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I'm sure there are others like Sharon Balcombe in HK. In Singapore I saw a white schoolgirl with a Singlish accent.
yes I am aware of Singapore having a large number of white residents and always has since the foundation of Singapore.
With China the amount of white people there is increasing. As China economy booms there are more and more immigrants from all over the world are heading to China especially to the large cities.
Check out Andrea Aybar...her father moved from Spain to Vietnam when she was 8-9 yrs old and now at 17yrs old...she is fluent in Vietnamese, just perfect. Her accent sounds more Spanish when speaking English though. The interview is in English, but she starts speaking in Vietnamese at 34:45. The locals consider her Vietnamese. Great interview.
Naturalization is an exception. There are plenty of rules with it however that aren't stated. However, certainly possible.
From what I understand, being a foreigner by birth and becoming a Japanese citizen isn't exceptionally abnormal.
When I worked the desk of a hotel, over the course of a few years, I did meet a few Americans who had traveled from Japan and had Japanese passports that showed Japanese nationality, although they would show an American birthplace. Nearly all of them were travelling with a Japanese wife and sometimes with children as well, which I'm sure had more than a bit to do with it.
I'd thought of moving to Japan twice: once, when my uncle was living there - he was there for about seven years, working as a construction foreman building "American-style" (i.e.: big) houses for wealthier folks in more suburban and rural areas of Japan. He kept trying to get me to come over and told me that he'd get me a work visa through the company he worked for because basically it was him and a friend from the US in rural Japan... he just wanted more people from back home to socialize with. The second time was with my older brother, who was stationed there with the Navy. I started looking at expatriate websites and forums and reading peoples' experiences; there seemed to be a lot of American, English, Australian, Canadian, German, and French people (mostly men) who were now citizens due to marriage and had plenty of advice on the difference between being a "citizen" and being "Japanese."
One that sticks out in my mind was a French national who had lived in Japan since his teens, married his high school sweetheart, had Japanese citizenship, and wanted to become a police officer. The recurring thing he was told was, "forget it." He would say, "well, the requirements state that you have to be a naturalized Japanese citizen, which I am..." and the response was that these were simply legal mandates for compliance with groups like the UN and trade partners, but that in practice, it wasn't possible. He plugged ahead with taking the police exams anyway, and each time he applied, he was soundly and immediately rejected with no explanation.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JL
Check out Andrea Aybar...her father moved from Spain to Vietnam when she was 8-9 yrs old and now at 17yrs old...she is fluent in Vietnamese, just perfect. Her accent sounds more Spanish when speaking English though. The interview is in English, but she starts speaking in Vietnamese at 34:45. The locals consider her Vietnamese. Great interview.
Cool story, her English accent is a bit Vietnamese to my ears. On the same note I met a French guy who was Asian, half Vietnamese half Chinese, who spoke English with a French accent (as he would). It might seem unusual to us but there are actually 600,000 Asians in France, more than the UK!
Cool story, her English accent is a bit Vietnamese to my ears. On the same note I met a French guy who was Asian, half Vietnamese half Chinese, who spoke English with a French accent (as he would). It might seem unusual to us but there are actually 600,000 Asians in France, more than the UK!
Not unusual. Being a French colony back then, Vietnamese are common in France. French is the first language for the younger Vietnamese there. My friend's daughter speaks French and sometimes Vietnamese with her parents.
I know a few mixed race people with a Chinese parent speaking fluent Chinese.
Mixed race people are viewed as foreign or exotic more than in the Americas.
Such people can also speak better English or foreign languages than most Chinese in China including HK.
Immigrants is probably not the correct word for most foreigners in China.
Quote:
Originally Posted by other99
yes I am aware of Singapore having a large number of white residents and always has since the foundation of Singapore.
With China the amount of white people there is increasing. As China economy booms there are more and more immigrants from all over the world are heading to China especially to the large cities.
Immigrants is probably not the correct word for most foreigners in China.
You do know you are correcting a comment made by someone in 2012 right?
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