Originally published Jun 6, 2014 at the blog of School Datebooks Inc.

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Asianizationality. Noun. Origin: One cubicle left and back, Lafayette, IN.

Meaning: The innate ability to asianize someone.

 As in: 

"Her ability to get her co-workers to understand her culture is due to her good asianizationality."

"Her friendly manner is key to her asianizationality."

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 One of my co-workers, Victoria, was born in China, and never lets Leslie, Darren, Jon or I forget about it. Victoria has this tenancy to "asianize" us at any opportunity. Her methods are two-fold; she likes to share her culture, as well as ask us "American" trivia. Her cultural stories are of interest to me, since I lived in China last summer for an internship, but the marketing department is more affected by her questions about ordinary American customs. However, this trivia is the most trivial trivia that could be asked.

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Sometimes she will pause from her work to ask us questions like what do you call a female tiger? Why do you say 'go bananas' and not 'go apples'? Why do you park on a driveway and drive on a parkway? And my personal favorite: What does CVS stand for?  (Consumer Value Store, if you were curious.) You would think that these questions would be obvious to us, since we are all Americans. We understand the culture more than she, but these inquiries usually leave us scratching our heads and quickly googling the answers while we attempt to respond. 

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Although our ignorance is pretty embarrassing, seeing things in different perspectives are always advisable. Whether it's blankly staring at Victoria when she asks me how velocity is different from speed, or compiling quote themes for Leslie, I'm learning a lot at School Datebooks. And let's be real here, I'm getting really good at Jeopardy.

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Until then,

-Em