person would prefer it; for example, Ben's parents seemed like they might be slightly weirded out if I called them Mr. and Mrs. Lehman.

I definitely had non-fish pets. ^_^ But so did all my students in Shanghai. I know how to eat with a knife and fork, too (though my brother's still working on it). And I have no idea how to talk to strangers.

I generally find out things about people by telling them random stuff about myself ("oh, my brother's a vegetarian, too!"), and if that doesn't encourage them to talk, just flat-out asking ("what made you decide to be a vegetarian?"). Everyone I've met has had different home experiences, so I don't think people will be shocked or offended. But I don't really know- I never learned how to talk to strangers.

:) Lots of good advice! Thank you, dear. :D

Yeah, I think you're allowed to ask.

I didn't call my parents by their first names. I think that they would have liked it if I had done so, though (they were hippies.) Other people's parents -- it depended on whether or not they were hippies.

Of course, I called all my professors "doctor X" and such so I may not be the best person to ask.

Let's look at your other stuff. I did have an allowance, though mostly I didn't spend money (I'm pretty sure it was under $10, although I can't remember). We had a cat a dog and a fish, although none of those were "mine" in any sense (the dog was my brother's, the cat and fish my father's). I kept rats. I don't know how to eat with a knife and fork, at least not in the way that you're supposed to (I use what my mom calls the "serial killer grip.") I know how to talk to strangers NOW, but that's something I've learned since graduating college.

yrs--
--Ben

As far as maintaining stereotypes, which is what those are, I think it's okay as long as you don't deliberately exclude people based on stereotypes and as long as you allow them to change easily. But I'm just some random white boy.

yrs--
--Ben

When I am a professor, I am going to tell all my students to call me "Doctor X."

But Brian, your last name doesn't start with an X. Nor does it even have an X in it. You're going to have to do something X-tra special to be called "Doctor X".

Whenever anyone betrays their ignorance or stupidity, I shall respond dismissively with a voiceless glottal fricative.

Er, a voiceless [i]velar[/i] fricative. Either that or I'll constantly misuse linguistics vocab when I write on the board, then draw a big X over it when I realize I made a mistake.

or cleverly insert X into all of your linguistix xerminology. Although voixless xelar frixatives are fine, too.

I don't know, dude. That sounds a little X-treme!

Unofficially, the University of Chicago has a policy against calling professors "Doctor", except for some professors in the Medical school. One story I heard is that almost everyone at the U of C has doctorates, so it doesn't make sense for everyone to call each other "Doctor". Another story, more plausible in my opinion, is that the quality of your ideas does not necessarily correlate with the degrees that you have obtained, hence a more uniform title is adopted.

Some professors are called "Mr" or "Ms", others are called "Professor", and still others are called by their first names. The linguistics department there had an informal feeling to it, so I utilized first names. Other departments at U of C, and linguistics departments at other universities, have differing social situations.

Just more variation to mull over...

The onion had an editorial titled "Stereotypes are a real time-saver!". Now it's on a T-shirt.

I gotta agree with what other people here say about growing up in a white people family: "You think money grows on trees? You want money, you go out and get a job, son!" I dunno where all these kids with allowances are. The only one I know who called his own parents by first name is Aza. Friends' parents I would sometimes call literally "Mrs. Jason's Mom" or something because I was always so bad at remembering either first or last names.

I have no idea what people are assuming about me unless they say it out loud, and if they do I am happy to correct it. I have very few assumptions about other people. Other people are great big question marks to me. I have trouble starting conversations with strangers, because I don't even have an assumption of a shared experience to start from, so I don't know what to say. I know that I know nothing and so I don't know how to get started learning about somebody. Maybe this is part of why I'm so awkward in disorganized social situations.

Pick two random people from modern-day America and it's quite likely they won't have any common experiences, I think. Nobody really fits the idea of the average American anymore, and people move around so much they don't neccessarily have anything in common with their neighbors. We come from everywhere, we don't have a common religion or a common language or even common values or cultural identity. The idea of an average american family is something we get from TV sitcoms; it's never existed in real life.

But what should you (Sushu) do when people assume things about you? Americans have all kinds of insanely stupid stereotypes about Chinese, and then they'll assume more because you're a teacher, or because of where you live, and whatever. I guess my advice is that it's not neccessarily rude to correct people, it just depends on how you do it. When I lived in Japan people had all kinds of insanely stupid stereotypes about Americans. I found it *easier* to start conversations with japanese people because I could get started by clearing away their stereotypes: "I am an American! I don't own a gun! I like nattou! I am reading Detective Conan! Shinjitsu wa itsumo hitotsu!!"

After all, if you're a history teacher, it's your *calling* to clear away misconceptions about historical/cultural/social issues, right? So why not start with misconceptions about yourself? Educate the world! Stand on top of a hill and yell out "I AM SUSHU! HEAR ME ROAR! CHINESE PEOPLE ARE NOT ALL MYSTICAL SQUINTY EYED YIN-YANG KUNG FU MASTERS! I LOVE PORK AND CONDOR HEROES AND FASCISM!"

Um... I got a little carried away there... but you should be proud of who you are and let everybody know about it!

I was just thinking it was funny because I've degraded from calling my parents mom and dad to Mommy and Daddy and I've picked that up from Asian friends (another stereotype I have: Asian parents refer to themselves as mommy and daddy)

Actually I'm often reluctant to say I like anime too. First because of art professors (who seem to think if you like anime that's the only thing you know about "art") and even after school, the reaction is "Oh, you have no life? that's nice"

But then I think so-and-so is creepy because he refers to women as "chicks and babes" at the age of 40-something and I generally don't try to dispel my beliefs about him. And I definitely have french people stereotypes (I work for a french company). But the only thing you can do is to socially interact with them and then you dispel some stereotypes and probably form new ones >ok not all french people are snobs, but when it comes to wine, they are< :)

Your company is French? I didn't know that! Nifty! Many asian parents do refer to themselves from their children's perspective. Sometimes my parents call me "sister" ;D

How have you been doing? I feel like I haven't heard from you in a loooong time!!

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small things

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(Jono here)

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