[QNA]   How can I blend-in to places where it’s racially impossible?

Blending in to the city around you, specifically called “actual urban camouflage“, is indeed mostly visual – including mannerisms but also vocalics.

You can dress, walk and even talk like the locals but sometimes your physical appearance can make it impossible to fully blend in. Such as a tall white man with bright hair in Thailand where everyone is short, dark skinned and haired – or even in your own country but in non-white cities like Compton or The Bronx.

Also a short Asian man in the predominately white and very tall Netherlands or a large black man in the equally dark skinned but thin Bangladesh and so on.

Sometimes you just can’t fit in to your surroundings because of our unalterable appearance. So then the trick is to make your surroundings blend into you.

This doesn’t mean to only be with other white people, as that would further you from blending. It means to be with a group or at least another person of whom does fit in to your immediate surroundings.

A local or associate or a group of them when out in public or operating – as in a clique, crew, friends etc.

Visually you still can’t blend as you’ll stick out regardless, but socially you’ll be more accepted by the local community. Meaning less suspicion, discrimination, aversion and stares against you.

So stick with a group, “safety in numbers” as the saying goes, but more like “safety in locality”.

However, it’s not always easy or possible to make friends or feasible to always have a local person to be there with you when you need to blend in.

This is an on-the-fly tactic:

It’s “association by proximity”. It’s being perceived as part of a group of people by outside observers merely because you’re physically near them.

For example; walking with a group of people on the street or sitting with a group of people at a bar that you don’t know. You don’t know each other but to an outside observer it may appear that you do.

This social hack is only situationally useful but highly effective when it is the right situation. And lets you blend in to any environment regardless of how much contrast you have with the local population.

On the streets, the way to offset the lack of visual / physical blending is social interaction and locality acceptance – even if it’s just theatrics.