Lena: Preview

When Americans talk to children, there are only two questions, it seems, that children are asked and expected to know the answer to: what their name is, and how old they are. As if there is some sort of an unspoken code of conduct that dictates that those are the only two questions allowed, anything else is taboo. There is a very similar, imbecile code of conduct that Americans follow when meeting immigrants: they ask what your name is, where you are from, and what language you speak (unless you are lucky enough to be from a country like France or Japan, for example, in which case they usually, but not always, skip the latter). I have lived in America for eight years, and there are days when I can more or less tolerate this routine, but then there are day when it annoys me greatly, and today seems to be one of the latter.