honestly seeing you mention sikh society is so funny bc sikh people LOVE showing their culture! i work with a lot of sikh men and they're always bringing food into work and just love being asked culture. im chinese and they're always asking questions as well- cultural exchange is such a personal thing and imo one of the easiest ways to build a relationship

literally!!!!!! and your last comment is so important bc the reason i made that post is bc i actually found myself guilty of the tiktok mindset WITH one of the chefs at work. he's spanish and has quite a heavy accent and for a long time i really dithered on asking him where he was from (bc all i knew from his accent was that it was european which. doesnt really help) and in my head i was doing it bc i didnt want to 'other' him, but in the end my mum actually said to me that being clearly uncertain around him and NOT addressing the fact we clearly come from different places was actually making things worse, and i was so so pissed off at myself bc she was right. and you know what? i asked him not long ago in the end where he was from, and he lit up. we went back and forth about the spanish and the english and we ribbed each other but it felt like the weird tension existing in all our interactions up until that point had lifted and now he makes a point to come over and chat to me at work. and that tension wasn't there bc i DISLIKED his potential culture or felt actually UNCOMFORTABLE around him, it existed because i demonised my own curiosity and genuine desire to know about him as a person and let myself be a little freak about it instead. like????? it's so fucked up that this is becoming such a normalised thing!!!!