Current Events > any other asians notice that the chinese are the ONLY asians who will ever

(+) Yeah! (+)

just outright assume that you speak their language and start speaking to you in chinese

(referring to chinese-born chinese, not foreign-born chinese btw)

like, no other ethnicity of asian does this
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Assuming people speak Chinese is basically the Asian equivalent of assuming white people speak English. Not nearly all of them do, but if you're going to pick a random language and hope they speak it, statistically it's the most likely one (prior to taking variables like "where are you at the time?" etc into account, of course).
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DarkTransient posted...

Assuming people speak Chinese is basically the Asian equivalent of assuming white people speak English. Not nearly all of them do, but if you're going to pick a random language and hope they speak it, statistically it's the most likely one (prior to taking variables like "where are you at the time?" etc into account, of course).

they're not playing the numbers or whatever

they're just arrogant
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your assumptions are general and sweeping
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I used to work in a Chinese restaurant and people would just come in speaking Mandarin.

I was like :|
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This has happened to me lol. I live in a touristy city and meet them all the time. It also happens with Spanish speakers. Even after 10 seconds of me having a confused look on my face they're still speaking in their language.
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i speak broken vietnamese but vietnamese natives(that aren't my family) are weirded out that i can't speak it fluently.
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Roxborough4Ever posted...

your assumptions are general and sweeping

no, chinese people are general and sweeping
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In dark skinned and can confirm. Sometimes they just come up to me and say something in Chinese then smile.

I'm white Hispanic and when I used to work at a place with heavy tourist traffic the Chinese customers would assume I spoke Chinese lol shit was weird.
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Chinese people come from a place where a billion other people speak Chinese.

Highwind07 posted...

Because statistically there are more Chinese population than any other Asian nationality, dude.

But what I go into Koreatown and assume everyone speaks Korean?

RoboLaserGandhi posted...

Chinese people come from a place where a billion other people speak Chinese.

nah, guys, it's just arrogance

i live in the san francisco bay area, and while i don't know the exact ethnic make-ups, i can say that there are enough different ethnicities of asians here to where it isn't just a "safe bet" or whatever to assume that we all speak chinese (or even if it was, you shouldn't just be assuming things about people to begin with - shit's rude)

the safer bet, and more polite thing to do, would be to just speak english (you know, the local language, i.e. that thing that more people will probably speak than your foreign language)

(and yes, while i just advocated against assuming things before, assuming that the people you meet on the streets in america speak english isn't an out-there, offensive assumption to make, unlike assuming that every asian you meet speaks chinese, for instance)

but as any chinese person can probably tell you (myself included), we all know some chinese people who can't be bothered to or refuse to learn english/the local language (along with the whole "all asians must be chinese and speak chinese!" bs), hence the arrogance i'm referring to
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