Quote:
Originally Posted by dean-dzai  The Wikipedia article I referred to in the first post a few years ago referred specifically to people from an Asian dependency settling in Western Nations. However if you read the current article it is amazingly neutral and refers to any immigrant settling into any target culture.
So, if the Wikipedia is to be taken 'verbadem' then are us expats "FOB's"? And if the Wikipedia article is neutral and factual (surely all things on the Internet are factual *haha*) then are the less assymilated we are with Chinese language and culture, the more "FOBBie" we are?
The word FOB is also certainly alive and well in Australia and used to talk of immigrants from Asia. I found a tension between my FOB friends in Australia and my banana friends also in Australia - do you think such tension arises in Hong Kong between those of us expats who are more assimilated and those of us who wish to stay in our gwailo hangouts?
This is deep and philosophical, no harm intended in by any means. |
I think the Wikipedia article is only neutral because it's likely to have been edited by Americans who think that they are at the centre of the universe
Using it to describe Westerners in Asian settings is a bit counter-intuitive. First world Westerns generally will never assimilate, and most are not even in Asia for all that long.
I never came across the term in Oz (despite being Chinese and knowing loads of Vietnamese and Koreans). Or in the UK, or even in (more surprisingly) Canada. It could be an age thing though- perhaps the term took a while to move across from the US.