Chinese and Indian British Students Highest Achievers?

siu mai · Joined: 13 Jun 2007 Posts: 363 Location: In the sky

Hi all,

I was reading on the bbc news website that in Britain, chinese and indian students achieved the highest in secondary school education.

As you are all aware, there have been debates about black students being the HIGHEST underachievers in British schools. Well, it seems that further research has also certified that white students also underachieve just as much as black students which is due to similar economic background.

I know many chinese, indian, black and white kids who come from relatively poor upbringings who have got themselves into university and now have excellent careers. In fact, their poor upbringing actually gave them that "drive" to excel in life. So if the not so wealthy chinese and indian kids can make something of their education, why cant the black and white kids?

Why has the media always made it seem as if the majority of black kids/adults are hard done by?

bhyt · Joined: 10 Jun 2007 Posts: 173

there was a mini 3 minutes documentary on channel 4 a while ago made by a black girl who used to be all about money, crimes etc. she interviewed a group of black boys and asked them about their views on guns and money etc. and these boys just basically had the mentality that even if they stayed in school, got their education-white men arent gonna let them get into the high paid proper jobs. and they were talking about the stereotype of how black ppl only want to make money quick-with no hard work. and i thought it was sad that they were so disillusioned with the world. cos i know racism exists in society-but u cant predict these things-they might be surprised at what they can achieve or how accepting they cud be.

i remember in my high school there was one black girl who was rly intelligent and hard working-and she wud always tell the other black kids to stop adhering to the stereotype that society in general has of black ppl-to stop calling each other n*ggers-and focus in school.

i was reading an article that racial discrimination in the workplace is still high, though probably not as high as in other countries cos london is so multicultural and generally ppl are open to other race ppl. but i think its sad that race shud be an issue wen it comes to employment.

another interesting thing off the news one time was how when workplaces look at cv's sometimes they wud look at the name and if it didnt sound 'english' enough den they wud automatically throw away the cv, even though they might be british born, or have amazing references, or degrees and work experience n the right skills.
(they actually did an experiment and sent out fake cvs to certain companies)

there were 2 black guys on the news who basically sed in the space of a month-in their local area-dey got stopped and searched by the police something like 30 times. and these 2 guys were businessmen with no doddy past and yet they kept having to go thru the humiliating stop and search process.

Jeff Minter · Joined: 31 Aug 2006 Posts: 342

Jeff Minter · Joined: 31 Aug 2006 Posts: 342

bhyt · Joined: 10 Jun 2007 Posts: 173

do you remember after the 7/7 attacks in london...the news did a report on how ethnic minorities should be classified as british chinese for example, to encourage assimilation apparently, as opposed to just 'british' basically.

i don't really see the logic behind it, though nothing was logical after the 7/7 attacks-as some narrow minded people bullied muslims in the belief that they're all terrorists. i don't get that mentality-how one person's actions can possibly reflect a whole nation. there's a website where someone put up photo's of some chinese artist who is eating a baby (it was an aborted dead baby or something like that) - and the comments of the people in the forum were just beyond racism. there were people who said 'all the chinese are uncivilised barbarians' etc etc. it annoyed me beyond belief. i dislike how britain and usa are generally portrayed as 'perfect' countries, whereas china is constantly scrutinised and criticised. every country has its issues and problems.

on my cv i write british chinese whereas before i used to write just british. i used to also only put my english name on but now i put both english and chinese name on. i don't think it has made a difference for me.

i think it's a shame that there aren't as many female managers/leaders in this country because of the belief that women may get pregnant and therefore cost more money to replace and have to take maternity leave. gender discrimination or biological discrimination?! i think this year is the first for women to have the same prize fund as men at wimbledon?

Jeff Minter · Joined: 31 Aug 2006 Posts: 342

I was actually thinking about this after registering for a new GP recently - there's british asian, black british - why can't the chinese be called british? To be honest I think these ethnicity forms are nothing but a hinderance to eliminating racism. I do yearn for the day when we notice a person's personality, voice - anything - other than "that chinese guy".

On the generalisations, it's a fact of life the more ignorant people are. Humans generalise to make things easier - not exactly fair when 1.5 billion are called chain smoking dogeaters - but we are living in a white centric society, where the good things about foreign races (considered alien) are omitted and the bad parts emphasised. Of course the opposite is true regarding whites - never have they been given the stereotype of pedophiles, rapists and hooligans - nope, they are just outcasts of society as opposed to the norm, much like dogeaters in china are a minority. It's how people portray them which is different.

The worrying thing is that this "white is right" mentality has crossed over to parts of the world where white isn't the majority race - just look at Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Taiwan - countries which you could say China should approach socially and technologically in the future - they all look at white people as the standard, the example to be adhered to.

I remember I watched a Youtube video of a little girl (white) who played some classics on the piano expertly. Not one of the comments (except mine :)) were negative, all praised her for how talented she is. Now, there was a link to another young piano player, a little girl who was chinese. You should see the contrast in comments - was she being abused, her parents pushed her into this, does she have a life??
It's seems the racial stereotyping is so ingrained I don't see a way out.

Regarding the Wimbledon prize money, I'm against that particular case - I'm all for equality, in which case women should have to work just as hard - and that means having 5 set matches. Basically they're getting comparably more money for less effort as the men.

I've found that certain industries are more prejudiced in race than others - a cousin has just started retraining in finance after 3 years trying to make a name for herself in textiles and the fashion industry. The racism may not be direct name calling, but there's no doubt she's been artificially restricted in her career.

bhyt · Joined: 10 Jun 2007 Posts: 173

the only british stereotype that other countries hold of britain that i can think of that is bad is the whole idea of football hooliganism. other then that-other countries seem to think the british have the funny posh accent, and drink tea always. they don't see the side of britain that we have to see.

i applied for a job at my university international centre as a conversation assistant, basically to talk to international students to try to help them improve their spoken english. The lady asks me 'what is your mother tongue?' - i couldn't help but smirk a bit as i said english. seriously-would i apply for an english conversation assistant job if i wasn't fluent in english?! and would i do an english degree if i wasn't good at english?! and then she asks me 'where are you from?'. i replied i'm british born. she might as well have asked me if i had a legal right to work in this country, and whether i have a british passport or not. the thing i don't get is-i sent her my cv, which has my picture on it and my name and it clearly says im british chinese,yet the woman looks at me as if shes shocked to see that i'm chinese. the thing that annoyed me most about the whole process what that she didn't even look 'british' herself (whatever that looks like-cos evidentally i don't look british so what does 'british' people look like?!) - she was of ethnic minority race herself-so if i was to be as ignorant as her i could've asked her where she is bloody from etc. and whats even more idiotic is this job is with the international centre-which is apparently supposed to be open minded to other cultures and race and help international students.

Luny · Joined: 23 Jun 2007 Posts: 20

I agree with Jeff about the 'white is right' mentality. You only have to look at major companies and organisations in HK - lots of them have white people in top positions. This is one thing I feel has changed very little post 1997. And it's not just banks either. For example, I remember seeing on the news that the Chairman of Ocean Park is not chinese and neither is the top guy at the company running the Ngong Ping cable car.

In this day and age, there are plenty of experienced and well-educated people in HK that are more than capable of doing these jobs. And I think that many of the western people in top positions in Asia aren't really that outstanding when you compare them to their colleagues in the west. But people in Asian countries such as HK still continue to put them on a pedestal and worship them as if they're God's gift or something.

As for the day we're seen as anything other than 'that chinese guy'...I don't think that will ever happen in the UK. And it's probably twice as difficult for chinese women, who have to fight gender as well as racial stereotypes. Chinese people may be academic achievers, but this doesn't seem to be reflected in the the workplace.

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