Recent events brought this Crapenstance back into my mind.
From time to time, I get sushi at Yotsuba down the street from my house.
In this particular instance, I sat at the sushi bar. Something I did or said made the sushi chefs realize that I could speak Japanese.
So a natural opener for a conversation is "Where are you from?" An answer like "originally from Downriver and currently in Ann Arbor" doesn't satisfy the answer... Ever.
Ok, my parents are from Pakistan, but I was born here. He responded with machine gun motion with sound effects... Ok, great. I just shrugged in response. In my head I was thinking "Did you really just do that?"
He then asked "How do you know how to speak Japanese? Are you a taxi driver?" I started laughing and I said "No, I studied it in college. I lived in Hikone and Tokyo."
Other conversational bits, "What kind of work do you do? Are you going to back to Japan?" He wasn't being malicious so I let the stereotypes slide.
Stereotypes, I can't seem to escape them. There are some bold-ass people out there. They are lucky they haven't caught me in Aggro-mode.