Saturday, May 5, 2007

Guam, As Seen From New England

Anyone from New England: Where are you from?

Me: Guam

Anyone from New England: (small laugh), No seriously, where are you from?

Me: I really am from Guam

Anyone from New England: Wait a second, you mean Guam is a real place? I always thought it was just a joke!

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I have had this exact conversation (or other forms of it) 948 times since August. It's bizarre. In most other parts of the world, and the US for that matter, people have either never heard of Guam or they are familiar with its military affiliation. That's it. There are no jokes about Guam in other regions.

Apparently here it is freakishly common to say, "It's so far away it's in Guam", or "She's from Guam" (meaning some place really far away, like Pennsylvania).

How does one properly respond to this weirdness? I have yet to figure that out...

2 comments:

trinh! said...

Dev...don't you know?
That means that you are that much cooler because you are actually from Guam. I am jealous of you. Most New Englanders should be, they are just too dumb to realize it.

Unknown said...

I've heard: "hey, yah, that's in Africa right?" or "Gosh, you speak English so well!"

Ay adai....