If I took away anything from my legal anthropology class, it was the reminder not to generalize about people and their cultures since (1) I'm not an anthropologist and (2) I have not done any fieldwork to validate my generalizations. But it's unrealistically impossible for people not to generalize about others. And usually there's a spark of truth in generalizations.
Offhand, I can think of many instances where we generalize and stereotype: Women are from Venus, Men are from Mars; little girls are sugar and spice and all things nice and what are little boys made of? snipes and snails and puppy dogs tails; Singaporeans are kiasu and speak bad English; only cannot-make-it guys get mail order brides; law students are snooty etc etc etc.
On the way home, a Philippino man (very few foreign workers speak English and he sounded Philippino) asked me to figure out how to make an overseas call at a public phone. I was obviously clueless so I tried calling all the helplines listed on the card and endured the annoying automated phone directions. Finally, I saw the instructions glaring at me on the board in front and yay the guy managed to call home.
He was elated, shook my hand (his was very clammy) and thanked me profusely (seldom see a stranger behave like that). I walked off, bought something and walked past him again. Heard him whisper "hold on" and then he turned to me and started bowing and thanking me again.
Of course I felt the usual warm and fuzzy feeling after being thanked so much. I did my Good Deed of the day. Ok so I can't help but generalize (after hearing other testimonies) that Philippinos are a friendly bunch of people.
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4 comments:
Yeah!!! Filipinos are really happy and friendly people.
And they are spelt 'Filipinos'.
oh, my blog is at http://whitefluffintheair.blogspot.com
hahaha ok need to update spell-check.
Qn: What happens if you cross a Dutch with a Filipino?
Ans: You get a Hollopino.
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