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Q: Why don't people understand the difference between NATIONALITY and ETHNICITY?
Local A: What's your NATIONALITY?
ME: USA.
Local A: You don't look like you're from America!
ME: Yah, thats because my ETHNICITY is _______, ___________ and _______. I'm mixed.
Local A: Oh..............(long pause)......so NATIONALITY & ETHINICITY are different?
ME: Uh Huh.
.................................
The Question is a statement. Get it straight- this is my second post. Ok?
This seems to be a sticky and unclear issue in many places, not just China. For example, many Puertoricans consider being Puertorican a nationality while others consider it an ethnic or a cultural group. On top of that they here in China they often use Nationality and Minority Peoples interchangeably.
My response in both places is the same. I hide....
mattaya:
This is kind of strange...they say there are 100's of nationalities in china. In the states you either put down you African American, Asian American, etc., Your nationality is American but your ethnicity can vary.
GuilinRaf:
Many in Puerto Rico, especially those who favor independence, feel that our nationality is "Puertorican". So, we have Statehooders, Commonwealthers and Independentistas all of whom may or may not identify with the Democrats or the Republicans.
The history of those two words is insanely interesting. Nowadays, ethnicity usually refers to descent, while nationality usually refers to a common culture, language and coustoms in spite of background.
Ethnos originally meant something like what "nationality" means today (if you ignore the political implications). Then it came to mean non-Christian, much later. Ionians, Aeolians, Doric Greeks, etc saw themselves as having a different ancestry, and often considered themselves enemies, but being of the same "Ethnos" due to the similarities in culture and language (compared with the rest of the world).
Nation literally meant "born ones" but from early on had the meaning of the most barbaric of the barbaric tribes, the ones who could never be civilized, from the point of view of the Romans. In Latin it had an extremely negative meaning. I have no clue how it came to mean what it means today.
Chinese people for the most part have no clue about the rest of the world.
Ethnicity places NO part in nationality in Canada...especially in Vancouver where I am from. There are more people of Chinese and Indian "ethnicity" than there are caucasians overall.
I find the people here are ignorant in this regard.
When I first came here I was amazed at the complete lack of ethnic diversity. But they believe whatever their parents and friends tell them here...no matter what.
chinese people not onlyt have no idea of the world ethnicity but also don't real care about ethic issues in china.
in U.S.A or Europe, people have black and white,Europens and Africans, Latino and Asians. but in china, although we always say have 56 ethic races here, but most of races belong to Mongoloid. that mean most peopel have similiar face. so people here (especially in centeral provinces) can't tell what differents between nationality and ethnicity.
I'm trying to think if Chinese can even see past their own RMB much less race or ethnicity. I'm Canadian American with a mother who was cherokee and a father whose roots are European. Every where I go in China, are you from Russia?
Thats why I like being a lawyer in China, I love taking there money and sending them to a country who will for the most part be as biased to them as they are to everyone here and later ask WHY?
