Before I decide to stay or to leave this forum, let me finish telling Westerners the right thing to do.
If you’re curious about someone, why don’t you just ask that person?
It would be a lot easier than discussing it with your friends who have no idea either.
This morning, I went to a restaurant in my hotel in London.
It’s self-service breakfast buffet, and two waiters started discussing my ethnicity after I walked past them.
I was still around there to pick up my food, so I could here what they said.
A:“Where is he from?”
B:"…Mexican."
(All right, this is interesting and a new one. I was thought of as Mexican for the first time, so I decided to gave him a pass. LOL.)
A:“No…”
(And this A dude walked toward me deliberately just to have a closer look at me. WTF.)
A:"… looks Chinese."
B:“Maybe he’s…”
(Not able to hear it, as I had walked away from them to go back to my table.)
So, let me check about my statistics in the West.
I’ve been referred to as Chinese like 100+ times.(In many forms, but basically they’re saying the same thing)
Turkish or Arabs like 10 times.(When there’re many Muslims nearby)
Spaniard or South American or mixed like 5 times
Mexican for the 1st time.
What’s the point of discussing (guessing actually) a random stranger’s ethnicity?
If you’re so curious about it, why don’t you just ask that person?
Anyway, although I was not happy about encountering such a thing when having my breakfast this morning, I was a bit glad and relieved that not all Westerners can’t tell the difference between different East-Asian individuals. They can tell that we all look kind of different. They also understand that the stereotypical East-Asian look (i.e., small slant eyes, ugly faces, dorky and nerdy appearances, etc) only applies to a small percentage of East-Asian people. Not all East-Asians look like that.
In fact, East Asians are just like Westerners. We all have various kinds of looks, body types, appearances, etc just like you people do, all right?