This is my last week of holiday before I am sadly obligated to return to that “other” place for the majority of the year with only small bits of time in which escape is possible.
The previous week has not inspired much optimism. Nutso the Clown, the strange little Chinese man who has come to worship the ground I walk on for no other reason than the accident of my having been born in Germany, left me 5 voice mail messages after not having bothered me for several months. Well, at least since that time he rang me up over 80 times in 2 days after I told him to sod off. (I’ll spare all of you the sordid details, but will state with full confidence that the man is a slime and more than a little disturbed)
Other than that, the university has inspired another rant. I received an email from this this evening imploring me to declare my ethnic background which had, to that time, been declared “undeclared”. As you may know, I am 100pc of human extraction, although a number of people have declared me to be a complete jackass. (Actually, they might be right) It has long been my policy not to declare any sort of ethnicity as it is really none of their concern, my note average there is 3.89, or 97.2pc, shouldn’t that be enough?
The explanation for their email boffering me was that they wished to be declared an Asian-serving and Latino-serving university and they didn’t quite feel comfortable with their ethnic quotas. They asked, if possible, for me to go ahead and declare my ethnic background. I was, frankly, slightly miffed, but decided to go ahead and declare my predominantly German and British ethnic background. This wasn’t, of course, an option.
I could declare myself to be any variety imaginable of Pacific Islander, Amerindian, Latino, or Asian — but the only option they had was “European”, as if we have no cultural diversity of our own.
This changed my attitude a bit. I went from being merely miffed to being slightly irked, almost vexed. Since they obviously had no respect for accuracy or diligence, I would just play along. I was honest, to an extent, but not the way they wanted me to be. I refused to label myself “European”, and listed German/British when pressed. I also listed my Amerindian background, something inherited from my father. For my own amusement, I declared myself to be Taiwanese and selected “Asian” as my dominant ethnic background. Why not? I’ve spent more time in East Asia than most “Asian-Americans” and probably know more about the region as well.
Boadicea's Chariot 
I just love the miffed/irked/vexed progression.
God help them with your chosen ethnic classification, bloody funny.
Just promise us never to run as president!
CO: I was born in Germany and hold on to dual-citizenship, even though I don’t bother going to Germany very often. I wouldn’t even qualify for the house, though it would be funny being the first actual descendent of slaves, Amerindian, foreign-born, monarchist elected as president.
Heh, heh – I always put ‘English’ on these forms, though with my family history, (SE Coast, S. London, Irish, (we think,) SW Coast,) what’s actually in the mix is a matter of pure conjecture 😀
Me too – Back in the day I was frequently required to fill in immigration forms prior to landing in some hot, sweaty place or other and took to writing ‘English’ in the box for nationality. This occasionally led to problems, the worst of which was when an immigration official retorted that ‘English’ was not a recognised nationality! There was a scene, as you would expect from someone born in liverpool when it was still part of Lancashire, in England, with blond hair and blue eyes and a family history in England stretching back to at least the 15th century.
OZ
Bravo: there are very, very few pure bred people in the world. Close enough is about as good as it can get.
OZ: yes, perfectly understandable. I’m just happy not to have been on the losing end of a fight with a wolf! The jaws might not be as powerful as a bear, but they’re nothing to be trifled with!
I list “British” only to make it quick. My father, a mongrel of a human if there ever was one, has a long family history in England, Wales, and Scotland — though nothing in Ireland. Probably still have family there, though can’t really imagine why a 6th or 7th cousin twice removed would possibly want to meet me.
Good on you Christopher, I have similar vexations!
Every day in my job I have to assess strangers for their ethnicity (a word I hate) and I am meant to ask them to select from a list. Invariably they don’t fit in to what the government thinks they should and thus offence is often caused. I guess mostly, and therefore there’s a huge surplus of “mixed – other” people in the East Midlands!
Even much of our internal bureaucracy asks me my marital status, my sexual preference, my level of (dis)ability and my ethnic origin. Utter madness.
The same happened as I filled out a customer satisfaction survey from Skoda yesterday! What the hell does it matter when I chose to put my appendages and what colour it is have to do with whether I was satisfied with a service and MOT on my Fabia 1.9 TDi!!!
At least quite often now there’s a “prefer not to say” box which gets my vote every time!