... Book By It's Cover

China has a blind spot.  Almost everyone who is Chinese, looks Chinese.  To 95% of the people in America, it's amazing to think of a country where 95% of the population is a single ethnic group.  Unfortunately for many overseas Chinese, many people in China also think that if you look Chinese, then you must be Chinese.  (That's believing an invalid converse for you logicians out there.)

 Of course, the Chinese know better but just because you know better, doesn't mean you act that way.  Overseas Chinese have difficulties because local people just don't understand how they can be American.  To make matters even more interesting, I've had Chinese people asking how Indians (meaning me; remember this, it's important later) or even black people could call themselves American.  Here is one of the great powers that America wields.  Looking at someone doesn't imply that you can tell if they are American.  Even more powerfully: Looking at someone doesn't imply that you can tell if they are not American.  Pretty cool, eh? (Logically, this means that someones appearance has no relationship to whether or not they are American.)

  There are two sides to every coin, however.  Recently, I've had the following conversation several times in Houston:

  Them: You just moved to Houston?  Where did you come from?
  Me: China.
  Their brain is obviously working furiously for a few seconds and they don't want to make the next statement, but then they do.
  Them: So... you're ... Chinese?

  Apparently, Americans are so comfortable with ethnic identity being separated from national identity, that they ...  make statements like this.  They know that many other countries are ethnically homogenous (relative to the US) but they can fail to act on that knowledge.  While Chinese people tend to judge a book by it's cover, Americans absolutely refuse to do so, even when they really should.

  The innate foolishness of mankind still shines through.  Brings a tear to my eye. *sniff*

P.S. If I've made some technical error in my use of formal logical terms, please remember that I didn't do very well in my (many, many) college classes on logic.  However, this did not prevent me from basing my dissertation on very complicated logic theorems.