Tender Childhood Memory
>be me
>be in fifth grade
>the scholastic book fair comes to our school every year
>the kids in my class were really into “I Survived” books
>“I Survived the Holocaust” is being sold
>kids correlate Nazis being German with me being German and start calling me a Nazi
>ask them what a Nazi is, but no one will tell me
>too poor to buy the book
>ask my stepmom at the time and she screams at me because “I’m too young to know about Nazis” and gets mad at me
>too scared to ask teachers or my dad after getting yelled at
>kids keep calling me a Nazi for weeks
>get pissed
>plot revenge
>have fake cereal brand with my friend for some reason
>never actually made the cereal yet, just pretend it exists and made fake ads for it and shit
>tell people I’m finally going to make it
>mix the most vile, abhorrent shit I can find in my kitchen together with red food dye and frosted flakes
>feed it to the people calling me a Nazi, so most of my class ate it
>gave them explosive diarrhea and food poisoning
>somehow didn’t get in trouble for biological warfare and was never punished by the school
>W
>forget about it for eight years
>randomly remember
>tell my dad cause I think it’s funny
>”Anon, that’s exactly what a Nazi would do."
>InterpersonalExpectancyEffect.jpg

I guess those kids called it.

  • @shneancy@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    by nationality there I didn’t mean the legal definition of citizenship, but the more vague sense of being able to confidently say “I am [insert country]-ish/ese/an”

    if they don’t speak Korean then I personally wouldn’t consider them Korean, as without the language they are disconnected from the history and culture of Korea. Even when you translate said history and culture, it’s just not the same thing, every language conveys untranslatable nuance to stories said in that language.

    • without the language they are disconnected from the history and culture of Korea

      I disagree. They eat primarily Korean food at home, they hear a lot of Korean being spoken (their mom with friends, their grandparents), and there are certain other cultural habits and whatnot they got from their mother (different “home” clothes from “outside” clothes, take off shoes when entering house, use chopsticks for eating, etc). They’re certainly different from their American friends.

      I would argue that if they spoke Korean but otherwise didn’t partake in any Korean cultural heritage, that they shouldn’t be considered Korean. I speak a foreign language (other than Korean), but I would never consider myself “from” that culture because I have no ancestral or legal ties, I just lived there for a couple years to improve my language skills. I’m also very interested in that country’s history, but only academically. I don’t see them as “my people.”

      • @shneancy@lemmy.world
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        14 months ago

        seems like a difference of perspectives then. I’ve felt more commection and sort of “oneness” with an Egyptian guy who’s been to Poland once but spoke near perfect Polish, than with any of the Polish Americans that could barely pronounce dzień dobry. There’s enough differences in upbringing within a single country anyway, “how do you do things where you’re from” could apply to anything from the town next door to the country on the other side of the planet