Theories and analogies

So, there is this person I know who has a certain tendency to theorise, categorise and stereotype others based on their ethnicity, choice of career, etc. Not exactly a bad attribute, instead I find it to be quite interesting.

A snippet of our conversation went somethng like this:

Friend: Terra, does your dad work for the government, or is he a teacher?
Me: Huh? Well, not exactly... The place he works in has already been privatised. Why do you ask?Friend: Ha! I guessed almost correctly... Well most (ethnic group) girls I know who did science or engineering had fathers who were either teachers or worked in the government sector. And their mothers are mostly housewives... yours?
Me: Aren't you stereotyping people?
Friend: Yeah, but it's correct most of the time. So, is your mom a housewife?
Me: Yup.

The same person also attempted to 'guess' the occupations of another friend's (No.2) parents... but hit a snag when it came to her mother's occupation. Apparently he forgot to take into consideration that she had mentioned about having a naughty younger brother.

One interesting piece of conversation the 3 of us had involved the solvent wash basin, spatulas and steel mugs.

Friend No 2 and I were washing our spatulas and steel mugs at the solvent wash basin while having a casual conversation on extremely ordinary stuff... and there comes the other friend standing between us and commenting:

"In the old days, women used to chat by the river side while washing their clothes. In the modern day, women chat at the solvent basin" Obviously this statement was met with gales of laughter.

However, the most ridiculous theory by this same person was when he specified that several colours are favoured by certain people based on their ethnic groups, and cited my car colour as an example. I disagree.

I suppose theories like these are pretty entertaining . I remember that I and a few others were also responsible for theorising that all people who went to school (primary and/or secondary) in Johor Bahru had large handwriting... (there was evidence!)

Originally posted on January 14, 2006