Sunday morning thoughts

One morning having conversation in the kitchen on discrimination and stereotypes - some things keep surprising me. For example, it seems obvious that people of let’s say Chinese origin, no matter where they grew up still get the looks “but really where are you from?”, even though they might have lived all their lives in let’s say Canada, being totally integrated in Canadian society, and associate themselves more with Canada than any part of Asia. What’s more important your roots or what you feel part of? Then if you’re white caucasian, and lived most of your life in Asia, no one would ever believe that you feel more Asian than European. A lot of judgment comes with the looks before we even hear the story. And nowadays a lot of people have stories that change your first impression of who you think they are and who you think they should feel like.

What makes us feel connected to a certain social group, whether its your nationality, language you speak, common circumstances, the looks?.. In Asia hearing someone ordering food in English with Chinese menu would make me smile and give a look of “I know how difficult that is”, however if I see a group of tourists while I am rushing to work gives a bit of annoying feeling: we both are foreigners, but I live here. Does that really makes so much difference… We expect two Europeans bond in Latin America. People expect two Ukrainians be friends if they are abroad.
Most of this feelings/reactions we cant even control. We just either feel connected and want to let the other person know that you recognize how similar we are, or we want to make sure the feeling of difference is obvious. Is there a need to categorize people before we even talk to them? Have an opinion before we have any reason to have one?

And what makes us being excited about meeting other people or feeling instantly connected to certain people? Are we are attracted to other people by our similarities or our differences?