Generally in Europe and America vol.1

"Click" A room door is open. The American guy who checked in today comes back. We dorm mates stop talking for a while and listen his short report what's happen on the day. He wraps up the story and leaves the room shortly. Again the five room members, French guy, Spanish girls, Belgium guy and me, are left.
Matthew, the French, murmurs "Oh, American ... I got very nervous" The other mates nod with smile. It's interesting to me so I say "Sounds funny hearing you, a Westerner, are nervous in front of American" Then Anna, Spanish, says "Yeah, indeed, American is the different things. I got nervous too" She laughs.

I recall a topic from it. So I talk about it to them.
"When I was a kid, I thought all white people who I met in town was American. I also though all black people were African. Moreover, all foreigners speak English. I thought so. I think most of Japanese has knowledge more or less like that even now"
Matthew says with giggling "No, never. Cos our figure and body size are far from the American's. Neither the character"
Slow down Matthew, America is an immigrant nation. May be you can find some people who look like you. It must be a stereotype. Anyway "Now I ask you guys. Can you tell who's Japanese and who's Chinese?" "Neuuup" Everybody's laughin'

After all 'Westerner is all the same. We must talk to them in English' or 'Asian is all the same. Talk to them in Chinese' those rough roundup is quite usual for most people in the world although it's misunderstanding.
Long time ago, whenever I used be greeted 'Ni Hao' in many places on the globe, I told them I was Japanese. However now I don't care about it. Not a big deal. I respond their salute with 'Ni Hao' For all the other dorm mates here, the French, Spanish and Belgium, must be the same. When they are greeted 'Hello, Ms. or Mr. American' they might pretend a makeshift American and say 'Hello'
In truth, they are totally different from American. Even in Europe, they have a different back ground of culture, language, economy, society, custom and so on. But in daily conversation they never stick on it. Let it goes on.

On the contrary, saying in serious "Hey, Don't mix up with such a people" sounds so narrow minded and lack of flexibility. As for those people tend to round up roughly like 'Generally in European and American countries ...' or tell English supremacist. 'Oh! In Europe and America?' I'll talk about it in the next issue.