The “what country are you from?” game
by chris
Every time I meet a stranger in China, he or she asks me what country I am from. The general assumption is that all white people are from the United States or England (since these are the only three countries outside China—and I could not possibly be from Japan). But they still ask if which of those two I am from. I tell them to keep guessing. And I usually lie to them.
The two times I was asked yesterday are good examples. A young guy at Old Uncle（老娘叔）asked the Monkey Kings of Old in English where we were from and instead of just asking the question, he felt it necessary to name countries until he got the right one. The first thing he asked was, “are you from England or Germany?” I said, “are those my only two options?”
He continued, “maybe you are from the United States?” I said no. He said, “Canada or Australia?” And before I said anything he said “no, I don’t think so.” I told him I was from Suzhou, and that I come from old Suzhou, from Suzhou when it started 5000 years ago. He got a kick out of that. Eventually, instead of insisting on guessing or just asking “so?”, he got up and left. Many Chinese people are very curious but they do not go to great lengths to satisfy their curiosity. The poor young man will never know the truth.
I get asked these questions every day, and it gets annoying, so I need to have fun or else I will go crazy. Later, as we were buying vegetables on the street outside my building, two old men were staring at us and asking about us to each other and wondering where we were from. Eventually, I said to them, “我是中国人！你们是哪国家的？” (”I am Chinese! Where are YOU from?”) And that held them for a minute or two. Great fun.