Woah! I didn’t assume she was asian. One shouldn’t assume that I assumed that.

Ninjas never assume anything (except the unassumable – always assume the unassumable!)

jon_a_thon, you don’t have to be asian to be a ninja. I think Joe Armstrong proved that in 1985 in a little film called “American Ninja”.

sincerely,
the faceless ninja

Question: what is it that makes something or someone “ethnic”?

I always assumed that ethnic basically meant “from an ethnicity other than my own” so that the term was relative to the speaker. I generally see it used by European-Americans to refer to someone or something non-European-American. As such, Jon_a_thon might refer to, say, Chinese food, Ethiopian food, South American food, Indian food, or Mexican food as “ethnic cuisine”.

But what about if the speaker is himself non-European-American? Would a Thai person refer to Thai food as “ethnic”? Or would they think of European-American cuisine as ethnic?

While in India, I was very surprised to see that many clothing stores would have a small area of the store that was labeled “Ethnic Wear”. And what would be in the “ethnic” department? Traditional Indian clothing! And it’s not like these were all just tourist shops catering to whitey–this seemed to be a consitent pattern across both touristy and non-touristy shops. So eventually I had to wonder: do Indians consider themselves to be ethnicans?

By the way, many restaurants would also divide their menus into two catagories: “Indian” and “Continental”. At first I thought anything non-Indian was Continental, but then a fair amount of places would have a third section of the menu for “Chinese”. So Continental seems to mean European. Maybe they should just label it “Whitey” instead.

-banacek

Look man, she’s not Asian. I know what you people think and it’s just not so. I like all ethnicans.

Somtimes ninjas will act “cool” and “hook up” with someone they in fact plan on killing.

Jon_a_thon, you should check her for hidden weapons before your next date. You’ll both feel better knowing she’s not sitting on a Chigiriki during dinner.

Yours truly,
the faceless ninja