American Me ......
Scene 1:
I was travelling back to Eindhoven from Salzburg and was somewhere between Munich and Frankfurt. It was around 2 in the morning and I was trying to grab some sleep in the train. I was suddenly woken up by 2 men. One thin and one burly. I noticed that they were in unifrom and thought they were ticket checkers. I was about to show them my ticket when.....
Thin German Guy : So Where are you headed to?
Me : Eindhoven....Netherlands.
Thin German Guy : You are in Germany on work or pleasure?Me : Uh....I work for ******* in Eindhoven.
Thin German Guy : Can I see your passport?
I then realised that they were policemen. I started digging out stuff from my bag trying to find my passport. It was somewhere deep down in my bag and I was taking time retrieving it.
Thin German Guy (staring at me and the contents of the bag) : So you are an American?
Me (looking up) : Uh....no...Indian
Burly German Guy : Ah India....Bombay....
Me : Ah here it is...(Holding up my passport)
The guys had nearly lost hope of seeing my passport and the thing guy quickly scanned through it, wished me a safe journey and left. I continued to ponder over his remark on me being an American......
Scene 2:
A couple of weeks after acene 1 I was returning back to Bangalore. I was in the Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris "looking" at "people" and also searching for a Swiss chocolate called Lindt in the duty free shops there. At last I found it and took them to the girl at the counter.
Girl (smiling....could be sarcastically since I was buying for the least amount among all the others) : Could you show me your boarding pass?
Me : Ya sure....here it is.
The girl started searching for information from the boarding pass such as my flight number etc. and somehow looked lost.
Me : Anything wrong?
Girl (turning the boarding pass around) : This boarding pass looks new to me....its different....
The boarding pass was a bit different because I had tried out automatic check-in at the Amsterdam Airport and had got the boarding pass from a machine. It did look a bit different from the normal ones and maybe the girl in Paris had never seen one of this type. Though I didnt explain any of this to her.
Girl (at last finding out what she needed) : It is the first time I am seeing one of these...So you are from the United States?
Me ( uh....not again!!) : Oh no....er...Amsterdam (could she not see Bangalore as the destination on the boarding pass)
Girl (smiling) : Ah Amsterdam....
I left the shop wondering.....Do I even remotely look like an American.....Hmmm at least the Europeans seem to think so.....And I thought they never falter at identifying an Asian.
I was travelling back to Eindhoven from Salzburg and was somewhere between Munich and Frankfurt. It was around 2 in the morning and I was trying to grab some sleep in the train. I was suddenly woken up by 2 men. One thin and one burly. I noticed that they were in unifrom and thought they were ticket checkers. I was about to show them my ticket when.....
Thin German Guy : So Where are you headed to?
Me : Eindhoven....Netherlands.
Thin German Guy : You are in Germany on work or pleasure?Me : Uh....I work for ******* in Eindhoven.
Thin German Guy : Can I see your passport?
I then realised that they were policemen. I started digging out stuff from my bag trying to find my passport. It was somewhere deep down in my bag and I was taking time retrieving it.
Thin German Guy (staring at me and the contents of the bag) : So you are an American?
Me (looking up) : Uh....no...Indian
Burly German Guy : Ah India....Bombay....
Me : Ah here it is...(Holding up my passport)
The guys had nearly lost hope of seeing my passport and the thing guy quickly scanned through it, wished me a safe journey and left. I continued to ponder over his remark on me being an American......
Scene 2:
A couple of weeks after acene 1 I was returning back to Bangalore. I was in the Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris "looking" at "people" and also searching for a Swiss chocolate called Lindt in the duty free shops there. At last I found it and took them to the girl at the counter.
Girl (smiling....could be sarcastically since I was buying for the least amount among all the others) : Could you show me your boarding pass?
Me : Ya sure....here it is.
The girl started searching for information from the boarding pass such as my flight number etc. and somehow looked lost.
Me : Anything wrong?
Girl (turning the boarding pass around) : This boarding pass looks new to me....its different....
The boarding pass was a bit different because I had tried out automatic check-in at the Amsterdam Airport and had got the boarding pass from a machine. It did look a bit different from the normal ones and maybe the girl in Paris had never seen one of this type. Though I didnt explain any of this to her.
Girl (at last finding out what she needed) : It is the first time I am seeing one of these...So you are from the United States?
Me ( uh....not again!!) : Oh no....er...Amsterdam (could she not see Bangalore as the destination on the boarding pass)
Girl (smiling) : Ah Amsterdam....
I left the shop wondering.....Do I even remotely look like an American.....Hmmm at least the Europeans seem to think so.....And I thought they never falter at identifying an Asian.
posted by Sriniketh S at
5:06 AM
2 Comments:
Dude i have some serious doubts about ur looks now... last time i saw u - u looked like a pukka tambram... so u being mistaken for an american is kinda weird...
Only logical explaination i can think of is, Indians generally (from the mainland India) are not rich enough to visit europe... most onsites of infy, tcs, wipro generally lead employees to uk or us... so all the indian-asian looking ppl are the ones who travel from us to europe... that can be a reason of confusion...
other one may be that they don't know many countries and america is just part of their small talk - "oh so you are from america!"
anyway, saw ur pics and must say the photographer is really good... good ones!
By
Rupam Bhattacharya, at 3:21 AM
Hmm...Rupam I too have been looking for explanations and your insights seem pretty good....but I believe its not tough to recognize Asians. We people will always have the problem of finding out where the whites are from (Europe or US) since they all look the same!!
By
Sriniketh S, at 11:44 PM
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