Etiquette School is in session! > "What an interesting assumption."

You don't look American.

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Mental Magpie:

--- Quote from: Jocelyn on June 08, 2012, 11:40:12 PM ---My niece is Korean. She's been mistaken for Chinese by Chinese people. When her son was an infant, a woman accosted my sister (his grandmother) demanding to know how she had custody of a Native American child. When my sister told me the story, I agreed that the grandson did look very much like the local Native American children, more than he looked Korean.
When I went to Germany with my father's side of the family to meet our German cousins, it was very striking: all the Americans were blond or redheaded, mostly with blue eyes, and most of the Germans were dark-haired and dark-eyed.
I have a friend who is Japanese-American. She once had a man argue with her that her surname is really Italian, so she must be Italian. Both her surname and appearance are very typically Japanese.

--- End quote ---

A man once tried to argue with Dark Sister that our last name wasn't German.  It is incredibly German, as was our grandfather who spoke fluent German because, oh wait, his parents had come over on a boat and he was raised bilingual.  I've never had anyone guess wrong when they guess the origin of my last name.

Bottlecaps:
I would be halfway tempted, if someone said this to me, to say, "Funny that you mention that. You don't look like an idiot."

But that would be very, very rude - so don't do that. :-P

Lady Snowdon:
I am Irish/English/Scottish/Polish/Norwegian/Swedish.  Thanks to the lovely mashing of genetic types, I do not look like any particular ethnicity.  I'm just your average generic American mutt; brown hair, blue eyes, pale skin.  I don't get any comments on how I look, but I certainly get the "You don't sound like you're from here" comments!  I work in customer service, and I've had people assume I'm in India, I'm in Mexico, plus a random smattering of US states.  I live and work in Minnesota, but nobody seems to think that could possibly be true.  If I tell people where I am, I get comments like "you don't sound Minnesotan!" or "you're lying - you can't possibly be up there".   

My aunt is more of the Black Irish stereotype, with brown eyes, black hair, and very dark olivey skin.  She had a daughter who has blond hair, green eyes and very pale skin.  I know of at least two times where she was accused of not being my cousin's actual mother because "you look too different". 

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