Real life stories #2 - A Chinese-American touring Bangalore
Our protagonist is a Chinese-American who is visiting Bangalore on work. Now, he has never been to India before, so he is very excited and wants to visit the various tourist spots in and around Bangalore during weekends and whenever he finds the time. The first weekend, he goes off to the Bannerghatta national park, mainly to see the elephants. And what happens there is something that happens to a lot of foreigners visiting India. While they are interested in the sights, they in turn become the sights themselves! The general jantha gets excited/curious about them and wants to either talk to them or take pics with them!! Initially, he was a little amused, but after a couple of hours of this, it started getting to him. It would have gotten to me, if I were stared at in a foreign land. Anyway, he goes through this for that day and is back at his hotel, where he replays the different conversations he has had with the locals. And realizes that most of them wanted to know if he was from the US of A or not. And more often than not, they were mostly excited to talk to him when he said he was an American! So, he comes up with a plan for his next outing.
On Saturday morning, he is off to Mysore. And when he gets off at the palace, he again starts getting some glances and some of them want to chat him up. But this time around, when they ask him, “So, where are you from?” He says, “China” and smiles. And people are not as interested in him as they were when he said ‘the USA’. So, he gets to go about sight-seeing much more easily. I just don’t know why it occurred to him that all the extra attention was because he was an American. And now, he is getting to tour more peacefully. 
Well, whatever works!
Filed under: Real life stories, USA, Mysore, Chinese-American, Bangalore
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I guess chinese are very careful about spending and are not easily conned.
Whenever I get this query I respond that I am from “California”. About 50% of the time this leads to a discussion about Arnold Schwarzenegger! There are a lot of Indians who seem to think he’s a good actor…
good one:)
You have a great blog; it has a wealth of info I would need in a year or so. Hoping to R2BLR after 10 years !
I echo what “Which Main …” said. A recent joke I saw on YouTube by Russel Peters about how a it is funny when there’s a Desi-Chinese shopping encounted : Desi keeps haggling while the Chinese guy refuses to budge !
Oh poor chap
poor guy like any other foreigner but he is a genius he found out what they are into and just managed the show to avoid them by just using one name good one and good comeback
I doubt if tourists are actually allowed to enjoy Indian sights. Maybe they need to get a nice and proper tan to be allowed to do so
He must be smart, and caught on. It helped he looked chinese to start with
All know this: “Don’t mess with a Chinese; it’s never a fun at the end of the day!” At least we have been hearing about all those stuff since 1962, or maybe since Thienenmen Square Carnage.
Hi,
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So, Please help.