Xiǎojiě, nǐ shì nǎ guó rén?

America is not a country.

I didn't think much about it until a few days ago in a cab ride to work. The driver of the taxi asked me a couple of questions. I became aggravated as the conversation progressed.

Taxi - "nǐ shì nǎ guó rén? Měiguórén? [which country are you from? American?]
Me - "wǒ shì jiā ná dà rén" [I am a Canadian.]
Taxi - "ahhh, (nodding) nǐ shì Měiguórén." [Ahh, you are American.]
Me - (Thinking for a moment) "shì, jiānádà. wǒ shì jiānádàrén." [Yes, Canada. I am a Canadian.]
Taxi - "zhī dào, Měiguórén." [I know, American"]

It was a refusal to acknowledge my identity. We know it is impolite to refer to someone as "Middle-Eastern", "Asian", and "South African". In these situations, we tend to ignore it unless it is directly related to a given situation. Courtesy would be that being corrected expects the conversation to adapt and use the preferred term.

Idiot - "Which country are you from? Asian?"
Chinese National - "Yes, I'm Chinese."
Idiot - "Ahh, Asian."
Chinese National - "China. I am Chinese."
Idiot - "I know. Asian."

Mistaking someones nationality with their geographic region is excusable. Refusal to aknowledge someones identity by considering their regional origin to be their country of origin regardless of being corrected, is belligerent.

My computer is back in working order. I lost alot of data, but my Mandarin software has been reinstalled.

Photo: The McDonalds here keeps messing up my order. I literally point and touch the menu item, so why do they still get it wrong? Next time, I'm opening everything as soon as the bag is on the counter. >:[ Edit: Who am I kidding? I should be happy that they mess up simple orders. It gives it that "like back home" feeling.

Firefly

I found this interesting.

This link http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/260010/Serenity/chineseslang.pdf is for the pen and paper game for Firefly (Serenity). It was linked to me by Kurt Hebron.

I remember watching the Firefly DVDs on my friend Kevin’s big screen TV over the months and days before leaving for China. Despite a few mixed DVDs in incorrect cases, no DVDs were harmed in the viewing of this series.

Upon inspection of the link above, I noticed a few discrepancies in the pinyin (Romanized English phonetics of the Chinese language) used for Firefly. Additionally, the pronunciation was too inaccurate for my Chinese friends to understand when we watched the Serenity movie here.

Now if I recall correctly from the extras on the Firefly box set DVDs, the writers would have a Chinese contact call her friends in China for phrase translations.

They explain the confusion somewhere in the series extras, but I have my own theories as to more possible factors involved in why the pinyin and pronunciation is how it is.

Photo: Firefly, an awesome (but too short) series of which I was reluctant to enjoy, despite strong recommendations from others. I would have listened to their testimonials, but they had heavy accents and it was difficult to understand. :)