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Originally Posted by PDLM  For example, if we apply the US standard as defined at Wiki then I don't think you could claim that anyone who isn't reasonably competent in Cantonese would be anything other than FOB here (cf non-English speakers in the US). |
I don't know if it was an American who wrote that article, but PDLM you are dead right. There are a few foreigners we 'sometimes' see on TV who reach this level of spoken Cantonese. So yes, even though my affections are towards local things, I am very FOBby indeed. I said elsewhere in this thread that I expect to be pretty FOBby for at least another 10 years. I could be FOBby for the rest of my life
if being like local people is the goal of the one adjusting to the target culture. So this observation can be between FOBby people and less FOBby people - not necessarily those who have totally adjusted.
Check this Australian woman speaking Cantonese, when I am at her level then I am not a FOB.
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Originally Posted by Skyhook Keeping ones cultural identity intact, is something I greatly admire about people, nothing is more sorry than a person who has lost their identity, and who is bitter about their home land, a person of great character will replace the i with an e, and makes things better. |
Many who know both myself and Skyhook know we're not the same on this topic - but it is something I admire in many people regardless. Skyhook is very proud, even enough to have as his hometown, "Born under the glow of the Victorian Southern Cross". I am in fact the same but write my hometown as "Hong Kong". Why? I don't know why we differ and I don't think it matters. My mainland friends are flattered that I love something about their Country and they like to hear me talk nice things about China. What makes me love it more then my own? I don't know and I don't think it really matters.
I think this is totally part of the FOB article in Wikipedia. In Australia if someone from Asia said, "I love Australia so much, I now call Australia home", Skyhook, would you be flattered? Or anyone else if you were in your home Country and a migrant said that? It's all neutral, I know there are positive things about my home Country, yet when a center of reality shifts with the new culture, it just shifts. For some they don't experience this - for some they do. I think people don't like it more because they don't like hearing things about the place they most love - I think we all understand, but we all love different places (and try and understand and appreciate them all).
Summary: I think it is all part of the FOB phonomena how we handle other foreigners ways or adjusting here in Hong Kong, especially when their way of adjusting is different from our personal experience.
