the world: nationalities

My ethnic heritage became important to me when I was in second grade. My parents told me that I was "...mostly Scottish and French." I asked my mother what I was LEAST and she replied, "Chinese."

Quite truly, the next day at show and tell I announced to the class that I was a very small bit Chinese.

i used to believe that i am american.
i am japanese .

I used to believe that because i was jewish, i wasn't american. What could have contributed to this idea is the fact that i didn't know the national anthem.

I was always stumped with this when I was younger: I knew that Chinese people ate with chopsticks and that American people ate with forks, and I remember thinking that if Americans used those miniature forks to feed their babies what did Chinese mothers use? Toothpicks? Twigs?
Some of you might have heard this elsewhere as a joke, but I assure you that I really thought it. ;)

When i was little i used to believe that only Americans could change their accents to match other peoples', like Australians or English for instance. I thought they were "stuck" with their accents for life or something, but Americans had this ability to talk differently. My good friend, who's from England, began talking with an American accent after being teased about hers, and i was shocked!

Im 20 and untill about a year ago whenever I would fill out paper work that asked your race I would always mark OTHER because I thought that caucasian was some kind of person from asia!

I used to belive the French came from the moon and that the man on the moon was French.

One day I was at the park with my five year old daughter and a Muslim couple was walking towards us. The woman was wearing a light gray burka that only revealed her eyes. I knew as soon as my daughter noticed her that there would be some type of awkward moment. Sure enough, as soon as my daughter noticed her (and by now they were well within earshot) she said, "Oooooh, somebody thinks they're a ghost." The man just smiled as I'm sure he realized that my daughter had never seen someone in a burka before. I have no idea if the woman smiled. :)

When I would hear things on the news about Palestinians (from Palestine), I thought for the longest time that they were saying "Palaced Indians."

when ever people said ther is an oriental rug i thought it was made from asian people

I used to believe Czajkowski was from Poland! After all his last name sounds so Polish. (like "Jan Kowalski")

I have always believed that when Chinese were eating a meal, they showed their appreciation by burping.

It proved to be horribly wrong when I burped loudly after having dinner with a Chinese girl. Luckily she had a sense of humour.

My brother once told my sister that in China they skin cats and use them for stockings around Christmas. Its not so funny that she believed him but that she was about sixteen at the time.

When I was about 5 and just grasping the notion of there being other countries besides England, I somehow became convinced that France was the exact opposite of Germany. I don't know what I thought that meant though!

I used to believe when I was little that it was well known that after a certain period of time, the British would invade. I even had dreams about their military marching, millions of them, but all they did was march, nothing else happened. I don't know where the idea came from, probably something sarcastic my dad told me.

My little brother once asked me,
"Erin, if Samuri Jack is Japanese, why isn't he black and speak Spanish?"