A Cultural Exchange

Tuesday, August 25, 2009. Rockmart, Georgia. Dollar General. 9:20 PM.

I am standing in line to pay for milk and juice. There is one Customer behind me, and a Cashier waiting for my hard-earned money at the register.

Customer (looking at me): Hey, are you Japanese?

Cashier (ringing me up): Naw, she's Korean.

Cashier & Customer: Well what are you?

Me (pulling out cash): Wait, let me pay first.

Cashier (punching in numbers on the register): I'm good at telling them apart. This one time a girl came out of Sonic's, and I said to her, "You from Laos, ain'tcha?" And she said, "Yeah! How'd you guess?" Cuz I'm just good like that.

Customer: So what are ya?

Me (looking at both of them): I'm Chinese.

Cashier: Oh, well I got the continent right.

Me (looking at him, a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth): There are a lot of countries in that continent.

/anecdote

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Oh Georgia. I'm going to miss you once I go back to school next Saturday.