Talking of stereotypes

Being Chinese, I am cheap, naturally.

At least that's what I'm told when I spend HK$4.50 on a pineapple bun for breakfast instead of splurging HK$20 on a blueberry muffin. It's not because I make journalist wages, or because I have weighed both of those foods to be about equal in tastiness and unhealthiness, which would make the pineapple bun a better deal. Nope, it's because I am a cheap Chinese.

My non-confrontational manner, my diligence about wearing sunscreen and my above-average arithmetic skills all can apparently be boiled down to my ethnic group. What is individuality, when we can blame everything on ethnicity?

But most Chinese would beg to differ on this assessment of me. As far as they are concerned, they just see someone who doesn't use MSN Messenger, never dresses for the weather and fails to go to the doctor when they get sick from not dressing for the weather. This means I'm an American with all the wrong values who alienates myself by insisting on using GChat.

I'd also rather not ask a Brit anything, in general, lest I endure the phrase so haphazardly thrown about: 'You Americans are so stupid.'

As a stupid American, I am stumped by the cultural stereotyping that I, and everyone else, must endure - and which, as you can see from the above, I am also guilty of. But having my ethnicity and nationality thrown in my face is still preferable to an even more accepted 'reason' for the way I am: 'It's because you're a girl.'