Prejudice

[Arizona Kid]

After I retired from the USN I worked for a short time at a hotel in San Diego. The General Manager was a very nice, but strict Filipino. We would eat lunch together almost every day that I worked there, the best part..he paid for the lunch. He had just got back from a vacation road trip with his family while we were eating lunch one day, and told me that he thought that the people in Montana are prejudice. He stopped at a restaurant there to eat with his family and said that everyone was staring at them. I asked him if he and his family were the only Filipinos there, and he said yes, everybody else was caucasian. 

I explained to him that whenever I, or other foreigners travel to the far parts of the Philippines provinces we get the same thing. Everybody stares at us because we are not a common sight. Nothing disrespectful..just curiosity. 

[Kuya John]

36 minutes ago, Arizona Kid said:

I explained to him that whenever I, or other foreigners travel to the far parts of the Philippines provinces we get the same thing. Everybody stares at us because we are not a common sight. Nothing disrespectful..just curiosity. 

I remember the first time I came to Philippines, children especially, would stare at me, I guess some kids had never seen a long nose white person before!

Life is changing so fast these days, but "Prejudice" is something brought out of fear or ignorance in a lot of cases. It's not anything I have found in my travels in Philippines so far, as you say it's more out of "Curiosity" most places.

[Old55]

When I first started visiting Philippines in the 90s it was very common people would openly stop and stare. Every day hear “hey Joe”.

I was stationed in Taipe Taiwan 1973-1975. People there were very friendly loved Americans. When I would walk home sometimes school children would shyly walk with me younger ones would hold my hand.

[JJReyes]

We were visiting friends in Randers, Denmark located in the Jutland peninsula.  At the time, my wife and I were the only persons with black hair and brown eyes.  Everyone else had blond hair and blue eyes.  Now, the adults tried to be polite and not stare.  But the children, especially the younger ones, would open their mouths and stare while pointing their fingers at us.  Our hosts explained the children thought we were Inuits or Eskimos from Greenland which is governed by Denmark.  So we played along by rubbing our noses much to the delight of the children.  The children were taught it is a common greeting among the natives from the artic region.  A few wanted to rub noses with us as a welcome to their town.

After the Vietnam war, there were lots of black haired children during our visit.  Some were adopted.  Others were from Vietnamese refugee families who were now residents.   Gone were the days of our rubbing noses.

Edited April 20, 2019 by JJReyes