Yeah, I dunno, just seems like small talk. Small talk of a rather absurd and very patronising variety. Not a very good way to be nice. Perhaps if “PhD in American history” was swapped for “run a restaurant in LA” and “Texas” for “Delaware”, it would make sense. Likewise, swapping Jeremiah’s PhD for “source cheap and nasty products to hawk to dumbarse westerners” and “Sichuan” for “Ningxia” would make the exchange seem a little less ridiculous. I support Jeremiah’s right to be grumpy and impatient in this case.

Thanks for stopping by. Love the blog.

There’s several hundred thousand Chinese nationals living in the US, to know that not a single one has ever once been annoyed by a stupid question shows a remarkable breadth and precision of knowledge. Kudos.

Seriously though, I thought it was clear that I was more mocking my own impatience and grumpiness as much as anything else. Perhaps I should have made that clearer.