I disliked the part where he assumes he can tell where someone is born by looking at them. :(
I wonder if he thinks he looks like a native-born or an immigrant?
I wonder if he thinks he looks like a native-born or an immigrant?
Conversely, take a native born person of Japanese or Indian descent, and send them to Japan or India. The natives there will be able to tell he isn't native born.
A friend of mine who traveled to Central Asia was struck by how balanced people appeared; he found Westerners take up "too much space" in their movements, and East Asian people tended to do the opposite. But at least during his stay in Central Asia, he noticed the people there repeatedly showed an unconscious balance in their body language: neither too loud and aggressive, nor too quiet and subdued.
If you see me on the street, I believe you will see my family culture (Chinese) and where I was brought up (American Midwest). You will not see where I was born (East Coast).
And I'm talking about a relatively easy case of Chinese vs American. Are you going to tell me you can tell a Canadian-born person from an American-born at a glance?
Yes, many times you can tell where someone is from because of stereotypical cultural things that are difficult to hide. But to assume you can go for a walk and identify with certainty who is American born and who is not is ridiculous.
Abraham Cahan, _The Rise of David Delinsky_, published 1920s, set in the New York of the late 1800s & early 1900s.
There are studies (see Robert Levine, "Geography of Time") that use normal walking pace as a very characteristic indicator of geographic origin.
The FBI caught Adolf Eichmann in Argentina partly because they noticed his dissonant walking pace :)
Venkat
I am not offended, that sentence rubbed me the wrong way. I agree that most certainly culture affects our activities, even to the point of how we do seemingly simple things. But the culture you have and the place where you are born are very different things. Ask anyone who is born into a displaced family that preserves their original culture.
I am an American-born Chinese person that takes walks. When you see me and my wife strolling, at that moment, you are seeing my culture (that enjoys "san-bu") not my birth place.