R U JAPANESE?

 
so my parents and i went out to a restaurant for my mother's birthday dinner.
in the waiting area, a slack-jawed girl in the vile clutches of teenage years who stared at us with unabashed and creepy enthusiasm finally walked up to my family and yelled " KONNICHIWA !"  her parents just bestowed us with benign grins as if their daughter had broken down the racial glass ceiling with one knowledgeable greeting. a veritable u.s. diplomat in a pink tinkerbell t-shirt. how kind and worldly of her to greet the little japanese family in their native tongue!
 
not to mention anytime i'm in gamestop, there's some creepy white guy inevitably wearing a shirt screenprinted with some sort of dragon who will come up to me and rattle off something in japanese.  i'll explain that i don't understand his broke-ass stab at an asian language, and he will explain that he's spent a lot of time in tokyo, so he really understands my culture.  okay, this has only happened twice.  i am exaggerating.
 
i'm totally not japanese, but it seems to be a definitive part of my daily life: strangers coming up to me and asking what part of asia i'm from.  most of it happens at work, where my patients are elderly, white, and convinced that it is still 1920 and i should be working on a railroad.  this is probably because i live in texas, and anyone dark skinned is here illegally and out to steal american jobs.
 
for those of you who are distinctly not caucasian, do you find your race and nationality to be a conversation starter?  do you have a daily quota of people trying to guess where you're "originally from?"  share stories please so i no longer feel alone and conspicuously ethnic. 

kawaii ^_^ ogenki desu wa? 

To clarify... I fucking hate weeaboos.

No.

not a conversation starter, but more of a "hey, where are you from?" and that's about it 

Damn it, I need closure! Not to be racist, but what part of Asia are your ancestors from? From the railroad joke, my guess is Chinese. As for Japanese, I'm guessing that because you're a gamer, people make the connection that you must be Japanese, for some reason.

NO BUT I THINK IM TURNING

I am Canadian, so not much of a conversation starter with other Canadians, although I do have German and Scottish heritage...again not uncommon whatsoever.
 
EDIT: Oops, missed the last paragraph there. I am most certainly distinctly Caucasian :/.

"  for those of you who are distinctly not caucasian, do you find your race and nationality to be a conversation starter?  do you have a daily quota of people trying to guess where you're "originally from?"  share stories please so i no longer feel alone and conspicuously ethnic.  "

My fiances grandmother refers to Asians as Orientals still. Loudly. In Public.

" I am Canadian, so not much of a conversation starter with other Canadians, although I do have German and Scottish heritage...again not uncommon whatsoever. "

" Damn it, I need closure! Not to be racist, but what part of Asia are your ancestors from? From the railroad joke, my guess is Chinese. As for Japanese, I'm guessing that because you're a gamer, people make the connection that you must be Japanese, for some reason. "

It could be worse. If you came from the middle east people would think you were about to blow something up. I bet a lot of people just use your race as a conversation starter to try and hit on you. I hear white people get the same treatment in Japan as far as peple comming up to them trying to practice their English. Plus I don't think white guys are allowed in the whore houses in Japan so it would be twice as bad as what you have to go through.

" NO BUT I THINK IM TURNING "

" My fiances grandmother refers to Asians as Orientals still. Loudly. In Public. "

"It's not a conversation starter (because I'm not the type to look like they'd be open to conversation), but sometimes people will stare at me or ask me if they can touch my hair or some crap.  Fucking idiots. "

To answer the thread title: Iie, mada...
 
My girlfriend's Australian-born Chinese, and she gets it all the time. Dudes especially are always asking her where she's from, and then quickly firing off a self-satisfied ni hao when they find out. Thing is, my girl's pretty Australian*, doesn't speak that much Chinese and sounds Aussie as when she talks, so the whole thing is kinda silly. My girlfriend's a very nice lass, and wouldn't want anyone feeling like a dick about it, but I can tell that sometimes people lay it on a bit thick for her when the subject of her background is brought up.
 
*She's also just pretty.

I just get pamphlets from the filipino clubs at school every year to go check it out.  I don't really mind, I just happen to be Cambodian.

" @FluxWaveZ said:

"It's not a conversation starter (because I'm not the type to look like they'd be open to conversation), but sometimes people will stare at me or ask me if they can touch my hair or some crap.  Fucking idiots. "

why your hair?  is it awesome? "

" @mazik765 said:

" I am Canadian, so not much of a conversation starter with other Canadians, although I do have German and Scottish heritage...again not uncommon whatsoever. "

Yeah, We Canadians don't care about race. We care about stuff like our mediocre hockey teams (except Montreal), the CFL and Tim Horton's. "

" @Interfect: Tim Horton's is the shit, sir. "

I'm from Costa Rica but no one believes me because i look more british, not to mention apparently all latin people are brown, wish someone told me that before

" @inhaleandvomit said:

" @FluxWaveZ said:

"It's not a conversation starter (because I'm not the type to look like they'd be open to conversation), but sometimes people will stare at me or ask me if they can touch my hair or some crap.  Fucking idiots. "

why your hair?  is it awesome? "

No.  If I want to use the semi-racist term, my hair's nappy. "

I'm not Japanese, look at my pic on my profile but I do sometimes hate the guessing people do when they look at me. I currently live in Minnesota which has a large native american demographic and because of my skin color, some people assume I am native american. Of course, being Hispanic, people then try to guess am I Cuban, Mexican, Spanish, Central American, South American. Bah! I'm just a me! Love me!

" NO BUT I THINK IM TURNING "

" @inhaleandvomit: PROTIP: Don't live in the south if you aren't white and racist. "

It so much of a conversation starter, it was more of a test of my own blackness . The worst of it was my freshman and sophmore year of highschool. I went to a catholic school so there were 6 african americans in the class of around 250-300 students. One guy in particular would always talk about my "cornrows" or my "gangsta shorts" and he had a polo with Nelson Mandela's prison number and pointed at it and smiled to me. He didn't mean anything by it I just think it was ignorance.  

I get the "can I touch your hair" a lot too but I don't mind it at all actually because they're just curious. I don't think they have many black friends that they are comfortable enough with to ask so I say go ahead... its because I have dreadlocks :)

" I get the "can I touch your hair" a lot too but I don't mind it at all actually because they're just curious. I don't think they have many black friends that they are comfortable enough with to ask so I say go ahead... its because I have dreadlocks :) "

i had a dude who worked for a jewelry store in a mall like yell at me asking if i was persian before. and when i said no he was like "you look persian, i'm persian". 
 
also since i live in socal, lots of mexican dudes try to speak to me in spanish, and they're always amazed i don't know spanish. i'm only half mexican ok, i don't know italian either.

" If you wanna really piss off an "Asian" person just misidentify them =P "

haha, yeah, i notice that a lot too.  i think what really gets me is the typical assumption that we're "all the same."

my coworker admitted that she refers to me as chinita.  "i know you're from mongolia," she explained, "but all of you people are basically chinese to me."

i also just really hate china, so it's bothersome on multiple levels.  but that's something else altogether.

Im Canadian and the only people we hate are the french. Fucking french people man there should be a law or something.

" Im Canadian and the only people we hate are the french. Fucking french people man there should be a law or something. "

" @Mrnitropb said:

" My fiances grandmother refers to Asians as Orientals still. Loudly. In Public. "

oh snap!  if she is elderly, it is understandable.  next time remind her that they are people, not rugs. 
  

I've got second cousins that are a quarter Italian, a quarter English, and a half Korean, and others that are the same with Sri Lankan replacing Korean, but I'm just a mix of various European ancestry. I'm separated from the old countries by about three generations, so I'm all kinds of boring, ethnically speaking.  
 
I generally don't pry into people's cultural background. Trying to guess seems rude, and it's ridiculous to assume that someone would know a language simply because of their ancestry. I don't know a word of Finnish, and I didn't know how to count to ten in Italian until pretty recently.

At least asking first is way better than people assuming where you're from. Before anyone asks and avoid some misunderstanding, I'm a Korean. To a Korean, people asking whether or not if the person from Japan is so insulting, I mean it's like asking a Jewish person if he or she was from Germany, or assuming everybody from Mid-Eastern is associated with Iraq. I'll tell you some events that happened in my life.  

One day when I was working as cashier, this white guy come up to the counter with his daughter after getting his drinks and snack, he goes "Ni-Hao" And I replied "Excuse me?" with little anger in my voice. And he says "Isn't that how you say hello in Chinese?", I replied "And why would I know that?" while looking at with some anger in my eyes even though I actually knew what it meant I pretended I don't. It was about then he realized I'm not a Chinese and apologized. Seriously if anybody starts to ask in some foreign language you don't know, just give them some mean look and pretend you don't know what mean. Sooner or later they'll realize it. 
Another story is from my friend whose family owned a Chinese buffet. He was also cashier and at the time, and there was one Asian couple who happened to be paying for their meal. And all of sudden this customer out of nowhere ask those Asian couple how much the meal was. I mean my friend was right there, a lot closer to that guy than the couples did, but no~ just because they are Asian the asshole presumed that they also work for the buffet as well. 

I got more stories but I don't want to write an essay in the forum. Anyway the point is, at least people ASKING before they PRESUME is fine. Presuming is pretty much same prejudice, and prejudice is bad.

yes...yes I am.

 
 @inhaleandvomit:  いいえ、僕は日本人じゃない。でも、高校に日本語を勉強した。

" @Xeiphyer said:

" @inhaleandvomit: PROTIP: Don't live in the south if you aren't white and racist. "

There I fixed it. "

Haha, talk about being mistaken for another ethnicity, someone once came up to me and started speaking Spanish. I said I didn't speak Spanish and he said 'What the hell's wrong with you?', to which I replied 'Uh.. I'm Asian?'

I took four years of Japanese in high school. First year was introductory, two and three were honors level, and fourth was AP. The only application it provided for my life thus far is being able to understand Hent- I mean, anime... without subtitles.

" @Interfect: Tim Horton's is the shit, sir. "

@FluxWaveZ: I understand where you're coming. People have been asking me if they could touch my hair since third grade so I really just don't care anymore.... though it may be sad that I'm desensitized and find it more comical now. 
 
@MB: Having dreads doesn't make it anymore difficult to wash your hair, its actually a lot easier for me since I have nappy hair :)  When I used to get my hair braided, not only would I be sitting in pain for between one and four hours straight, but I would only be able to wash it every week or two because the water would mess up the braids. With dreads you can wash it like normal hair pretty much as often as you want as long as you retwist it. But some dreads do look kinda stank depending on if people take care of them :/

Wow...I've never come across any kind of awkward or ignorant behavior like you've experienced. 
I was originally born in Seoul S. Korea, but was raised mostly in Honolulu and Los Angeles. I've found  it my ethnicity to be a conversation starters only among other ELDERLY asian people.
 I think it's mostly, where you are located at.

something i didn't think about until ElTigreChino posted, does it also bother you when in movies asians are all interchangeable? 
 
like senor chang, el tigre chino, from community is played by ken jeong. and last night i watched speed racer, where taejo togokan was played by rain, and his sister horuko was played by nan yu, that's all kinds of mixin goin on. 
 
do you think that adds to your problem?

To actually contribute to the thread's initial question, I went to a 7-11 last week and the Indian clerk said to me in a joking tone "Annyong Haseyo!!" I paused in sheer terror, then yelled back, "Annyong!" and bowed deeply. He was rolling on the floor laughing after that. I wish I said "안녕히 계세요" when I left :P