Many of the Internationals in America , especially Indians, would know who FOBs are. I was once an FOB and literally everyone (students) that steps into the U S of A are immediately FOBs by rank. But there are times when we are ‘STILL FOB’. I have noticed a lot of Indian students and mostly myself answer questions with laughs, smiles and ‘yeah’. It doesn’t matter what the question is. This is because I didn’t understand the American’s fast English. When I was a FOB, I did that a lot. Now, I do that occasionally. An example of a FOB conversation would be like this.
cashier: (smiling and trying to exercise his customer skills) What more do we want than a 6-pack of beer on a Friday evening?
FOB: heh heh… yeah.
cashier: Great beer man but, I need to see your I.D.
FOB: heh heh… yeah… (just smiles and looks at the cashier)
cashier: *Blink*
FOB: still smiling
cashier: I need to see your I.D, sir.
FOB: Oh, here.
The first two answers are the default answers most FOBs give to any question and fortunately, most questions require only a ‘Yes’ or a No’. It so happened one time that my roommates and I went to an event to present the Indian culture to the Americans who were interested in learning about it. In the casual conversation the American asked a question “what is the most popular food in the whole of India?”. My roommate said “heh heh.. yeah”. I couldn’t control my laughter as well as embarrassment. I know, there is nothing to be embarrassed about but, I am sure that a lot of FOBs as wells as SOBs (Still FOBs) give this default answer and don’t ask the person to repeat the question because we think it is embarrassing to not be able to understand the American accent. If people disagree, I apologize but, at least that’s what I did.
I used to be so self conscious about how I responded to an American. If I didn’t understand what he/she said, I simply smiled and said ‘yeah’. I do not understand why I did this but I thought the reason was definitely the one I gave above, at least for me. It’s been a while since I have been here in the US of A and I have learned to ask people to repeat themselves if I didn’t understand or couldn’t hear them. And I saw that Americans themselves weren’t afraid to ask anyone to repeat themselves even if it was a dozen times. That is one of the many good things I have learned through my interacting with a lot of people.
PS: Sorry about the cartoon, that’s the best I could do.
med that her Korean friends had given her the name understanding the fact that she could not learn from the superior Goo. Her obsession with monkeys has turned into a hatred for the superior beings monkey Goo just because they happen to have the word monkey in their scientific name. She had been spotted trying to imitate the superior monkey Goo actually having stolen his glasses once.
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