One day when I was in Korea, we were sitting in a little restaurant eating lunch when one of the girls working there came up to me and asked me for some help. There was a white guy sitting at another table, and they were having trouble communicating with him So they wanted me to translate what they wanted into English for him. My companion at the time was a Korean, making me the only other white (which they equated with “American”) guy available.
So I went and sat down by him and started jabbering away about what they wanted. He looked at me blankly. It turns out he was from Spain. Eventually, using two of the three Spanish words I knew, I got the point across to him, but it has always been a good lesson about preconceived notions.
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