Types of Asians: “FOBs”
Okay, so this is continuing a previous posting on different types of Asians. For some who are already familiar, this is like beating a dead horse, but this may be totally new for others. So FOB is an interesting term which I’m sure probably makes some people cringe.
FOB stands for “fresh of the boat” which was a derogatory term, but I think it’s derogatory in kind of the same way that n***** is for African Americans. In other words, if other Asians call their friends FOBs, no big deal. But if someone who is of another nationality says it, well, don’t be surprised if you get an angry reaction. In fact, don’t even try it.
So, FOB is a term usually for anyone born overseas. Thus when they immigrate in, they’re “fresh of the boat” although there aren’t too many people coming off of boats these days. When you think about that, it covers such a broad spectrum since some people came over when they were really young so essentially grew up in the US and might not even know much of their native tongue. Others have come later in life, and never tried to learn English well. Whereas others came later in life but have mastered English as well as maintaining their native tongue.
Usually the more “fobby” someone is means how much of their original culture they have retained. Although I would say it is also a reference of how little of the US culture they have adapted.
Another sub-group which I’ll expand on more in another posting are AB[X] (where X could be A for Asians or C for Chinese, etc…although most of the time I’ve only heard of ABCs…I’ll use that term here on out to illustrate a point). I bring it up now cause some people would probably be surprised to know that even between these two groups there are sometimes people that look down at each other. ABCs to FOB cause some think they are too embarrassing since they stick out too much…vice versa because the ABCs don’t know their roots enough.
Either extreme is typically not the case, and there is often enough common ground for the groups to understand each other. The people I personally admire are the ones who are well versed in multiple cultures and languages whether they were born in the US or otherwise. In this global economy and world, it’s the citizens of the world that will come up top as they can connect and communicate with more people.
Anyhow, volumes can be written about FOBs, but I’ll stop here.
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