> Of course what's absolutely a joke is people acting all aghast about another country's culture from behind their white picket fences. You do realize that if you were born in their country, you would have the exact same perspective?
From the article:
> With so many hit-to-kill drivers escaping serious punishment, the Chinese public has sometimes taken matters into its own hands. In 2013 a crowd in Zhengzhou in Henan province beat a wealthy driver who killed a 6-year-old after allegedly running him over twice.
Clearly people born and raised in China do not "have the exact same perspective".
> Most of the stereotypes of Chinese tourists equally apply to Americans.
I'm sorry this is simply not true and I'd argue this well meaning anti-racist-to-the-point-of-delusion attitude that has been drilled into the heads of Westerners is part of the problem of why China as a nation hasn't made more serious efforts to teach its citizenry the very basics of common courtesy.
I've been in airport immigration queues and watched numerous different Chinese people blatantly (there isn't a strong enough word to fully describe the magnitude) cut into every single line they could....if there was the slightest of gaps, a Chinese person would be jumping into it, completely oblivious (or not, I'm suspicious) to the rude stares of others who are politely queuing. And I won't even get into volume of speaking, driving habits, adherence to laws related to fraud, etc.
One would think their fellow countrymen who know better would say something (if I saw a Canadian pulling this stunt he'd get a severe public shaming from me), but once again most Westerners would probably disagree with this, as the very notion of groups having a social responsibility for "policing themselves" is also considered "racist", as is even noticing blatantly obvious patterns in objective reality.
EDIT: Reminded me of this video:
Why BUY books in CHINA when you can read them for FREE!
I think this goes a long ways to explaining why they are the way they are, types of behavior that would be unthinkable anywhere else is absolutely normal in China.
> Reading the comments here are just so funny. Why is it whenever a Chinese person does something, or rather an "Asian person," it must be attributed to their culture?
I am not seeing this as a common attitude in the comments. Save for a few, I see those blaming a government and its operatives. I think the oh-woe-is-us-stop-with-the-stereotypes is just a convenient way to detract from the story or recognize actions of a nation's government as a whole. There's not really any stereotyping going on of any real size, please don't try so to make victims.
As an exercise while you're reading these funny comments, do this: count the comments that are saying this isn't cultural and it's not about the Chinese as a culture, and compare it to the count of people that are saying this is cultural as opposed to related to the nation's government.
This is Chinese as in China, not Chinese as in the race/ethnicity.
If they meant to demonize all people of Chinese descent, I would agree, but that isn't the case. This isn't targeted at Singapore, Taiwan, or any other country that might have a significant ethnic Chinese population.
It's nationalism, plain and simple. Still not great, but it's not what you demonize it for being.
> "I'm mostly talking about the folks who are calling for this kid, or his parents, to be beaten, fined, or punished in some way. I'm also talking about the people who use it as an excuse to complain about how Chinese people are louder, ruder, or generally worse than other cultures."
These people are without doubt going to far, but I see no reason to say that they don't have a right to be offended in any capacity.
The problem is that they are being racist and calling for brutal punishment, not that they are westerners, don't care about art, anonymous, or self-righteous. Those things are perfectly fine (or in the case of "self-righteous", ambiguous.)
>here’s my western source claiming Chinese totally don’t discriminate
I’ve traveled extensively in China. From my own personal experience they are extremely racist. The difference is night and day, you cross the “border” at the airport and the ads all become incredibly pale.
Hong Kong and tier-1 China are basically everything you’d imagine in a white supremacists wet dream, but Asian.
They don’t possess any concept of white guilt, they have no cultural shame and are not susceptible to identity politics. They are “friendly supremacist”. They will smile in your face producing xxx,xxx,xxx widget per year while hating your guts.
> For context, "sick man of Asia" is up there with the n-word and drawing pictures of Mohammad in terms of its ability to offend a group of people.
And it's one of those things that requires a lot of culture-specific sensitivity. The phrase really pushes Chinese buttons, but most of the world is not similarly sensitive to it.
Similarly, blackface is highly offensive in the US, but a skit in on one of China's state-run TV networks featured it a few years ago in it's very prominent New Year's gala program:
I'm from one of the regions mentioned and I've literally never been discriminated against or heard of anyone else being discriminated against because of it. The article likewise called all Han Chinese racist three paragraphs in so yes I would consider it China Bashing.
> >At some point people have to come to terms that this isn't about some technical definition of "immigrant" vs "expat" but a deeper prejudice.
> At some point, people like you need to stop trying to make everything about racism.
But it is. (Kinda.) If you don't look East-Asian in China, the predominant assumption is that you're an "expat". And statistically this is almost always true -- Chinese nationality is extremely hard to obtain if you're not born with it, and probably 99% of Chinese nationals look East Asian and has East Asian ethnicity.
> The author labels that joke as "harmless" but you don't have to be a Chinese censor to interpret it as reinforcing harmful stereotypes.
Is it actually "harmful" though? People are still going to Chinese restaurants as far as I know. The "harmful" adjective is being thrown around a lot, but it's never been very clear to me there is actual harm. People will cite things such as "violence against Asian-Americans has been on the increase!", but that seems entirely disconnected from some jokes in some sitcom.
> a. Left China b. Are talking to a foreigner about politics
This is a weird form of racism I see from a lot of people coming from a Chinese perspective, and it's very arrogant and abrasive.
When a Chinese person is outside of China, they are the foreigner. Walking around the U.S. and calling people laowai is really a... questionable choice.
> The teacher (young girl, never left China in her life) told us that everything "French" means "sex/porn/etc", i.e. "french book", "french movie". Funny, but tragic.
I think this is a typical example of stereotype rather than racism. But actually, I think that kind of stereotype is the exact major driving force behind racism in China.
From my own experience, I don't think we in China have received enough education about races or even our own ethnic groups. That eventually lead to ignorant and insensitive.
I once was in a dinner with my parents and their colleges. One of the college is identified as Hui, they don't eat pork (While us Han try everything edible). Somebody on the table got curious and ask why, before the Hui can answer, someone else intercepts and said "Because pig is their god" (when in the reality, they believe pig is filthy). Thankfully, Hui was very nice and explained it to us, and that someone was very embarrassed.
So, I think the solution of the racism problem in China is to encourage more interaction between different people.
> It's not about race but rather their patriotism towards China.
Please explain, then, why race is a category used to reduce a person's numeric "trustworthiness score" in China. If one is ethnically Uighur instead of Han or if one has received religious education then one is deemed by the government as "less trustworthy" -- not because of behaviour or evidence of a crime but simply because of ethnicity.[1][2][3]
Since this score is used to determine whether freedoms are restricted (e.g. travel, communication, and forced "re-education"), it is racism.
It's "anti-Asian hate crimes" and not "anti-Chinese hate crimes" because the people being harassed and attacked are from eastern Asian ethnic groups in general, not specifically Chinese ethnic groups.
> Chinese are racist because we have very limited experience with other, non-East Asian cultures.
I disagree with the assertion that Chinese are racist. You will never see a restaurant in China that says "No ---- and dogs" except in early 20th century Shanghai. I agree that Chinese are usually less sensitive about racial topics. They will carelessly call a foreigner "???", but that's as bad as "Yankee" goes IMHO.
I've heard that in US Chinese guys usually date Chinese girls. But really can we blame that they are racists?
> When it comes to history, Chinese people again suffer from the box-syndrome - many are proud and fervently study Chinese history, and thus barely scrape the surface of world history.
Disagree again. If you really study Chinese history, you won't find much pride there.
A "gentle reminder" that a 1.4 billion group of people are not identical is about as condescending as it gets.
> The notion that the modern Chinese person is racist towards the Japanese is pretty laughable, for example.
It's hard to see how anyone with any familiarity with China who does not themselves hate Japanese would laugh at this.
Not only is there widespread hatred of Japan (including Japanese people whose parents weren't even born during WWII), but it's fanned by the government[1]. Anti-Japanese specials run on TV during national week and over 200 anti-Japanese films are produced in China every year. In some cases anti-Japanese films are censored for being too moderate. A well known example is the 2000s war film, Devils at the Doorstep, which was nationally banned for including a scene where one Japanese soldier was friendly with Chinese villagers.
Despite your implication that modern China suffers less from this, surveys have shown that anti-Japanese sentiment in China is higher among the current generation than among the Chinese who lived through the war occupation. [2]
Personal anecdote is the weakest form of argument in this kind of debate, but I'll also add that while living on the mainland, I've personally received criticism simply for having befriended several Japanese students during my uni days.
From the article:
> With so many hit-to-kill drivers escaping serious punishment, the Chinese public has sometimes taken matters into its own hands. In 2013 a crowd in Zhengzhou in Henan province beat a wealthy driver who killed a 6-year-old after allegedly running him over twice.
Clearly people born and raised in China do not "have the exact same perspective".
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