Our Chinese Shopkeeper (My 2nd Story)

I love my native city Budapest, which is very cosmopolitan involving tourists and citizens from all over the world. It is similar to ESL, you know. I have been going to the same shopkeeper for a long time because his shop sells cheeper and there is a great choice of goods. The customers call him as 'our Chinese shopkeeper' or 'Uncle Steve' although I don't think Steven would be his real first name.

One day just before Beijing Olympic games I went to him and asked, 'Do you think China will win the Olympics?'. And what do you think he answered?

He said he wasn't Chinese but Vietnamese.

I was ashamed.

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Comments

  • Why do you think it is, noasl?

  • Kacika, people always mistaken me for a Chinese and spoken Mandarin with me. I just take it at the grain of salt and tell them that no, I'm not Chinese. Well, to tell you the truth, people always think that either I'm a Chinese or a Filipino but never a Malay. LOL

  • Emmy, should we do anything to know each other more?

  • AH_TK, I wanted to be nice but I failed. :-(

  • lol....

    bad..bad  kacika :p

  • Emmy, do you mean 'I can not tell you Westerners apart either.'?

  • Kiriku, I was glad to read you story. Then I am not a stupid European if something similar happened also to you. Anyway I can't identify my compatriots abroad until they start to speak.

  • Hahaha, very funny. But you should not be embarrassed at all, it's very a normal thing since you are not Asian person. Let me tell you my story. It happened to me right here in our nation, Vietnam. One day, I  did jogging around the lake and asked a women in Vietnamese: Excuse me, what time is it. To my surprise, she looked at me strangely and then spoke out series of foreign language (it must be Japanese, I guessed). I felt both funny and ambarrassed at the same time ...:)(

  • Mickey, it was only me who was embarrassed. Poor Ucle Steve probably had got used to being Chinese. :-(

  • Rick, but there are so many countries in Asia! And even in China there are so many different nationalities. We, Westerners should learn how to make the difference and identify a big nation like Chinese.

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