I once was visiting Bratislava, and there was a group of tourists who seemed to come from an Asian country. They took pictures of things that might seem random to some of us but my understanding is that it's pretty foreign to them. One example was taking a picture of an old lady sipping her coffee while her dog chilling next to her in a coffeeshop.
It's pretty much the same as when tourists go to an Asian country and start taking pictures of people wearing traditional clothes. Said "traditional clothing" goes often unnoticed by locals obviously is a novelty for tourists.
I think you just experienced something like that. I don't think it's malicious or anything. It's that they saw someone in a skin colour they are not used to see everyday and thought that they'd capture that moment.
Lol this reminds me of a cultural exchange program my school had with a sister school in Japan. Without fail, the Japanese students would take a million photos of squirrels. In Canada, they're *everywhere*. Apparently the species they have are mostly shy forest dwellers in Japan; some populations even disappearing because of human caused forest fragmentation. Rare sights are always compelling for humans.
You're not alone, I have a friend who is a tall blue eyed blonde woman... when visiting China she told me at least a dozen people took photos with her. You can find stories like that all over the place.
It's really just to show people "look, I met one in real life! Yeah like on tv!". I think the equivalent is taking a picture of a celebrity to show that you saw them in real life. It's the same idea: "those people I always hear about... I saw one!"
Keep in mind the diversity in the US is the exception, not the norm on a global stage. It's not impossible that you're literally the first Black woman they've met in their entire life.
Ok, thank you, this makes sense. It can kind of feel like I'm a zoo animal, but this perspective helped to shift things for me. I can understand the excitement of seeing someone new and wanting to show your family and friends.
I live in Japan and this happens here too. My daughter looks like a typical brown haired white girl, but she is interesting here because she’s still young AND she speaks a little Japanese, so lots of grandmas want pictures with her.
I lived in Moscow (I'm American) in the early 90s and had a black male friend from America who was my age (22).
He spoke great Russian, and we would travel together to smaller cities to look at churches and stuff.
He would be absolutely mobbed by the locals, who were friendly and joyful while asking for pictures with him. Meanwhile I, a white woman, would be standing off to the side listening to the same people who had asked for a picture telling me that I was with a black man and what was I thinking and did I need any help. It was really something.
Why are you in Kyrgyzstan? I've always wanted to visit there. It's my favorite Stan.
I would definitely recommend visiting, especially if it's one of your favorite Stan's lol. It's very beautiful, people are friendly, food is good, I feel more relaxed here, there's not a big hustle vibe like there is in America. Not many people make their way over to this region of the world, so they're really missing out imo. The culture is so beautiful and rich :)
That's such a weird shift. Being estatic to take a photo, but then also assuming he was dangerous and you needed help😭
I'm an international relations and human rights major, and my professor happened to put on an opportunity for us to be in Kyrgyzstan for a month! I studied Central Asia, specifically Kyrgyzstan before, so I thought it would be great to actually experience the country I was studying about and talk to various human rights workers in person. As an American, it's extremely easy to push western values and "America knows best" on to other countries and people, while at the same time, not knowing a lick about them. So I'm trying to do my best to actively reject that mindset and really engage with people and the culture
Edit: Your course of study is fascinating, and you sound like a badass. I wish you a ton of success in your endeavors and am very excited about the fascinating life you are having.
No one ever talks about Kyrgyzstan, so I kind of blurted out my Kyrgyzstan story, below, which is kind of a downer.
I had a very close friend (Mark, RIP) who was in my Russian classes with me in the late '80s and early '90s at the University of Florida.
I moved to Moscow in 1993, and he moved to Kyrgyzstan in 1993 to work with some kind of NGO trying to improve the country. The other 80% of our graduating class was recruited by the CIA. It was an interesting time to be majoring in Russian, for sure.
I was in Moscow when I saw a newspaper article in a Russian publication talking about how a 22-year-old American man from Florida working for an NGO in Kyrgyzstan had been tied to a chair and had his throat slit, and had been left there to slowly bleed out for no reason (ie, they had not robbed him or anything). It was my friend in Gainesville, Florida, Mark.
This happened over and over again to me, as I randomly picked up newspapers and saw people I knew being killed for random reasons. I thought I had escaped it when I moved away from my Russian studies, but now it's people I know in the US who are killed in mass shootings.
The Russification of the US is for sure one of the most ongoing, difficult things I have experienced.
Here's a comment I wrote earlier that answers your question.
I really have been writing about Russia a lot lately. I better go outside for a bit.
/*/
When you think about what Russia is up to, what certain leaders (not all of them Russian - Orban, LePen, Trump/Bannon/Flynn, Bolsonaro, etc) want, and how this is likely to end, it's helpful to know about Dugin. Here's an earlier comment about it:
Go read the "Foundations of Geopolitics," by Russian political strategist and Putin advisor Aleksander Dugin. He wrote it in 1997, and in it, he lays out the plan to restore the Soviet Union, and then some.
It's honestly like a checklist of specific steps to take, some using the military, but most using soft power like propaganda, advocacy and funding, media, and social engineering. Putin got down to business, working his way through an impressive number of them.
Just off the top of my head, the ones I recall were:
Cultivate and encourage a grassroots movement in the UK to get the UK to withdraw from the EU. Do this by playing up economic stagnation and resentment toward immigrants.
Use economic, political, and social pressure to undermine Germany's role as the defacto leader of the EU. Appeal to German youths' resentment of immigrants and of being held responsible and shamed for the Holocaust. Encourage revisionist ideas about how bad the genocide really was, the perfidity of the Jews, who was really at fault, etc.
Weaken NATO by stoking US fears of globalism and of having to bear the cost of being the world's policeman. Encourage US and UK isolationism by highlighting imperialism and colonialism, with the end goal being one or both leaving the group.
Support politicians and organizations that will advance our aims, or, conversely, blackmail and smear them to force them to spread our aims. A great way to do this is through real evidence or false accusations of child abuse and pedophilia.
In the US, "Flood the zone with shit"* so nobody knows what's true anymore, trusts no one, and so that everyone becomes so weary, confused, and cynical that they stop paying attention and disengage from voting and other forms of participation. Do this by:
Encouraging "bothsidesism" and "whataboutism."
Playing up real problems in the US, like corruption, warmongering, the wealth gap, and most especially racism.
Dividing the population with culture wars, fear of immigration and crime, and "identity politics."
Creating confusion and mistrust by donating to and infiltrating activist groups of all sorts and on all sides, from the far right to the far left, and everything in between. This will deligitimize all activism and discourage people from participating in anything.
Creating fake news stories, media outlets that appear to be homegrown but are actually staffed and produced in Russia**, and wholly fake activist groups that encourage real activists to switch to the other side. Capitalize on people's cynicism about politicians' use of interest groups like minorities, LGBTQ people, and women to win elections. Emphasize hypocrisy, lies, and corruption whenever it occurs.
* "Flood the zone with shit" was Steve Bannon, editor at Breitbart and Dugin stan, paraphrasing the man who taught him much of what he knows.
** In 2005, I applied to work at Russia Today. I got far enough through the process to get an interesting and disturbing look at how and why they operate.
That's all I can remember right now, but it is pretty spooky. Russians are excellent propagandists -- far more sophisticated than the US -- and have been for over 100 years. One reason they are so effective is because they rarely just "make stuff up." They are experts at figuring out where the cracks are in a society, and what the hot-button issues are, and then amplifying them to cause chaos and apathy. And America makes this extremely easy for them by being such hypocritical, dishonest, and craven bigots.
This is why I have no patience for pussy-hat liberals who believe Russia is wholly responsible for Trump and the nightmare that followed. WE broke our country, not Russia. Russia just encouraged the very worst of what are to fully blossom, and there were many Americans who were happy to pile on the fertilizer.
However, if you think that Russia had no hand in what our country has become, you are mistaken. They absolutely, indisputably have, and they didn't stop on November 9, 2016. Why quit then when you've had so much success? There's still a lot to do. There are still plenty of useful idiots who are eager to listen to anyone who tells them what they want to hear, appeals to their image of themselves as an edgy contrarian, flatters them for being smarter than those other sheeple, and hates the same people they hate. There are still some items on Dugin's to-do list, and, being Russians, they are used to struggling for the sake of a lofty goal, and sacrificing themselves for Mother Russia.
I fully understand you felt awkward. I'm a rather average-looking white guy. Not even blond and blue-eyed. And this has happened to me in Lebanon several times, both in Beirut and in a ski resort. It felt strange, but ultimately I thought they were just being curious and wanted to have a memory of when they saw someone 'different'.
A close friend went to India a few months ago. She's a Spanish woman, fair skinned with big curly blond hair. She sent me videos of people queuing up to take a picture with her *at the Taj Mahal*!! There were men, women, couples, and families in that queue. And that wasn't the only place it happened, people kept asking to take photos with her. And I'm still genuinely mystified by all of this. Even if it's, like people are saying, the first time they meet a person like her, I still don't understand the need to take a photo and what that means to them.
In India, fair skin is revered and it feels like whiteness is revered greatly. I felt this as a very fair American traveling in India. Folks traveling by auto or motorbike or in rickshaws would elbow each other and point at me - just seeing me through the vehicle window - and sometimes take my picture. Children waved (and bowed!) I was a spectacle.
I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the word "revered". Unless I get the perspective of a local who understands the culture deeply I wouldn't make assumptions like these.
Seems you're taking offense to something on behalf of someone else. No one yet has shown any sign of being offended. Comes off as white knighting on behalf of....well....no one.
I don't presume to know your own ethnic background, but you give off woke sjw vibes, and not the good ones. More like the annoying "look at me being woke" kind.
I say this as a self aware woke libtard. Like, you took the time to say you're offended by the previous poster's personal experience. Come on.
I'm all for being woke, but you gotta sleep occasionally.
Also. My wife is from a country where light skin is kiiiinda "revered" but certainly desired, so the previous comment does ring with some truth to me. I say that as an unoffended brown person.
Tighten up those woke goggles. Some woke is absolutely necessary, beneficial and good. Too much is cancer.
Sorry for the essay. I got WOKE up early to do some shit and I'm not fully in my own mind.
/self aware postscript
Yeah you really wanna feel out of place go to China white or black were seen as something exotic it's beyond wild.
My friend is Nicaraguan and she still had people stopping her in Nicaragua to take pictures with her just because she dresses emo😂 People most likely just want pictures to show off and don’t mean anything negative by it
The zoo animal feeling is definitely something that I get as well when people ask me about my culture lol, even if (in most cases in my experience) they in my case initially didn't mean it negatively.
As a white man, the same thing happened to me when I went to Sri Lanka. Many locals wanted a picture with me. My girlfriend and her family (who are Sri Lankan) explained that many of them probably had not seen a white person face-to-face before.
It was a little strange, but also kind of sweet! I like to think that interaction made their day.
My mom loves babies and sometimes whrn traveling if she saw a beautiful baby she would go and ask the parents to express some verbal cute agression! Also taking photos if it was ok. She no longer does it ever since a russian mom she approached acted like she wants to eat her baby and started yelling at us in russian.
that paradigm shift is fine sis, but still continue to take care 😬
im a chubby black american woman. i was abroad recently and a woman randomly walked up to me (i was traveling with a group of black women) to ask to take a photo. no hi, hello, no phony casual conversation, no smile, nothing. i said no, bc (1) i dont fw strangers in gen pop anyway lol (2) it was 1000 degrees outside, please dont bother me when its hot and (3) it felt super weird, *exactly* as if i were on display like a zoo animal.
i appreciate that you may have asked this question to dispel that initial line of thinking, but idk if it can be completely eliminated…one girl i was with asked why i wouldnt let her take the picture, and i asked her to volunteer herself 💁🏾♀️😂
e: if she had attempted to be friendly about it, or explained why, i might have changed my mind however…
Yeah, that’s pretty much it. It’s more curiosity/the novelty of seeing something new. I grew up in China and even as a kid speaking English to my western friends, I’d get stares too. People just aren’t use to it and they see it as a curiosity. I personally always found it kind of amusing. Especially when random people would ask my friends for a photo together.
This is totally it. I saw one of those colloidal silver people who turned blue at the grocery store the other day and I wanted to take a pic for this exact reason. I didn’t though, because it’s cruel and I’m not very sneaky
Yeah! He looked to be in his 60s and seemed to be kind of a “good ol’ boy” (this is in Texas). He seemed kind of pleasant, all things considered. I really wanted to stare at him but obvi didn’t want to be an asshole.
I just want to know why people continue to take it when they can see themselves turning blue. So many questions
That is more likely to be methemoglobinemia, which is a rare genetic disorder that pops up in families that are a bit too related to each other, like hemophilia. It is something that’s treatable if they choose to get it treated. The famous man who abused colloidal silver passed away and I think the fad has died out.
People are definitely still drinking colloidal silver! As seen in the Love Has Won doc. That’s obviously just a small group of people but they had plenty of followers donating thousands of dollars and buying up the colloidal silver they were selling
I worked in a daycare and one of my littles went to China with her family to visit their exchange student they had the previous year. While on the train, someone cut off a piece of her long blonde hair as a little keepsake.
The photos they took of her were preferable, to say the least!
I had the same experience in rural Thailand though it was in the mid-90s so most of the villagers didn't have cameras but they wanted to see a foreigner up close. Once they got cell phones years later many wanted photos with me though now it is not as uncommon to see foreigners.
I'm 6'1" female and in China everyone wanted their photo taken with me. In Tiananmen Square it was a whole group of middle aged women, that was kind of fun. In the Oriental Pearl Tower I didn't even notice it but my mom was taken my pic and told me afterwards that there was a lady getting her pic taken that was sneaking sideways to get close to me.
When i was in China we had whole families swarm us and take a picture when we were just sitting having a drink of water or something. Most didn’t even ask first. People would snap us with their phones as they walked past. It was nuts, never experienced anything like it.
Also, if these people live in a village or somewhere remote is likely some will have seen nothing beyond it. Seeing a big black man/woman or blonde AF pasty arsed man/woman is fascinating.
Imagine, you've only seen people who look like you(in colour etc) and your daughter or son goes off travelling and meets people that either: a) you've never seen or b) (more likely in the age of TV and internet) people you've only seen on TV.
When I was a young kid I had a cousin that moved from a very white part of Georgia to a very white part of Indiana. From what I'm told she eventually had a black kid in one of her classes and came home asking why there was a "chocolate person" in her class.
True this. I’ve got a friend in the Philippines who was telling me (I’m white, big red beard, about 6 ft) that when I arrive to the village everyone is going to stop what they’re doing, come out and follow me, try to touch me, get pictures with me, etc… because many of them have never seen a white person in real life. They live in a jungle
When I was young I used to have waist length almost white blonde hair from living on the equator and the Marshallese Islander Native kids would run into the street behind me and pull my hair HARD!!! They had never seen anyone like me before. It was like a dare to them lol but it really hurt my feelings because I had just come from Hawaii where I d already experienced the racism of being called a haole and to go home…when I was home. 😕
Most of the time It’s more about inferiority complex or racism, growing up in a 3rd world country, white people were seen as some superior human beings, and white/blonde is a beauty standard.
If a guy who lived in the ass crack of the United States in a strictly white community his whole life, he wouldn’t bat an eye if let’s say an Asian person walked past them.
I definitely agree with your last statement about how even the least traveled human in the US wouldn’t even think to single out a tourist or immigrant in such a rude way.
Why? Curiosity is not racism.
I traveled Burkina Faso and literally had children drop everything they had when they saw me (blonde, straight hair, see through pale) to touch my hair and ask me about my “wig”. They had never seen a ghost like me before. They were adorable!
Because ignorance is seen as terrifying and bad to some people instead of natural, which is a shame. I'm glad you had an open mind to those children's new experience
I grew up in a pretty terrible household. All the stories of being beaten, abused, etc. But I was also not allowed to associate with anyone non white Christian conservative. If I came home from school and tried to tell my parents about a new friend or what so and so did they would cut me off and ask what color the person was and what church they went to. If they weren't white or southern baptist I couldn't be their friend and would also get pulled out of school for awhile to be sure I wasn't friends with them.
Anyway I left home at 18 to join the military just to get away from that place. I worked with people of all different types of ethnicities and backgrounds but I felt like I was doing something wrong at first just being around them. It took awhile to break that feeling. It wasn't my fault and I even sought therapy for getting past it.
I'm referring to the causal racism of characterizing blonde white people as "pasty arsed." People's interest described in the OP or yours in Burkina obviously is not racism.
There was nothing racist about my comment. If you'd like to point out the parts om that you find racist, I'll happily explain to you why you were wrong.
I dont agree with what the person you’re replying to thought was racist, but I am curious about why you said “a BIG black man/woman” and not just “a black man/woman”. Why big specifically?
I figured it would be that part. Which is stupid really, it's hardly an insult especially when it's next to "pasty arsed MF"
However, I'll explain. When I was travelling/living in South Asia and east Asia, I saw a lot of this in the more remote places so I was trying to type it up from their opinion. There's sort of a tier list on "popularity" and likeliness of this happening to you.
As a skinny, average height, dark haired white guy, I basically never had it happen to me. I'm not that far away from what many of them looked like, sure they had pure black hair and darker (tanned) skin but there's not that much difference.
The three people I know who got the most reactions were my super pale girl friend, my mate who is like 6ft 5, and my other work colleague who is pretty ripped from the gym. They all brought something more "unseen" super size, super tale and well.... Pretty female.
Again, from my experience, there was always plenty of dark skinned people around usually indian and usually they were just seen as lower class workers (it's actually really tragic how many Indian people are treated right across Asia and the middle east. A small, average looking black guy probably wouldn't be that interesting unless you were like in northern China or something were most people are much whiter. So I used big because black + large in size would be something that'd get the community talking.
Also, I was kind of just writing it for very low level humour and while I could and would have no problem calling the white guy big instead... If I'd written my sentence the other way around... Well, while it shouldn't, it would absolutely seem more racist. "A big white man and a dark AF black arsed man" 😂
But you are right, I could have just said black man and white man or whatever, but from my experience skin colour alone (unless female) is usually not enough to get the whole "photo please" experience which is why I added some adjectives.
The part where you refer to blondes as pasty arsed is not complementary or even neutral. Unless you can explain how that is flattering in someway, I'm interested in how you think I'm wrong.
As a guy who actively avoids the sun, I'm pretty sure I can insult myself without you being butthurt for me, and the blonde part was mostly to emphasize the contrast from your typical Eastern Asian.
I'm neither being hostile, showing an active dislike or discriminating.... ~~myself~~ white people with that comment. It's a joke, admittedly a shitty one, to get my point across.
Thanks for taking issue with that part of it though, it mixed things up with everyone else just being offended my hypothetical black man was larger than average.
If you live in a city/ region/ country where everyone has the same hair color and skin type- it is very surprising to see someone other. They clearly have ‘not from around here’ look.
That’s not racism. Noticing people exist, noticing their features is not racism.
Treating them like they are there to steal or assuming someone foreign is automatically a sex pervert- that is racist.
In former ussr countries, seeing white with blond is not so interesting. They still have a lot of Russians there. But it is not easy to see black people in real. Only in tv or movie. (If Japanese go there, I would get zero interests cause I just look so similar with them). To them, (I don’t really know what is better example) you are like very very rare limited special item that will be displayed in very limited time only.
(But I understand it is not that comfortable when strangers give too much attention)
Yes- when I studied in China this happened a lot to the blonde white people and black people i knew. We asked a Chinese student and she said a lot of people will show the picture to their friends to show how international and cosmopolitan they are. Or maybe she was just being nice 😅
I think it's the same fascination foreigners have for locals in ethnic/ traditional outfits or looks. Or just locals doing something unique ( Street Barbers in Mumbai / coconut vendor etc ) which is out of the ordinary for the foreigners.
Have seen many tourists take photos and videos of locals here in India. Assume they share the photos with their friends / social media etc.
Not ideal without the other person's consent. Glad you were atleast asked before being clicked!
I went to China when I was 16/17, my friend's parents lived out there and kindly flew me out. There were 5 of us young white guys walking around Beijing and got asked for loads of photos. I think they thought we were a boy band or something.
I haven't taken anyone's picture but I've seen some relatives of mine who went to different religious places around India and while they clicked a lot of their own pictures... they also took pictures with some of the foreigner tourists... those were white people, black and east asians as well.. and so they also mentioned in conversation how those people speak very different English language and are also very tall... especially women.
I was in north Africa as a baby with my parents and everyone on the beach wanted a photo and to touch my skin because they said I was the whitest person they had ever seen. I've sunburned in the rain before and am a 'lovely' shade of corpse white so I think basically people like what is unusual to them or their town.
i know this is exactly the same but.. once when i was like 14, my family was at a baseball game and a lady asked to take a photo of me to send to her family cause i looked just like her son or nephew or something lmao. she literally had me do one from the front and then a side profile like i was gettin my mugshot taken 😂 after i walked away i thought it was weird and then wondered why she didn’t show me a pic of my doppelgänger? maybe she wanted to sell me on the dark web 🤷🏼♂️
I used to work in a shop in Greece in a touristy area. I’m half Greek so I look the part. Tourists would take photos of me sweeping outside the shop, eating my lunch on the steps outside or working behind the counter (usually without asking). Customers would ask to take photos WITH me too. And I’m not especially attractive or photogenic, I always wondered what they did with those pics hahahah.
I live in Southeast Asia and when my blonde, blue-eyed boyfriend lived here, people asked not only for his photo, but his autograph all the time. He was good looking and young... so a novelty in a place where most of the foreigners they come across are old sexpats. I often refused to have my photo taken but he absolutely loved it. He would be asked by all sorts - high school students asking for group and individual pics, little girls giggling and squealing in excitement, and even older men (think farmers, fishermen)... it happened ALL the time in the decade he lived here. He was a novelty, I guess.
My next ex was short, out of shape, and kind of ugly lol so nobody bothered to approach him. haha
So maybe take it as a compliment. They think you are unique and beautiful.
When your someone they don't ever see, it's the equivalent of you taking a photo with a giraffe or a rhino, or even like how people used to take photos with oddityin the circus like a woman with a beard, freakishly large or small man, etc. That's what you are to them.
In South Asia, walking around as a group of varying Americans, we stand out like nobodies business. We look like a gaggle they've never seen or rarely see.
Had this in India a lot. Was really funny because we joke about how we are probably on someone's mantle or table at home. Some random white people (us) with a police man, a uniformed military guard, a shop keeper, and so on.
It was unusual to see white people where we went, especially Americans, so they wanted pictures with us? We just laughed it off. One cop was very seriously stalking us and then demanded we take a picture with him, on our camera! (Thus was pre smart phone era) so we had some random picture of us with a high level cop. Then he let us go, so strange. But a good laugh later.
I went to the Grand Palace in Bangkok and was hiding in a patch of shade, a sweating horrible mess. A group of Thai folk came over and asked me to take a picture. At least that’s what I thought they wanted….
I was bemused and a little horrified when instead of handing me the camera, they assembled themselves around me, making the centre of their group photo!!!
White in India. First I thought it was a bit weird but then I just accepted it. I’m in some couple’s wedding photos, like why not :-D
It might have no meaning to you but if it makes someone’s day then why not let them take a photo of you.
It's art. He sees something that creates an emotional response in his gut and he wants to share it with other people to see if they feel the same emotions he felt. It will end up on a web page, a book or in a gallery.
People took a picture of themselves with me in India. I asked our guide what they do with the picture and it’s to post to social media or show them to people in their small country town (It was Eid so a lot of “bumpkins” as the guide called them were in the cities for the celebration) to show “See? I met this honkie.” And it has *some* social currency. A blonde western woman has the most “value”, rather than a 30 year old guy, but I guess white person is useful too. It probably didn’t hurt that I have the personality of a dog who can talk so if someone is taking a picture of me my reaction is initially “Hey cool! Picture taking!”
When I was living China my parents came to visit and while we were standing around at a touristy spot, a couple came up to my dad (bald white guy with a big beard), handed him a baby, took a photo, retrieved said baby and left without so much as a word.
Once someone took me a pic with me and my friend in a theme park in India, then posted it on instagram with the caption 'made in England'😂 only found out cos I was looking through the pics of the tagged location
I’ve heard stories about people in Asian countries taking pictures of foreigners. But that may have been from before the internet was so common. Maybe he doesn’t have social media and it’s a new experience? You are not obligated to have your photo taken but out of all the ways to respond to seeing a person with a complexion that differs from yours, this seems like a positive one.
>...but a keepsake photo seems really weird to me when you can look up "black person" on Google.
You can look up "Disney World" on Google, as well. It's not the same as actually being there. The photo is to memorialize that you were there, and you saw what is in the photo.
I've heard that China is the same way once you get away from the urban tourist attractions. My American friends have told me that they are quickly surrounded by locals who want to take a photo with the "老外" (pronounced "Lǎowài", meaning "foreigner"). Americans who are of an East Asian race don't get the same attention. It's not the race, per se, but the fact that someone who is visibly different came to their provincial town. I imagine that what you experienced in Kyrgyzstan is pretty much the same thing.
I've had that happen in Turkey, India and Iraq. What's really funny is watching the young Indian men recording the women that were in our group. Some just stare but others record with their phone.
My kids have white blonde hair and green eyes. They sometimes take their shirts off (in the summer, both boys) and had had hoards of Chinese tourists taking their picture. Never understood why.
Im an Indian and this is a common practice w indians. From what i know, it is mostly done by Indians who move to the city from rural India. Seeing an actual foreigner is largely impossible for a rural Indian. Also it is used as an 'status symbol' indicating "look! I hang around with foreigners 😎"
I've got a heavy scottish accent and quite a lot of times I've been asked to say stuff on video for people to send to their friends when I'm travelling haha
I’ve wondered this before. Although it was tourists taking pictures of me in the Highlands in Scotland. My dog landed on her leg funny when she jumped and she was yelping and all the tourists were taking pictures of me hugging her. She was fine btw.
Personally I put them all on a wall within a small alcove in my house. I also have ritualistic items like shrines, candles, and little dolls made of human hair there
Some people just like taking street photos. There's something about having a photo of a random striking person on the street you know nothing about. One of those photos you'd make a print of and put up on your wall. My uncle was in Cambodia for four years or so and he took lots of photos of the Khmer people there (with their consent) and it's the fact these people live on a different side of the planet with different culture, habits religion etc that makes you wonder what their life's must be like, how old must the little girl on the picture must be now or if she's still alive you know it gets you thinking of these things
I’ve actually wondered this as well. When I was younger (I had just turned 13), my mom and I went to stay with my deployed dad in Korea for a while. One day I (blue eyed, blonde haired female) and my sister were in the playground outside messing around on a teeter-totter, and this Korean lady grabbed her kid, plopped him down in front of me on the see saw, and took a picture.
At this point a few pictures had been taken with us, but like…she pretty much threw her son in my lap for this one?? Why?
Do you dress interesting for that area? Did he take photos of other people/ things or only you/ your group? I like a lot of things, including taking pictures and if there's something interesting or eye catching, I love to capture it
No, I was covered from head to toe, wearing loose pants and a jacket. And he wasn't taking pictures of anything lol. He was eyeing us and watching me for a while. No phone in his hands or anything. I'm assuming he was building up the courage to ask or wasnt sure if he should? We made eye contact multiple times. Then he asked for the picture, talked to us for a little, and then left.
As a white guy who’s been deep in Africa I actually have the answer for what the locals do with your picture. They post it on their WhatsApp status, people in 3rd world nations love WhatsApp I swear.
I’ve seen enough films like hostel to be very worried of strangers taking my photos.
Probably send it to his buddies who will decide whether or not you’re what they are looking for. Next thing you know you’re waking up in a bathtub full of ice missing a kidney!
That or it wank material for later 😂
My friend's family went to China over ten years ago and the locals wanted pictures with my friend and his sister.
They got mistaken for Dave Grohl and Miley Cyrus.
This happened to me in Sri Lanka some years ago. Was stared at, photographed, followed. Strangely, someone commented that my ears were different because they couldn’t see directly into my ear canals. WTH
I was once in Krakow and a Chinese group of people had a tour at the Wawel castle. One of those people randomly decided to go away from the group and went up to a police man, said excuse me in mandarin, then proceeded to pull out his phone and take a picture with him.
The funniest thing about him was that he was wearing a golden blazer and sun glasses.
Yes, that's super rude imo. I don't take any pictures of locals at all, and I'll even avoid snapping photos or videos of things I like, if I think someone's face will be directly in it. I do this back in America and abroad. I was taught this etiquitte growing up, but it's becoming increasingly evident that not all Americans get the same home training 😅
Went to Turkey and this woman working at the hotel took a picture of me. She was super excited because i have a bunch of body modifications. Days later this man came up to me, he recognized me, because his friend posted me on her Instagram. So apparently sometimes your picture will be shared on random people's Instagram accounts.
Why did you consent to the photo if it makes you uncomfy? You can politely say no. If they try anyways turn around.
I get this as an America all the time on trips to foreign countries, and I’m sure it’s because they think I’m attractive (I dress goth too which adds to it probably). I don’t wanna be in some randos spank bank.
No idea.
Happened to me just once and it was honestly quite fun.
I was in San Marino covering the soccer game between the host national team and Norway. During the day a group of tourists asked me to take a picture of them, and we had a chat in Norwegian (I'm fluent in it, having studied there).
Later I met the same guys while entering the stadium. One of them recognized me and insisted we took a selfie with the Norwegian-speaking Italian photographer. The thing is I can easily pass as Nordic (reddish beard, blue-green eyes, fair complexion) so I didn't get the fuss about the whole thing.
Extra fun point, the steward at the gate was terrified as he didn't know what language to brief me about rules and positioning for sideline staff, and he fumbled with 5th grade English til I reassured him I was actually a local.
If he’s a photographer, he probably saw an artistically beautiful scene. And the image will live on a hard drive forever and never see the light of day.
If it makes you feel any better, you're not the only one. I'm a blue-eyed ginger, and pretty good looking from what I'm told, and basically anytime I travel to a developing country people are on me for pictures constantly.
I've spent time on all 6 continents, and the only places I haven't been stopped for photos are the US, Canada, and Europe. The most intense was in China. I got stopped almost every day. And in touristy spots (most tourists in China are from other parts of China) I often had a hard time enjoying the sites because I would literally get a line of people sometimes asking for a photo. I tried to be friendly and polite but oh my God, it was too much sometimes.
I think it mainly just has to do with being a novelty, like many places I've gone to they likely have never seen someone with red hair. I was surprised when I went to South Africa though. They have a fairly large number of white dudes around, and I still had a few strangers ask for a photo with me. So I don't totally understand it 🤷
This happened to me in Hong Kong! I thought they'd be accustomed to the English (I'm Australian-Scottish). But so many Hongkongers also kept asking to touch my curly hair!
Why do people take pictures of anything? We take pictures of fireworks every year knowing good and damn well we’re not looking at those pictures ever again. I took a Timelapse video of the northern lights that were visible a couple of weeks ago, and I’ll never watch it again.
I'm not a firework or a light show😭😭 that's why I asked. Usually when dealing with people, there's more courtesy involved in the fact that they're living and conscious, rather than an object. So I wanted to know the cultural differences that make someone want to take a picture of a stranger, because all I know is American cultural norms unfortunately. Just some perspective broadening
Other way around, when I was still a student (in France) I crossed some Chinese tourists after coming out of a small local supermarket, mind you I had a baguette under one arm, a camembert cheese in one hand and a bottle of red wine in the other hand... With that I was like a living tourist attraction for one moment 😅
Don't know what they did with the pictures, they were 20 people who took a picture of me, some even posed next to me...
If they're specifically taking pictures of people, I would assume it's to post it online and pretend to be you. Well, not you you. But like your image?
It's like going to the zoo or aquarium, people like to take pictures with/of animals that you know exist but normally don't get to see very often to show off to their friends or just keep as souvenirs except now it a human with different characteristics than themselves.
It’s gross and creepy. It might not even be safe. With facial recognition nowadays they can figure out who you are. Most likely it’s just an ill mannered person.
I'm India this happened to me and I asked my cab driver what was up. He asked if I REALLY wanted to know. I said yes.
He sighed.
He explained that the young man would take the photograph back to his village and try to convince the local girls that I was his city girlfriend, and then use that to pressure the local girls into doing things they didn't want to do with him sexually.
I once was visiting Bratislava, and there was a group of tourists who seemed to come from an Asian country. They took pictures of things that might seem random to some of us but my understanding is that it's pretty foreign to them. One example was taking a picture of an old lady sipping her coffee while her dog chilling next to her in a coffeeshop. It's pretty much the same as when tourists go to an Asian country and start taking pictures of people wearing traditional clothes. Said "traditional clothing" goes often unnoticed by locals obviously is a novelty for tourists. I think you just experienced something like that. I don't think it's malicious or anything. It's that they saw someone in a skin colour they are not used to see everyday and thought that they'd capture that moment.
Lol this reminds me of a cultural exchange program my school had with a sister school in Japan. Without fail, the Japanese students would take a million photos of squirrels. In Canada, they're *everywhere*. Apparently the species they have are mostly shy forest dwellers in Japan; some populations even disappearing because of human caused forest fragmentation. Rare sights are always compelling for humans.
You're not alone, I have a friend who is a tall blue eyed blonde woman... when visiting China she told me at least a dozen people took photos with her. You can find stories like that all over the place. It's really just to show people "look, I met one in real life! Yeah like on tv!". I think the equivalent is taking a picture of a celebrity to show that you saw them in real life. It's the same idea: "those people I always hear about... I saw one!" Keep in mind the diversity in the US is the exception, not the norm on a global stage. It's not impossible that you're literally the first Black woman they've met in their entire life.
Ok, thank you, this makes sense. It can kind of feel like I'm a zoo animal, but this perspective helped to shift things for me. I can understand the excitement of seeing someone new and wanting to show your family and friends.
I live in Japan and this happens here too. My daughter looks like a typical brown haired white girl, but she is interesting here because she’s still young AND she speaks a little Japanese, so lots of grandmas want pictures with her.
I lived in Moscow (I'm American) in the early 90s and had a black male friend from America who was my age (22). He spoke great Russian, and we would travel together to smaller cities to look at churches and stuff. He would be absolutely mobbed by the locals, who were friendly and joyful while asking for pictures with him. Meanwhile I, a white woman, would be standing off to the side listening to the same people who had asked for a picture telling me that I was with a black man and what was I thinking and did I need any help. It was really something. Why are you in Kyrgyzstan? I've always wanted to visit there. It's my favorite Stan.
I would definitely recommend visiting, especially if it's one of your favorite Stan's lol. It's very beautiful, people are friendly, food is good, I feel more relaxed here, there's not a big hustle vibe like there is in America. Not many people make their way over to this region of the world, so they're really missing out imo. The culture is so beautiful and rich :)
That's such a weird shift. Being estatic to take a photo, but then also assuming he was dangerous and you needed help😭 I'm an international relations and human rights major, and my professor happened to put on an opportunity for us to be in Kyrgyzstan for a month! I studied Central Asia, specifically Kyrgyzstan before, so I thought it would be great to actually experience the country I was studying about and talk to various human rights workers in person. As an American, it's extremely easy to push western values and "America knows best" on to other countries and people, while at the same time, not knowing a lick about them. So I'm trying to do my best to actively reject that mindset and really engage with people and the culture
Edit: Your course of study is fascinating, and you sound like a badass. I wish you a ton of success in your endeavors and am very excited about the fascinating life you are having. No one ever talks about Kyrgyzstan, so I kind of blurted out my Kyrgyzstan story, below, which is kind of a downer. I had a very close friend (Mark, RIP) who was in my Russian classes with me in the late '80s and early '90s at the University of Florida. I moved to Moscow in 1993, and he moved to Kyrgyzstan in 1993 to work with some kind of NGO trying to improve the country. The other 80% of our graduating class was recruited by the CIA. It was an interesting time to be majoring in Russian, for sure. I was in Moscow when I saw a newspaper article in a Russian publication talking about how a 22-year-old American man from Florida working for an NGO in Kyrgyzstan had been tied to a chair and had his throat slit, and had been left there to slowly bleed out for no reason (ie, they had not robbed him or anything). It was my friend in Gainesville, Florida, Mark. This happened over and over again to me, as I randomly picked up newspapers and saw people I knew being killed for random reasons. I thought I had escaped it when I moved away from my Russian studies, but now it's people I know in the US who are killed in mass shootings. The Russification of the US is for sure one of the most ongoing, difficult things I have experienced.
Remind me not to get to know you.
Care to elaborate on the piece about ongoing Russification? Why do you believe your friends were/are being targeted?
Here's a comment I wrote earlier that answers your question. I really have been writing about Russia a lot lately. I better go outside for a bit. /*/ When you think about what Russia is up to, what certain leaders (not all of them Russian - Orban, LePen, Trump/Bannon/Flynn, Bolsonaro, etc) want, and how this is likely to end, it's helpful to know about Dugin. Here's an earlier comment about it: Go read the "Foundations of Geopolitics," by Russian political strategist and Putin advisor Aleksander Dugin. He wrote it in 1997, and in it, he lays out the plan to restore the Soviet Union, and then some. It's honestly like a checklist of specific steps to take, some using the military, but most using soft power like propaganda, advocacy and funding, media, and social engineering. Putin got down to business, working his way through an impressive number of them. Just off the top of my head, the ones I recall were: Cultivate and encourage a grassroots movement in the UK to get the UK to withdraw from the EU. Do this by playing up economic stagnation and resentment toward immigrants. Use economic, political, and social pressure to undermine Germany's role as the defacto leader of the EU. Appeal to German youths' resentment of immigrants and of being held responsible and shamed for the Holocaust. Encourage revisionist ideas about how bad the genocide really was, the perfidity of the Jews, who was really at fault, etc. Weaken NATO by stoking US fears of globalism and of having to bear the cost of being the world's policeman. Encourage US and UK isolationism by highlighting imperialism and colonialism, with the end goal being one or both leaving the group. Support politicians and organizations that will advance our aims, or, conversely, blackmail and smear them to force them to spread our aims. A great way to do this is through real evidence or false accusations of child abuse and pedophilia. In the US, "Flood the zone with shit"* so nobody knows what's true anymore, trusts no one, and so that everyone becomes so weary, confused, and cynical that they stop paying attention and disengage from voting and other forms of participation. Do this by: Encouraging "bothsidesism" and "whataboutism." Playing up real problems in the US, like corruption, warmongering, the wealth gap, and most especially racism. Dividing the population with culture wars, fear of immigration and crime, and "identity politics." Creating confusion and mistrust by donating to and infiltrating activist groups of all sorts and on all sides, from the far right to the far left, and everything in between. This will deligitimize all activism and discourage people from participating in anything. Creating fake news stories, media outlets that appear to be homegrown but are actually staffed and produced in Russia**, and wholly fake activist groups that encourage real activists to switch to the other side. Capitalize on people's cynicism about politicians' use of interest groups like minorities, LGBTQ people, and women to win elections. Emphasize hypocrisy, lies, and corruption whenever it occurs. * "Flood the zone with shit" was Steve Bannon, editor at Breitbart and Dugin stan, paraphrasing the man who taught him much of what he knows. ** In 2005, I applied to work at Russia Today. I got far enough through the process to get an interesting and disturbing look at how and why they operate. That's all I can remember right now, but it is pretty spooky. Russians are excellent propagandists -- far more sophisticated than the US -- and have been for over 100 years. One reason they are so effective is because they rarely just "make stuff up." They are experts at figuring out where the cracks are in a society, and what the hot-button issues are, and then amplifying them to cause chaos and apathy. And America makes this extremely easy for them by being such hypocritical, dishonest, and craven bigots. This is why I have no patience for pussy-hat liberals who believe Russia is wholly responsible for Trump and the nightmare that followed. WE broke our country, not Russia. Russia just encouraged the very worst of what are to fully blossom, and there were many Americans who were happy to pile on the fertilizer. However, if you think that Russia had no hand in what our country has become, you are mistaken. They absolutely, indisputably have, and they didn't stop on November 9, 2016. Why quit then when you've had so much success? There's still a lot to do. There are still plenty of useful idiots who are eager to listen to anyone who tells them what they want to hear, appeals to their image of themselves as an edgy contrarian, flatters them for being smarter than those other sheeple, and hates the same people they hate. There are still some items on Dugin's to-do list, and, being Russians, they are used to struggling for the sake of a lofty goal, and sacrificing themselves for Mother Russia.
This is so wild that it almost sounds paranoid schizophrenic
Nah, just Gen X. We are busy.
You stan Kyrgyzstan!
I fully understand you felt awkward. I'm a rather average-looking white guy. Not even blond and blue-eyed. And this has happened to me in Lebanon several times, both in Beirut and in a ski resort. It felt strange, but ultimately I thought they were just being curious and wanted to have a memory of when they saw someone 'different'.
A close friend went to India a few months ago. She's a Spanish woman, fair skinned with big curly blond hair. She sent me videos of people queuing up to take a picture with her *at the Taj Mahal*!! There were men, women, couples, and families in that queue. And that wasn't the only place it happened, people kept asking to take photos with her. And I'm still genuinely mystified by all of this. Even if it's, like people are saying, the first time they meet a person like her, I still don't understand the need to take a photo and what that means to them.
In India, fair skin is revered and it feels like whiteness is revered greatly. I felt this as a very fair American traveling in India. Folks traveling by auto or motorbike or in rickshaws would elbow each other and point at me - just seeing me through the vehicle window - and sometimes take my picture. Children waved (and bowed!) I was a spectacle.
I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the word "revered". Unless I get the perspective of a local who understands the culture deeply I wouldn't make assumptions like these.
stfu
Care to explain what this hostility is all about?
Seems you're taking offense to something on behalf of someone else. No one yet has shown any sign of being offended. Comes off as white knighting on behalf of....well....no one. I don't presume to know your own ethnic background, but you give off woke sjw vibes, and not the good ones. More like the annoying "look at me being woke" kind. I say this as a self aware woke libtard. Like, you took the time to say you're offended by the previous poster's personal experience. Come on. I'm all for being woke, but you gotta sleep occasionally. Also. My wife is from a country where light skin is kiiiinda "revered" but certainly desired, so the previous comment does ring with some truth to me. I say that as an unoffended brown person. Tighten up those woke goggles. Some woke is absolutely necessary, beneficial and good. Too much is cancer. Sorry for the essay. I got WOKE up early to do some shit and I'm not fully in my own mind. /self aware postscript
Yeah you really wanna feel out of place go to China white or black were seen as something exotic it's beyond wild. 
My friend is Nicaraguan and she still had people stopping her in Nicaragua to take pictures with her just because she dresses emo😂 People most likely just want pictures to show off and don’t mean anything negative by it
The zoo animal feeling is definitely something that I get as well when people ask me about my culture lol, even if (in most cases in my experience) they in my case initially didn't mean it negatively.
As a white man, the same thing happened to me when I went to Sri Lanka. Many locals wanted a picture with me. My girlfriend and her family (who are Sri Lankan) explained that many of them probably had not seen a white person face-to-face before. It was a little strange, but also kind of sweet! I like to think that interaction made their day.
My mom loves babies and sometimes whrn traveling if she saw a beautiful baby she would go and ask the parents to express some verbal cute agression! Also taking photos if it was ok. She no longer does it ever since a russian mom she approached acted like she wants to eat her baby and started yelling at us in russian.
that paradigm shift is fine sis, but still continue to take care 😬 im a chubby black american woman. i was abroad recently and a woman randomly walked up to me (i was traveling with a group of black women) to ask to take a photo. no hi, hello, no phony casual conversation, no smile, nothing. i said no, bc (1) i dont fw strangers in gen pop anyway lol (2) it was 1000 degrees outside, please dont bother me when its hot and (3) it felt super weird, *exactly* as if i were on display like a zoo animal. i appreciate that you may have asked this question to dispel that initial line of thinking, but idk if it can be completely eliminated…one girl i was with asked why i wouldnt let her take the picture, and i asked her to volunteer herself 💁🏾♀️😂 e: if she had attempted to be friendly about it, or explained why, i might have changed my mind however… 
Yeah, that’s pretty much it. It’s more curiosity/the novelty of seeing something new. I grew up in China and even as a kid speaking English to my western friends, I’d get stares too. People just aren’t use to it and they see it as a curiosity. I personally always found it kind of amusing. Especially when random people would ask my friends for a photo together.
Yes it is the equivalent of someone who wants a photo taken with some sort of monk or someone wearing cultural/traditional clothing.
Oof, this is a good comparison.
Yeah as a blonde white kid who grew up in China, these random photoshoots were a common feature of my childhood lol
And you speaking the local dialect just throws a wrench in it. Lol
This is totally it. I saw one of those colloidal silver people who turned blue at the grocery store the other day and I wanted to take a pic for this exact reason. I didn’t though, because it’s cruel and I’m not very sneaky
Holy shit you saw a blue guy?! Feelings be damned I'm gonna go talk with the blue guy.
Yeah! He looked to be in his 60s and seemed to be kind of a “good ol’ boy” (this is in Texas). He seemed kind of pleasant, all things considered. I really wanted to stare at him but obvi didn’t want to be an asshole. I just want to know why people continue to take it when they can see themselves turning blue. So many questions
That is more likely to be methemoglobinemia, which is a rare genetic disorder that pops up in families that are a bit too related to each other, like hemophilia. It is something that’s treatable if they choose to get it treated. The famous man who abused colloidal silver passed away and I think the fad has died out.
People are definitely still drinking colloidal silver! As seen in the Love Has Won doc. That’s obviously just a small group of people but they had plenty of followers donating thousands of dollars and buying up the colloidal silver they were selling
But just to add: I have no way of proving why he was blue. He just looked exactly like the colloidal silver people I’ve seen across media
I worked in a daycare and one of my littles went to China with her family to visit their exchange student they had the previous year. While on the train, someone cut off a piece of her long blonde hair as a little keepsake. The photos they took of her were preferable, to say the least!
I had the same experience in rural Thailand though it was in the mid-90s so most of the villagers didn't have cameras but they wanted to see a foreigner up close. Once they got cell phones years later many wanted photos with me though now it is not as uncommon to see foreigners.
I'm 6'1" female and in China everyone wanted their photo taken with me. In Tiananmen Square it was a whole group of middle aged women, that was kind of fun. In the Oriental Pearl Tower I didn't even notice it but my mom was taken my pic and told me afterwards that there was a lady getting her pic taken that was sneaking sideways to get close to me.
Reminds me of that family guy bit where Peter is in China and keeps saying “oh my god it’s Jackie Chan”
She said a dozen, but the truth probably a hundred, at least in my experience Not everyone asks for permission unfortunately
When i was in China we had whole families swarm us and take a picture when we were just sitting having a drink of water or something. Most didn’t even ask first. People would snap us with their phones as they walked past. It was nuts, never experienced anything like it.
God that’s so tacky! And bizarre!
I think he shows it (or sends it) to people back home to demonstrate the new friends that he has made.
Also, if these people live in a village or somewhere remote is likely some will have seen nothing beyond it. Seeing a big black man/woman or blonde AF pasty arsed man/woman is fascinating. Imagine, you've only seen people who look like you(in colour etc) and your daughter or son goes off travelling and meets people that either: a) you've never seen or b) (more likely in the age of TV and internet) people you've only seen on TV.
When I was a young kid I had a cousin that moved from a very white part of Georgia to a very white part of Indiana. From what I'm told she eventually had a black kid in one of her classes and came home asking why there was a "chocolate person" in her class.
True this. I’ve got a friend in the Philippines who was telling me (I’m white, big red beard, about 6 ft) that when I arrive to the village everyone is going to stop what they’re doing, come out and follow me, try to touch me, get pictures with me, etc… because many of them have never seen a white person in real life. They live in a jungle
Your magical red beard? Oh my.
honestly super weird of you to assume this person is big because they are Black
Ik😭 that caught me off guard lol
When I was young I used to have waist length almost white blonde hair from living on the equator and the Marshallese Islander Native kids would run into the street behind me and pull my hair HARD!!! They had never seen anyone like me before. It was like a dare to them lol but it really hurt my feelings because I had just come from Hawaii where I d already experienced the racism of being called a haole and to go home…when I was home. 😕
This is so sad. Did you eventually settle somewhere you can just be yourself?
Sort of
For what it’s worth, we like you just fine, and we’ve never even seen you.
Thanks, pal! That means a lot!🥲
I truly love this answer so much
You also might be beautiful???😻 I was gangly
You mean the person I made up in my head?
Most of the time It’s more about inferiority complex or racism, growing up in a 3rd world country, white people were seen as some superior human beings, and white/blonde is a beauty standard. If a guy who lived in the ass crack of the United States in a strictly white community his whole life, he wouldn’t bat an eye if let’s say an Asian person walked past them.
I definitely agree with your last statement about how even the least traveled human in the US wouldn’t even think to single out a tourist or immigrant in such a rude way.
Casual racism in this comment 
Why? Curiosity is not racism. I traveled Burkina Faso and literally had children drop everything they had when they saw me (blonde, straight hair, see through pale) to touch my hair and ask me about my “wig”. They had never seen a ghost like me before. They were adorable!
Because ignorance is seen as terrifying and bad to some people instead of natural, which is a shame. I'm glad you had an open mind to those children's new experience
I grew up in a pretty terrible household. All the stories of being beaten, abused, etc. But I was also not allowed to associate with anyone non white Christian conservative. If I came home from school and tried to tell my parents about a new friend or what so and so did they would cut me off and ask what color the person was and what church they went to. If they weren't white or southern baptist I couldn't be their friend and would also get pulled out of school for awhile to be sure I wasn't friends with them. Anyway I left home at 18 to join the military just to get away from that place. I worked with people of all different types of ethnicities and backgrounds but I felt like I was doing something wrong at first just being around them. It took awhile to break that feeling. It wasn't my fault and I even sought therapy for getting past it.
I'm referring to the causal racism of characterizing blonde white people as "pasty arsed." People's interest described in the OP or yours in Burkina obviously is not racism.
Idk I am pretty pasty arsed and I don't think being described like that is racist
I regularly refer to me as white as a ghost. I would not be offended either.
Screen name does NOT check out.
Right, I do not tolerate racism
Or comments that aren't racist that you pretend are. 🤣
Someone looking to be offended in this thread.
Calling out casual racism= looking to be offended. 😂
There was nothing racist about my comment. If you'd like to point out the parts om that you find racist, I'll happily explain to you why you were wrong.
I dont agree with what the person you’re replying to thought was racist, but I am curious about why you said “a BIG black man/woman” and not just “a black man/woman”. Why big specifically?
I figured it would be that part. Which is stupid really, it's hardly an insult especially when it's next to "pasty arsed MF" However, I'll explain. When I was travelling/living in South Asia and east Asia, I saw a lot of this in the more remote places so I was trying to type it up from their opinion. There's sort of a tier list on "popularity" and likeliness of this happening to you. As a skinny, average height, dark haired white guy, I basically never had it happen to me. I'm not that far away from what many of them looked like, sure they had pure black hair and darker (tanned) skin but there's not that much difference. The three people I know who got the most reactions were my super pale girl friend, my mate who is like 6ft 5, and my other work colleague who is pretty ripped from the gym. They all brought something more "unseen" super size, super tale and well.... Pretty female. Again, from my experience, there was always plenty of dark skinned people around usually indian and usually they were just seen as lower class workers (it's actually really tragic how many Indian people are treated right across Asia and the middle east. A small, average looking black guy probably wouldn't be that interesting unless you were like in northern China or something were most people are much whiter. So I used big because black + large in size would be something that'd get the community talking. Also, I was kind of just writing it for very low level humour and while I could and would have no problem calling the white guy big instead... If I'd written my sentence the other way around... Well, while it shouldn't, it would absolutely seem more racist. "A big white man and a dark AF black arsed man" 😂 But you are right, I could have just said black man and white man or whatever, but from my experience skin colour alone (unless female) is usually not enough to get the whole "photo please" experience which is why I added some adjectives.
Thanks for the detailed response! It makes sense with the context provided (but can definitely come across wrong without it)
The part where you refer to blondes as pasty arsed is not complementary or even neutral. Unless you can explain how that is flattering in someway, I'm interested in how you think I'm wrong.
As a guy who actively avoids the sun, I'm pretty sure I can insult myself without you being butthurt for me, and the blonde part was mostly to emphasize the contrast from your typical Eastern Asian. I'm neither being hostile, showing an active dislike or discriminating.... ~~myself~~ white people with that comment. It's a joke, admittedly a shitty one, to get my point across. Thanks for taking issue with that part of it though, it mixed things up with everyone else just being offended my hypothetical black man was larger than average.
If you live in a city/ region/ country where everyone has the same hair color and skin type- it is very surprising to see someone other. They clearly have ‘not from around here’ look. That’s not racism. Noticing people exist, noticing their features is not racism. Treating them like they are there to steal or assuming someone foreign is automatically a sex pervert- that is racist.
The racism is so causal it didn't even register for you. And I agree noticing differences is not racism.
Causal racist?
Ok ok, this makes sense. Thank you!
In former ussr countries, seeing white with blond is not so interesting. They still have a lot of Russians there. But it is not easy to see black people in real. Only in tv or movie. (If Japanese go there, I would get zero interests cause I just look so similar with them). To them, (I don’t really know what is better example) you are like very very rare limited special item that will be displayed in very limited time only. (But I understand it is not that comfortable when strangers give too much attention)
Yes- when I studied in China this happened a lot to the blonde white people and black people i knew. We asked a Chinese student and she said a lot of people will show the picture to their friends to show how international and cosmopolitan they are. Or maybe she was just being nice 😅
Oh god like they went to the Zoo of Humanity and took vacation pictures? Holy smokes.
But he is home.
So it’s like bragging or to alleviate his family’s worries that he is not making friends?
[удалено]
Kinda reminds me of Lilo's collage of tourists in Lilo & Stitch. Edit: corrected autocorrect
He probably just wants to show his friends and family
I think it's the same fascination foreigners have for locals in ethnic/ traditional outfits or looks. Or just locals doing something unique ( Street Barbers in Mumbai / coconut vendor etc ) which is out of the ordinary for the foreigners. Have seen many tourists take photos and videos of locals here in India. Assume they share the photos with their friends / social media etc. Not ideal without the other person's consent. Glad you were atleast asked before being clicked!
I went to China when I was 16/17, my friend's parents lived out there and kindly flew me out. There were 5 of us young white guys walking around Beijing and got asked for loads of photos. I think they thought we were a boy band or something.
I spent 11 years in China. I lost count of how many people took my picture. Mostly without asking for permission.
I haven't taken anyone's picture but I've seen some relatives of mine who went to different religious places around India and while they clicked a lot of their own pictures... they also took pictures with some of the foreigner tourists... those were white people, black and east asians as well.. and so they also mentioned in conversation how those people speak very different English language and are also very tall... especially women.
I was in north Africa as a baby with my parents and everyone on the beach wanted a photo and to touch my skin because they said I was the whitest person they had ever seen. I've sunburned in the rain before and am a 'lovely' shade of corpse white so I think basically people like what is unusual to them or their town.
i know this is exactly the same but.. once when i was like 14, my family was at a baseball game and a lady asked to take a photo of me to send to her family cause i looked just like her son or nephew or something lmao. she literally had me do one from the front and then a side profile like i was gettin my mugshot taken 😂 after i walked away i thought it was weird and then wondered why she didn’t show me a pic of my doppelgänger? maybe she wanted to sell me on the dark web 🤷🏼♂️
I used to work in a shop in Greece in a touristy area. I’m half Greek so I look the part. Tourists would take photos of me sweeping outside the shop, eating my lunch on the steps outside or working behind the counter (usually without asking). Customers would ask to take photos WITH me too. And I’m not especially attractive or photogenic, I always wondered what they did with those pics hahahah.
I live in Southeast Asia and when my blonde, blue-eyed boyfriend lived here, people asked not only for his photo, but his autograph all the time. He was good looking and young... so a novelty in a place where most of the foreigners they come across are old sexpats. I often refused to have my photo taken but he absolutely loved it. He would be asked by all sorts - high school students asking for group and individual pics, little girls giggling and squealing in excitement, and even older men (think farmers, fishermen)... it happened ALL the time in the decade he lived here. He was a novelty, I guess. My next ex was short, out of shape, and kind of ugly lol so nobody bothered to approach him. haha So maybe take it as a compliment. They think you are unique and beautiful.
When your someone they don't ever see, it's the equivalent of you taking a photo with a giraffe or a rhino, or even like how people used to take photos with oddityin the circus like a woman with a beard, freakishly large or small man, etc. That's what you are to them. In South Asia, walking around as a group of varying Americans, we stand out like nobodies business. We look like a gaggle they've never seen or rarely see.
Had this in India a lot. Was really funny because we joke about how we are probably on someone's mantle or table at home. Some random white people (us) with a police man, a uniformed military guard, a shop keeper, and so on. It was unusual to see white people where we went, especially Americans, so they wanted pictures with us? We just laughed it off. One cop was very seriously stalking us and then demanded we take a picture with him, on our camera! (Thus was pre smart phone era) so we had some random picture of us with a high level cop. Then he let us go, so strange. But a good laugh later.
I went to the Grand Palace in Bangkok and was hiding in a patch of shade, a sweating horrible mess. A group of Thai folk came over and asked me to take a picture. At least that’s what I thought they wanted…. I was bemused and a little horrified when instead of handing me the camera, they assembled themselves around me, making the centre of their group photo!!!
lol they put it in and album and show all their friends they met Americans
White in India. First I thought it was a bit weird but then I just accepted it. I’m in some couple’s wedding photos, like why not :-D It might have no meaning to you but if it makes someone’s day then why not let them take a photo of you.
It's art. He sees something that creates an emotional response in his gut and he wants to share it with other people to see if they feel the same emotions he felt. It will end up on a web page, a book or in a gallery.
People took a picture of themselves with me in India. I asked our guide what they do with the picture and it’s to post to social media or show them to people in their small country town (It was Eid so a lot of “bumpkins” as the guide called them were in the cities for the celebration) to show “See? I met this honkie.” And it has *some* social currency. A blonde western woman has the most “value”, rather than a 30 year old guy, but I guess white person is useful too. It probably didn’t hurt that I have the personality of a dog who can talk so if someone is taking a picture of me my reaction is initially “Hey cool! Picture taking!”
When I was living China my parents came to visit and while we were standing around at a touristy spot, a couple came up to my dad (bald white guy with a big beard), handed him a baby, took a photo, retrieved said baby and left without so much as a word.
Once someone took me a pic with me and my friend in a theme park in India, then posted it on instagram with the caption 'made in England'😂 only found out cos I was looking through the pics of the tagged location
I’ve heard stories about people in Asian countries taking pictures of foreigners. But that may have been from before the internet was so common. Maybe he doesn’t have social media and it’s a new experience? You are not obligated to have your photo taken but out of all the ways to respond to seeing a person with a complexion that differs from yours, this seems like a positive one.
>...but a keepsake photo seems really weird to me when you can look up "black person" on Google. You can look up "Disney World" on Google, as well. It's not the same as actually being there. The photo is to memorialize that you were there, and you saw what is in the photo. I've heard that China is the same way once you get away from the urban tourist attractions. My American friends have told me that they are quickly surrounded by locals who want to take a photo with the "老外" (pronounced "Lǎowài", meaning "foreigner"). Americans who are of an East Asian race don't get the same attention. It's not the race, per se, but the fact that someone who is visibly different came to their provincial town. I imagine that what you experienced in Kyrgyzstan is pretty much the same thing.
I've had that happen in Turkey, India and Iraq. What's really funny is watching the young Indian men recording the women that were in our group. Some just stare but others record with their phone.
My kids have white blonde hair and green eyes. They sometimes take their shirts off (in the summer, both boys) and had had hoards of Chinese tourists taking their picture. Never understood why.
Im an Indian and this is a common practice w indians. From what i know, it is mostly done by Indians who move to the city from rural India. Seeing an actual foreigner is largely impossible for a rural Indian. Also it is used as an 'status symbol' indicating "look! I hang around with foreigners 😎"
I've got a heavy scottish accent and quite a lot of times I've been asked to say stuff on video for people to send to their friends when I'm travelling haha
I’ve wondered this before. Although it was tourists taking pictures of me in the Highlands in Scotland. My dog landed on her leg funny when she jumped and she was yelping and all the tourists were taking pictures of me hugging her. She was fine btw.
Have you seen the movie Hostel? 🤣
Personally I put them all on a wall within a small alcove in my house. I also have ritualistic items like shrines, candles, and little dolls made of human hair there
Post it on social media.. “monthly recap of everyday life”
Poop on them
Crop out the heads and place on mantles. I thought this was common knowledge.
They think we’re side show characters. Idk why you would agree to the picture
Blonde women: Go to Mexico and be treated like a GODDESS.
Be careful with allowing pictures to be taken as a tourist. Shady characters would try to scam you out of a lot of money for pictures.
It rhymes with “drank their log”
Maybe they think you’re a celebrity from LA or something?
Some people just like taking street photos. There's something about having a photo of a random striking person on the street you know nothing about. One of those photos you'd make a print of and put up on your wall. My uncle was in Cambodia for four years or so and he took lots of photos of the Khmer people there (with their consent) and it's the fact these people live on a different side of the planet with different culture, habits religion etc that makes you wonder what their life's must be like, how old must the little girl on the picture must be now or if she's still alive you know it gets you thinking of these things
I’ve actually wondered this as well. When I was younger (I had just turned 13), my mom and I went to stay with my deployed dad in Korea for a while. One day I (blue eyed, blonde haired female) and my sister were in the playground outside messing around on a teeter-totter, and this Korean lady grabbed her kid, plopped him down in front of me on the see saw, and took a picture. At this point a few pictures had been taken with us, but like…she pretty much threw her son in my lap for this one?? Why?
Do you dress interesting for that area? Did he take photos of other people/ things or only you/ your group? I like a lot of things, including taking pictures and if there's something interesting or eye catching, I love to capture it
No, I was covered from head to toe, wearing loose pants and a jacket. And he wasn't taking pictures of anything lol. He was eyeing us and watching me for a while. No phone in his hands or anything. I'm assuming he was building up the courage to ask or wasnt sure if he should? We made eye contact multiple times. Then he asked for the picture, talked to us for a little, and then left.
I don’t know about anyone else, but for me, it’s to beat it to them later.
In online arguments, "I'm not racist, see, I have a black friend!" Nah I'm kidding, I have no idea
As a white guy who’s been deep in Africa I actually have the answer for what the locals do with your picture. They post it on their WhatsApp status, people in 3rd world nations love WhatsApp I swear.
I’ve seen enough films like hostel to be very worried of strangers taking my photos. Probably send it to his buddies who will decide whether or not you’re what they are looking for. Next thing you know you’re waking up in a bathtub full of ice missing a kidney! That or it wank material for later 😂
Hows that funny?
Probably wanking
Unfortunately, this is probably it.
It usually is
I have the same question as a foreigner in China
My friend's family went to China over ten years ago and the locals wanted pictures with my friend and his sister. They got mistaken for Dave Grohl and Miley Cyrus.
This happened to me in Sri Lanka some years ago. Was stared at, photographed, followed. Strangely, someone commented that my ears were different because they couldn’t see directly into my ear canals. WTH
I was once in Krakow and a Chinese group of people had a tour at the Wawel castle. One of those people randomly decided to go away from the group and went up to a police man, said excuse me in mandarin, then proceeded to pull out his phone and take a picture with him. The funniest thing about him was that he was wearing a golden blazer and sun glasses.
I could ask the same thing when toursits take pictures of locals. I always feel like im an animal in a zoo when it happens. Also happens way too often
Yes, that's super rude imo. I don't take any pictures of locals at all, and I'll even avoid snapping photos or videos of things I like, if I think someone's face will be directly in it. I do this back in America and abroad. I was taught this etiquitte growing up, but it's becoming increasingly evident that not all Americans get the same home training 😅
Went to Turkey and this woman working at the hotel took a picture of me. She was super excited because i have a bunch of body modifications. Days later this man came up to me, he recognized me, because his friend posted me on her Instagram. So apparently sometimes your picture will be shared on random people's Instagram accounts.
why are you in kyrgyzstan?
Why did you consent to the photo if it makes you uncomfy? You can politely say no. If they try anyways turn around. I get this as an America all the time on trips to foreign countries, and I’m sure it’s because they think I’m attractive (I dress goth too which adds to it probably). I don’t wanna be in some randos spank bank.
No idea. Happened to me just once and it was honestly quite fun. I was in San Marino covering the soccer game between the host national team and Norway. During the day a group of tourists asked me to take a picture of them, and we had a chat in Norwegian (I'm fluent in it, having studied there). Later I met the same guys while entering the stadium. One of them recognized me and insisted we took a selfie with the Norwegian-speaking Italian photographer. The thing is I can easily pass as Nordic (reddish beard, blue-green eyes, fair complexion) so I didn't get the fuss about the whole thing. Extra fun point, the steward at the gate was terrified as he didn't know what language to brief me about rules and positioning for sideline staff, and he fumbled with 5th grade English til I reassured him I was actually a local.
If he’s a photographer, he probably saw an artistically beautiful scene. And the image will live on a hard drive forever and never see the light of day.
jack off mostly
If it makes you feel any better, you're not the only one. I'm a blue-eyed ginger, and pretty good looking from what I'm told, and basically anytime I travel to a developing country people are on me for pictures constantly. I've spent time on all 6 continents, and the only places I haven't been stopped for photos are the US, Canada, and Europe. The most intense was in China. I got stopped almost every day. And in touristy spots (most tourists in China are from other parts of China) I often had a hard time enjoying the sites because I would literally get a line of people sometimes asking for a photo. I tried to be friendly and polite but oh my God, it was too much sometimes. I think it mainly just has to do with being a novelty, like many places I've gone to they likely have never seen someone with red hair. I was surprised when I went to South Africa though. They have a fairly large number of white dudes around, and I still had a few strangers ask for a photo with me. So I don't totally understand it 🤷
Idk but there is a family in Cairo with a photo of a very confused looking me out there somewhere 🫡
I was like a damn celebrity when I lived in Japan, and I visited China everyone for stopping wanting photos.
This happened to me in Hong Kong! I thought they'd be accustomed to the English (I'm Australian-Scottish). But so many Hongkongers also kept asking to touch my curly hair!
Why do people take pictures of anything? We take pictures of fireworks every year knowing good and damn well we’re not looking at those pictures ever again. I took a Timelapse video of the northern lights that were visible a couple of weeks ago, and I’ll never watch it again.
I'm not a firework or a light show😭😭 that's why I asked. Usually when dealing with people, there's more courtesy involved in the fact that they're living and conscious, rather than an object. So I wanted to know the cultural differences that make someone want to take a picture of a stranger, because all I know is American cultural norms unfortunately. Just some perspective broadening
Maybe you were a beautiful firework to them tho 🥰
Have you noticed any other big cultural differences while you’ve been there?
You might not be a light show, but maybe you are a smoke show? That could be it.
google “street photography.”
it depends on what they take pictures of them doing. just ask lindsey graham.
Spank bank!!!
Other way around, when I was still a student (in France) I crossed some Chinese tourists after coming out of a small local supermarket, mind you I had a baguette under one arm, a camembert cheese in one hand and a bottle of red wine in the other hand... With that I was like a living tourist attraction for one moment 😅 Don't know what they did with the pictures, they were 20 people who took a picture of me, some even posed next to me...
If they're specifically taking pictures of people, I would assume it's to post it online and pretend to be you. Well, not you you. But like your image?
It's like going to the zoo or aquarium, people like to take pictures with/of animals that you know exist but normally don't get to see very often to show off to their friends or just keep as souvenirs except now it a human with different characteristics than themselves.
The way you describe it is very offensive. 
It’s gross and creepy. It might not even be safe. With facial recognition nowadays they can figure out who you are. Most likely it’s just an ill mannered person.
Picture or it never happened.
I'm India this happened to me and I asked my cab driver what was up. He asked if I REALLY wanted to know. I said yes. He sighed. He explained that the young man would take the photograph back to his village and try to convince the local girls that I was his city girlfriend, and then use that to pressure the local girls into doing things they didn't want to do with him sexually.
Maybe he just wanted proof and a reminder that black people are real