Jackie Chan and an American take on Africa

Regularly while in the Philippines I would have someone shout at me, "Americano!". Not because all white people are Americans, but because that is what we call them in the Philippines. Its enough to irk you if you let it, but with some cultural stretching, you can learn to take it just as if someone had said "howdy dude" from a horseback in Arkansas, which is probably more or less what they meant in the first place. It was just me who took it all wrong.
Having traveled with a couple Filipinos over into Uganda, I've realized that I didn't have it so bad. Shoimar is regularly called after, "hey, Jackie Chan!"
No, he's not Chinese, no he doesn't look Chinese. But as an Asian mzungu, he is "Jackie Chan!" The great thing is that he rolls with this like I wouldn't. He introduces himself as Jackie Chan in group settings and might even do a mock Karate chop if called by the handle in the street. Its pretty great.
I was having a conversation about these things with a white South African, who said that even he sometimes gets called "American."
"I've never been anywhere even remotely near that part of the world!" he exclaimed. "If I tried to go there they'd probably take one look at my passport and send me back!"
Alternatively, upon talking to a Ugandan who spent time in India, he said that he was once asked if there was any black people in South Africa. "Of course," he answered, "why wouldn't there be?"
"Oh," they answered, "because when we watch their cricket team, we only see white guys playing."
But we're not like that in Canada are we? We are multi-national and usually have a good sense of who is from where right? I don't know. But I do know that most people, when they are going to somewhere in Europe or Asia will specify the country.
"Yes, I'm going on a business trip to germany, but I'm going to lay over a weekend in London to see my uncle." or, "We're going to spend two weeks vacation in Thailand and then fly back to Japan."
But if you are going to a country in Africa, even though it is a really really big and diverse continent, you say, "I'm going to Africa." Maybe you will specify and say "Uganda" like I do most of the time and have people looking at you, trying to figure out if Uganda is in Africa or Central America. For many people, it seems like Africa is taken as just one big country. The different colors on the globe that devide it into many pieces are like statelines in the US. Nobody says "We're going on a trip to California, do they? They just say, I'm going to the USA?" Wait, they don't even do that most of the time!
And for immigrants or those of different heritages in Canada or the USA, you could be Korean, or Scottish, or Indian, or African? Or you are irish-canadian, Mexican Canadian, or Afro-Canadian? That hardly seems fair.
This all to put no offense to anyone, but to merely say, we humans are a confused bunch.
Not to let myself off the hook. I tried to figure out where New South Whales was the other day, and found myself exhausting pretty much every continent for possibilities. Turns out, as you yourself probably know at the drop of a hat, it is in Australia. What do I know?