Language has always fascinated me. It’s structure, how people employ and manipulate it, and use it to manipulate others. It seems we stop paying attention to certain phrases and references, we hear them so often. It occurred to me that there is a difference when it comes to ethnic references.
In the States, in Chicago especially, ethnic references stem from religion and country of origin. Jewish. Irish. Irish-Catholic. Italian. The word itself, and the tone used when it is spoken, changes your frame of mind as you can’t help but fall down the rabbit hole of assumption. Rich. Hot tempered. Mob. That, in turn, colors your perspective of the person before you get to know the person. I’ve also noticed that even if you know the person, you still reference them by ethic background, not just name and occupation. Almost like it has some kind of status symbol, or is a common denominator, a way to help the others in the conversation get a better sense of the person without meeting.
By contrast, in Vancouver, there are locals, expats like myself and then Asians. And Asians are broken down into a whole subset based on criteria I don’t fully understand yet. There are Mainlanders, who are new or fresh from China. There are Hongers, who from what I understand are often rich and, from my experience, act very aloof. Unless you’re Asian they won’t look at you, or otherwise acknowledge your existence. The blunt coldness from a potential landlord was an experience, though, and even my roommates were put off.
There are Vietnamese, Koreans, Taiwanese and just about every Asian country that comes to mind. They are particular with whom they acknowledge, and associate. I have caught enough of the subtle differences yet, but it is clear to different groups who is what, and whether or not they should acknowledge each other.
The tone when referencing groups is also curious. I don’t have a reference point for Vancouver ethnicity so i fall back on other associations with certain inflections like disgust, approval, indifference, joy, to name a few. Sometimes I’ll catch my mind working to connect some dots to draw a new mental map for diversity by ethnicity. I stop, realizing I don’t have enough data points so I may create incomplete or unnecessary assumptions.
I find it all rather fascinating.