P. Kerim Friedman, associate professor in the Department of Ethnic Relations and Cultures at National Dong Hwa University in Taiwan, recently posted some funny videos on Savage Minds (one of the most prominent anthropology blogs out there, it would seem, highly ranked/praised by the journals American Anthropologist and Nature), pointing to disjunctures between language, ethnicity, and cultural contexts.

I think my favorite of the three is this one, about a young Chinese man who studies up on language in preparation for a trip:

As for the other two, one has recently made its rounds on Facebook, at least among my friends. How many of us have spent time in Japan (or elsewhere), and had it assumed that we didn’t speak the language? Or, for those of us who are Asian-American, having it assumed that we did speak the language, just based on our appearance?

The other, a clip from a British comedy show, pokes a little fun at the way people often behave in “ethnic” restaurants serving a cuisine quite different from their own ethnic/cultural background.

I don’t want to reproduce the whole post here, so for these two, mosey on over to Savage Minds.