Stereotype Needs To Be Broken In Today's World

Once I was hanging out with some croatian friends, one of them asked me, "what is the stereotype of croatian people held by you (Chinese) people?" I couldn't answer, and it felt as if she was offended by my ignorance of her country. Well first of all I am not so knowledgeable about global geography, there's really not much I could tell about Croatia beside it's approximate location. Second, it's not that every nation has made a name for themselves for their stereotype. There are a few nations carrying the fame(or notoriety) for whatever their people are been collectively believed to be like, the U.S, Germany, China, Japan, Russian, the UK, France, Spain etc are obviously some of the biggest target of stereotype-making due to their enormous influence, interest and impact cast on global community both historically and contemporarily on our planet. That doesn't mean a country without much well-known stereotype doesn't make a good country, right? But anyways why would you want a stereotype?  


I personally would rather have no stereotype about my nation, I would rather having people ask me "Where is it?" "What are the people like?" "What do people eat?" when I tell them about my country instead of having them already picturing a nation of dog eating culture, birth-control policy and public spitting habit while I'm speaking. I mean I really wish people to see me as myself, an individual person, instead of judging me by where I am from. I do not represent all people in China.
On the one hand, some people are really judgemental, whatever they don't like in your nation they associate that background with your presence no matter where you go, also if you ever made mistakes or did something wrong these people would assume your whole nation is like so. No, just becasue I don't keep my desk tidy it doesn't mean everybody is dirty in China, my mother happens to be a germaphobic hygiene freak as opposed to my "keeping everything not in order but efficient" style.
On the other hand it is bothering me that whenever I look for a job, the employer only sees my nationality to judge whether I could be valuable to their business. What about my education, what about my work experience, what about my skills, what about me?
I wish when I introduce myself to people, what people see is a blank cover of a painting that needs to be unveiled by your genuine interest and curiosity.

Stereotype originally comes from the printing trade, it was first adopted in 1798 to describe a printing plate that duplicated any typography. Due to the technique limit at that time, once you made a stereotype it cannot be changed. That's why it was used as a metaphor of something perpetuated without change, and led to today's meaning as "a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing".

Yes Stereotype may help you understand a certain group of people when you didn't have the chance to face them, but once you do have the chance please put whatever opinions you held away for a while and just try to understand this particular person right in front of you, alive!

Well since stereotype is no longer in use, we type on keyboard, we print with laser printer, you can change anything anytime in a computer, a laptop, a phone, there's no such a image that is perpetuated that cannot be changed. It's time to treat every individual as who he or she is especially in this more and more globalized world. There's no excuse of treating people with stereotype, it's worse than ignorance, it's arrogance. 

And for all those people who just have to use your two fingers stretching your eye into two skinny lines whenever you mention Asian, please stop doing that, especially not in front of my face, for Christ's sake I have big eyes.