#Ive met those white people who move to Japan and start hugging people as a greeting

[ask-whitepearl-and-steven]

Really quick. I just need to say this.

DON’T CALL STRANGERS ON THE INTERNET PET NAMES. 

Look, I get it. Some cultures have this thing where it’s standard to refer to people as ‘sweetheart’ or ‘love’ or whatever. Some people have made a habit of it. 

But this is the internet. The entire damn world isn’t Alabama. In MANY parts of the world, casual familiarity from strangers makes people VERY uncomfortable. 

Unless you have spoken with the person extensively and know their verbal tics and have built up a repertoire, you need to STOP casually calling people ‘baby’ or ‘bitch’.

These are simple social boundaries. 

Please.

Edit because it’s necessary: Some of you are saying “I’m not gonna change my speech habits, it’s a harmless cultural thing.” and obviously that’s up to you. I admire that - hanging on to your own identity, not being shamed of how you speak. There’s obviously weight to that.

But I also am seeing JUST AS MANY people in the tags/notes going “yes, this makes me EXTREMELY uncomfortable when people do this, I’m weirded out and I don’t know how to address it” so I just want to mention that even if it’s isn’t a huge deal, it isn’t technically ‘harmless’. It does affect other people negatively.

 If you don’t care about it, then that’s on you, it’s fine. But as a twice-over immigrant who’s had to adjust my cultural  norms to communicate with local people several times back and forth, I’m giving you a little bit of side-eye. 

It’s not asking you to pretend to fit in. We’re not asking you to move mountains or change your entire ass accent. It’s literally just the acknowledgement that outside of your personal bubble of homegrown culture, your habits MAY be discomforting to others. It’s just common courtesy. 

#psa #Ive met those white people who move to Japan and start hugging people as a greeting #and everyone is SO uncomfortable #and is that technically harmless? #yeah pretty much #is it polite? #not really #lets at least pretend to care