Where are you from?

When I was in Istanbul, I was asked many times...

"Where are you from?"

This seems to be a very obvious question to answer...

But I hesitate to come up with an answer every single time.

I think I get confused because I'm not sure how to answer this.

My first response would be: "Chicago"

or the slightly complex one:
"I'm from Chicago, but I live in London."

But I've slowly realised that when people (Europeans or in this case Turks) ask this, what they mean is:

"You're brown and have black hair.. you don't look Spanish, Italian, English, or Irish, so I'm going to ask..."

They don't care where you live or where you came from, they want to know what your ethnicity is!

This didn't seem to be a problem for my companion because she always answered her home country. Which, in my mind, didn't seem like the right answer for me because:

1. I wasn't born in the Philippines.
2. I don't live there.

Nothing against the motherland of course. But I'm bloody American. And the first thing I think of when someone asks me is that I'm from "Chi-town"

Before I came to this conclusion, the Turkish people would immediately yell out:

"Where are you from?? Japanese!!?!? Chinese!?!?"

When going through Immigration in Turkey when we arrived, the Immigration officer had this big smile and wanted to guess where I was from! Immediately he thought I was Japanese... and I answered him.. "no I'm from Chicago..." completely missing the point.

Fast forward to my visit to the Turkish baths, (which I shall blog about at a later time)

"You Japanese!!?!"

"No, I'm Filipino."

"What?!?!"

"Filipino"

"What?!?"

"PHILIPPINES"

"Oh..." (guy had a face that expressed no clue to what/where that was)

At one point, I decided to give up. We were walking along sightseeing, where a bunch of kids all asked at the same time:

"Where are you from!?!?!" (In pure joy and curiosity)

And I responded...

"Japan!"

Then they all yelled out in unison:

"Tokyo!!" (glee and laughter)

My companion on the trip was telling me that the Turks were just being curious since I clearly stick out as someone unique visiting their country. I respect that.

Fast forward to this evening.

A waitress walks up to me:

"Where are you from? Are you from the Philippines?"

How flattering.

"Yes."

"Really? I lost the bet then!"

Glad someone got it right.