Pleased to meet you... hope you guess my name?

I love meeting new people. People from different walks of life. From across many different ponds. They are here to teach us new things and we can learn something new from everyone - everyone shapes us to become who we are. Meeting new people as a second generation born individual can be an interesting experience to say the least.

Speaking from personal experience, generally, the Brits are mostly very polite, wonderful people. Engaging with British people from the older (and younger generations actually) as a 'Second Generation' person can be rather amusing sometimes, and I'll go on to demonstrate why. I have learnt over the years that people have different ways in trying to establish where you are from. They can tell by your skin, accent, or whatever, that you're not a pure-bred Norfolk British farmer (or Scottish widow, or Irish-born guiness lover INSERT YOUR NATIONALITY HERE) and they proceed to ask you where you're from without even saying the simple words "So, where are you from?" It's not as straightforward as that. Here are some things that people have said to me over the years to try to gauge where I'm from:

• Your name is unusual...? (*Expectant, hopeful look*)
• So, have you lived here long? (All my life, thanks. Not a good thing to ask me!)
• Are you Spanish? (*I can see you've got dark hair which a lot of Spaniards have, but I can't tell, actually*.)
• Are you Italian? (You're waaaaay off.)
• Are you Iranian? (Getting colder.)
• Are you Moroccan? (Success rating - almost negligable - but, was asked to me first by my now-partner.)
• What a great name - did your parents name you after the Eric Clapton song? (This is proceeded by an air guitar riff, which gets very old, very fast).  

Sometimes I get asked outright where I'm from. Upon starting University 8 years ago, I was overwhelmed by the amount of second generation born students who came from densely populated second generation cities. Growing up in Norfolk, where second generation immirgrants were few and far between, I would simply answer. 'Err, I'm from Norfolk. East Anglia - do you know it?' To which I'd receive a confused, and sometimes even disgusted expression. Their response puzzled me at the time too.

Nowadays, when strangers ask me where I'm from I say that I was born in Norfolk and have lived there for most of my life. I really enjoy reading their facial expressions when I say this - I see flickers of 'DOES NOT COMPUTE' error messages going across their faces and I contemplate my next move. Do I put them out of their confusion by saying 'My parents are from Morocco'? Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don't. It's a fun game to play.

As The Rolling Stones say in their song, Sympathy for the Devil, "pleased to meet you - hope you guessed my name?" Ok, so the meaning of the song is completely different to mine, but I often like to hum it and have a chuckle to myself and laugh at the poignancy of the words:

Hope you guessed my name, um yeah
But what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game, um mean it, get down
Woo, who
Oh yeah, get on down
Oh yeah
Oh yeah!
Tell me baby, what's my name
Tell me honey, can ya guess my name
Tell me baby, what's my name

Rolling Stones Sympathy For The Devil Lyrics (not mine!)

I'm not taunting of course, honest. Sometimes though, I vascilate between being open with strangers about my background because I feel they have to earn it. If I warm to someone straight away I don't mind being open. It really is as simple as that! It's been a fun way to learn about the different ways that the human psyche works, anyway.

If you've got your own stories of what people have said to you in an effort to establish where you're from I'd love to hear them. They might be amusing, hilarious, or perhaps downright upsetting. I'd love to hear them in any case. Ta ta for now.