I just read this: www.japantimes.co.jp/[...]
sound familiar? just replace Japan with China and i guess NJ would become NC. still, if Yang Rui and the xenophobic retards get their way 'microaggressions' will be the least of our worries.

This is a fascinating read and you can identify where and when NJ could be substituted for NC, but having read it and recognised some similarities I can't see myself now labelling these words and actions as microaggressions. To me, this is a Psychologists theory putting two and two together and telling us we should think it adds up to five.

If I went out today now viewing these things as microaggressions, I'd have to discount what I intrinsically recognise as opening gambits in conversation, genuine curiosity about me and my obvious differences in looks and behaviour (not always the best), and most importantly, I would have to discount the overall acceptance of me, as an individual. Doctors and psychologists can be interesting but they are not always right - all too often wrong. And if in this case the author has a point and cares to believe it, then he or she is suffering from chronic expat fatigue.

It's going to interesting to see how others view this.

@nnoble. I agree. There isn't always an 'agenda' to people asking questions. Human interacts begs for people to ask questions and be curious about other culture. It's not a 'microaggression' but human nature. It's is most times as simple as that.

Two plus two adds up to five is not Psychologists theory. We had that in my last year of high-school match.

For along time I would have agreed with nnoble as well. In California I dated Asian women, married a couple of them too, and from time to time witnessed them being asked, "Where are you from?" One ABC lady took great exception to this question. She pointed out that I wasn't asked where I was from. She said no one would ask a Black where he/she was from.

Here in China, we are often asked these questions which get tedious after a few hundred times. Since coming to Kunming after six years in Beijing I got in the habit of saying "我是北京人." Mostly I enjoyed the confusion looks.

Given the human need to deal in stereotypes, I can understand the Chinese need to classify us. Often I get taken as a Russian or,worse yet, a Frenchman.

On a bus last week, an elderly guy asked me something in non-putonghua Chinese and I responded I didn't understand. He grew quite loud and did some showboating about foreigners for his captive audience. After about two minutes, I asked him if he could speak Polish, French, German, Spanish, or Vietnamese in those languages, he grew silent. Nice to get a 'Gotcha' now and then.

I tend to suffer from micro-ignore, but then, I'm just rude - which I find culturally sensitive.

A very interesting read, and I agree with nnoble. Chinese people will often ask foreigners the same set of questions, but these are usually the same sorts of questions they ask each other (any Chinese with an odd accent is asked "Where are you from?"), or of genuine curiosity ("Do you like Chinese food?") or just questions that they think are simple enough for you to understand ("How long have you lived in China?"). So many Chinese people have an, understandably, limited understanding of foreign affairs and real western culture, I think it's unfair to expect more subtle or incisive questioning most of the time. Even Yang Rui struggles with this!

you don't need to know much about a foreign culture to have a conversation beyond "can you use chopsticks?". you just need to be well-educated, which unfortunately is not the case for a lot of people.