“curiosity killed the cat.” Is it true?

In Raju Raja disscussion forum, we were discussing about how World history books contain limited amount of Asian history. Do we need to tell rest of the world what we are about? If Westerns don't know about India, are they better off? NO, because then we get bombarded with ignorant questions.

Have you guys come across biased question? Their curiosity is never ending... for some reasons these American cats never die of curiosity!

One idiotic question was asked by my English professor. Question was- Do you guys have cars there? He also added ," I heard, people take elephants as common transportation, is it true?" I got so pissed I told him ," yeah, we also have parking spots for those elephants, I had my personal elephant to take me to school. I used to park him outside my school." He believed me ...

I never used to loose my patience over this, but more and more, I think people just refuse to learn about Asian culture. I don't even think they want to learn anything by asking questions..they already have their biased opinion aboutour culture and they just want to waste time. For example, the common question ," what's that red dot that you guys wear?" I used to give people long explanations, but after a while I saw same people asking me about Red Dot every few months. So next time, this person asked me again ," what's that red dot indian women wear?" I told him," It's fashion, we like it, it goes with our dress." And guess what his response was ," but I thought only married women wear it!"

Have you come across any biased questions? How do you guys deal with it?

Must be damn irritating for you guys!Though "parking the elephant" bit was funny!!

I have had alot of people asking me about the asian culture..where i live in UK there arent that many asians, so alot of people genuinely dont know about the culture.
i dont mind answering their questions because im happy knowing that they are interested in learning about my culture and religion.
i think its so interesting discovering about different cultures around the world.

I dont really mind the questions if people are truly ignorant about Asian culture and are honestly interested in learning about it.

Sometimes people just dont know and they are surprised when they find out otherwise. Such discussions help us understand each other better. I feel its a good idea to have some tolerance for such questions.

If I had been asked the elephant parking question, I would have started laughing in the prof's face, though. 😆

Even i find the elephant story toooooooo funny... wow.. he believed uuuuuuuuuuuuu .... that totally cracked me out!!!!😆

Where I live we don't have much Asian population and people here have not even been to different state in their own country. I have been asked lots of questions like you said. I really don't mind..infact, one who asked me i pitty that person 'coz then i won't leave that person explain him/her in depth 😆 Infact, it's good that atleast now they are getting exposed to our culture rather than being ignorant all their lives and not even know that India have cars. However, I work for an architectural firm and there are tons of americans who know lot about India. I was suprised when my VP asked me abotu Ambassador car one day!! 😆 Now this guy has never been to India, He asked me if Indian government should change and get some other car and get rid of Ambassador cars!!

But people really get shocked and look at me as align when I tell them I had an arrange marriage. Really they just can't digest it. They get suprised to know that when I was in India my parents didn't have microwave. I won't blame them either our culture are so different and some things does kind of raise question in their curious mind. Like when we have a party at work I don't drink and then after asking I told them that we usually don't "date" or live together before marriage. So one of my coworker asked me so when you are in college you stay with your parents, you dont get drunk, you don't date!!! then what the heck you do for fun????? Now our defination of fun is so diff. then these guys and it was just hard for me to explain him this...so at such question I just have to smile and move on.

It's funny that he thought India only had Ambassadors cars 😆.
I don't mind explaining when the other person really wants to know. What I have come to see is that people here have already made up their minds about India and the questions they ask...reflect that. Infact, last year in my University, I was in a group study. Discussion came out of womens' condition and ofcourse everyone just looked at me asked ," you must feel relief that you are out of India.. in a Free country and you don't have to wear Burka and you can get education as well!" I was like, I am from india not from middle east and their response was," what's the difference?" Even when I said, I am from India not from Middle east then I too, make a generalization because not all Muslim women wear Burka.
I was shocked. I was like ," No actually we have more women in Universities and women are very independent." Ofcourse there are some places where women are not educated, but you can't say all of the India is like that. One of them also made a remark ,"well atleast you won't get burnt over dowery overhere?"
I felt so insulted. that's all they know about India???
It's like if I were to make generalilzations over women condition in southerns States of America, or if I were to base my opinion on Jerry Springer and say ," all the American women are beaten up by their husbands and they all get pregnant at the age of 14." You can't do that. Got to use common sense.

I live in the mid West where the Indian populatiuon is less. Like Soumya said forget seeing the world they haven't been to the other states in the U.S.

Frankly i like being asked questions about India and don't feel like there minds are made up. I just feel they are ignorant BUT THEY ARE CURIOUS AND INTERESTED!! I don't look at it in a negative way. Its always a pleasure for me to answer questions. Yes i have often been amused. Some of the questions that made me laugh.

1) You don't wear that "dot"??

2) You don't wear a turban?

3) In India you don't celebrate Thanks giving?😆

I have a "Bunko" group of friends full of white Mid Western women . They don't have much exposure outside Indiana. They are always very curious and polite. They love praising my skin colour and my Indian Kurtis and find me very exotic. I think it flatters me and i am glad to speak about India. 😳

Originally posted by: sowmyaa

😛

That's spamming Sowmya !!!! 😆😆😆

So have you decided to join me in the race for post count ????😉

Though I am already loosing steam.....it's so DIFFICULT to post nonsense !!!😆.I can't do more than two per day, and it's getting my post count no where.

maybe I should rather stick to my bhashans !!!😆

For you rest of the members, this is a joke going around now a days among the dev team members.....so you guys please continue your discussions 😛 and ignore us.

Originally posted by: abhijit shukla

Happy Spamming Minnie and Sowmyaa. We have sooooo much to learn from the Dev. Team. Right oooooooooooooooon! 👍🏼
BTW, I have often wondered: Since you guys are the Dev Team, is there a Daanav team too? We never hear from them! Whom do you guys match up with?😕

Right!!!

Arre Abhi ji, we are the devs and danavs both....depends on which side of the fence you are !!!😉 We are a complete package, rolled into one !!!😆

Originally posted by: abhijit shukla

Coming to the original discussion...remeber that US is in a unusual if not unique position culturally. Not too many countries exist where people of all culture and all ethinicities get to come. I agree that some people are just plain racist and would gladly deport all people with any more amount of melanin than they possess. Most people though are just too overwhelmed with cultural diversity that they face and cannot absorb all the 411 offered to them.
I cannot accurately tell people from China, Korea and Japan apart just by looking at them. And I am just as poorly informed about cultures around the world as an average American is.
Other than India and America, I know about other countries only as much as I have read or seen in movies or TV...and I have not read extensively about different cultures.
I give people benefit of the doubt. Yes, some people are racists and wish to put you down. Most others are, however, just curious or ignorant or sometimes dumb without being mean.
Since I don't always remember things being told at the very first time, I do not mind repeating things asked to me. There are intelligent open-minded people who want to absorb Indian culture.
The Elephant question of course is stupid and the answer was hllarious. But if you look at it, a lot of movies and TV serials have propagated that stereotype. In 60s there was an American TV serial called "Maya" where Maya was an elephant, Then movies that Americans have seen such as Indiana Jones and the temple of doom, Lagaan, Bride and Prejudice,
Octopussy etc. have Desis riding elephants. So you can see where people get this impression. [/Quote]

I agree with you. Of course there are people who want to put you down. But I have been lucky enough who are naturally more curious. We can't really blame them. Americans as it is are blessed with what we call 'well frog syndrome'. So many of them haven't even ventured out of their own cities and have no idea about their neighbouring states, India is a far cry.

Just like you, every orient I meet looks Chinese to me.....and most Americans think all come from Korea or China as well 😆

But I have also met people who know a lot about India,especially the ones who work in software firms or are doctors - perhaps because US has a humongus numbers of Indian doctors and software engineers.

The funniest question I came across was not about India - it was about HongKong. A lady asked another Indian friend of mine who had been there for a long time and had come from there if they had cars there. The Indian lady got highly offended and replied " HongKong has the kind of cars it will take US another 10 years to develop, and infrastructure that some of the mid states in America will never see at least in this life time.'....😆.The American lady was taken aback.......but it was funny. Goes on to show the ignorance level that most Americans have about anything outside of US.

Well, what else can be said about a country where there are matches between teams of different states and they call it 'World Cup Soccer'......😕😆