Around ~2008 I was in a Barcelona hostel and met a guy there. He started speaking and I interrupted him excitedly…“Oh you’re American!!”.
He looked down…the weight of pain curdled the air around us. You could sense deep sorrow welling beneath the surface of this man. He paused for what felt like an eternity to compose himself,
He looked up with a piercing, but harrowing, stare and said “No, I’m Canadian…”
I’ll never forget that moment. That sheer depth of emotion is something I haven’t experienced before or since.
Did I silently murder this poor Canadian soul? How do Canadians cope with the mistaken identity?
A lot of Canadians can be bothered by it. I’ve seen them bothered by it. It’s sorta cute.
However, I’m ethnically Chinese (born in UK) and the ongoing joke is how Asians (Orientals if you’re from the UK) hate being confused for one another as well.
Also, not gonna lie, I’ve confused Taiwanese/Chinese/Japanese/Korean/what-have-you people before. However, I don’t get called racist because I’m East-Asian :P
Here’s the deal. I don’t care … people are rarely ever doing it to get a rise out of you. Most of the time, these are conversation starters. Also, I’m a Chinese-Brit that was confused for being Japanese growing up. Then I moved to Canada and when I said I grew up in London. They all thought I meant London Ontario because apparently London England didn’t exist. Then I moved back to Canada and they all thought I was American.