what's it mean to be chinese in britain

Jun_Hung · Joined: 23 Nov 2003 Posts: 8

hello to all neighbours and countrymen, please show me (newbie) a little face and join in this debate about being chinese in england.
i've been in this country a little over ten years, i've seen many different people, eaten many different foods. but in the modern world of individualism, what does is mean exactly to be chinese? speaking in simple terms, how does your average joe blogg; view us chinamen?

yours sincerely
JH
_________________
thank you very much

wisemansay · Joined: 27 Feb 2003 Posts: 3 Location: Glasgow-Scotland

UK caucasian people are still very very ignorant of other cultures and view us in a negative derogatory manner..
we are still considered 'chinks' in their eyes.

Eurasian · Joined: 23 Jan 2004 Posts: 14

can you say you make an effort in talking to english people??? or do you just hang around with other chinese people?

GweiLo · Joined: 22 Feb 2004 Posts: 149

Jun_Hung

You seem to be asking two different questions.
"what does is mean exactly to be chinese?"

Which is a good questionto pose here and it is a shame nobody has attempted an answer. For my part I cannot answer it as I am not Chinese. I would imagine it means different things to different people though.

Your other question "speaking in simple terms, how does your average joe blogg; view us chinamen?" appears to require the response on Non Chinese and is perhaps better addressed to the audience of other sites. For my part I don't view the Chinese as anything in particular. I know some Chinese who are very nice, or bright, or industrious....etc etc. I know some who are stupid, lazy, bigoted....etc.

Surely racism amounts to forming a view "positive or negative" of a people based on their race? To have some "view" of the "Chinese", whether positive or negative is inherently racist is it not? That is the whole essence of "stereotyping" as evidenced by wisemansay

LaoFuZhi · Joined: 09 Jan 2004 Posts: 31 Location: Scotland

AhQ · Joined: 28 Feb 2004 Posts: 7

And what exactly i the problem with "chinks" when some of us term the rest of us as "chinamen"?

hairy fingers · Joined: 03 Apr 2004 Posts: 17

GweiLo · Joined: 22 Feb 2004 Posts: 149

hairy fingers.

It was wisemansay who said that. LaoFuZhi challenged that view. Just thought I'd prevent any confusion. :-)

Actually as a Scot I think LaoFuZhi is likely to aspire to tartan pantherism if anything ;-)

callummaclay · Joined: 13 Dec 2003 Posts: 4

Hi

I was on the tube the other day and some, I guess drunken, yobs, I guess or hope yobs, said to everyone on in the carriage which was crammed full, 'right Japanese of the carriage!' two or three times (this could as easily have been Chinese). I was standing some way off but no-one said anything and I wanted to react but didn't know what to say. I am not sure if there was anyone who felt threatened by this. Clearly many people could have felt threatened by this and even been caused to leave the carriage. I am coming to realise that racism against Chinese is very common especially and particularly for new immigrants.

I thought for some time afterwards about what was the correct response to this situation(outlined below). Given that racism is seemingly common it is not practical to challenge every drunken idiot in a physical way on ones own. Even if it wasn't people saying that haven't actually committed any crime unless there was someone who was actually in fear of violence and therefore offender would have committed assault. I was thinking the only way to solve this would be for a collective approach to be formulated, which would require mass participation (the success of which would depend on their being at least a percentage of the population who was happy to follow the lead of someone else in opposing racist behaviour).

The problem in these situations, which may be the most common one, is that people are on the tube home, they are very tired and the last thing in the world that they want is some racist or generalist thug on their case. Therefore apart from a legislative change to make a simple racist comment illegal the only way would be to adopt a collective approach.

I am fairly sure it way too idealist to ever work, but it may just have some effect given that there are certain types of people who may have the energy to take it forward,

It would work like this: If there is racist comment then all people would begin to say 'We will not accept you racist behaviour' which would be taken up by other people. It would need a campaign so that people would be ready to react to any offenders and this would make people think twice about making any racist comments. You would need a widespread campaign to get everyone to know what they had to do. Of course the most important person is the person who starts it off. Once one person is ready to start saying it then many fair minded no racists would be happy to join in. After all almost everyone dislikes yobbish behaviour and therefore you might get a lot of people interested in participating. In a carriage of fourty people if 3 people were aware of the protocol and one was ready to get it started that would be enough to get the job done. It would make people think twice.

As I think everyone knows racism is ignorance and racist behaviour only occurs because it can. If you change the rules so that it is seen not to be accepted by an active percentage of the population the incidence of racist behaviour should be decreased.

You probably think this suggestion wouldn't get off the ground. So what would you do? Have you ever encountered a similar situation?

Regards
Callum

GweiLo · Joined: 22 Feb 2004 Posts: 149

callummaclay · Joined: 13 Dec 2003 Posts: 4

Yes, like you say people do say people stupid things when they are drunk and likely to react aggressively when challenged even though they wouldn’t behave that way normally. The only function I would like to perform is to let anyone else know that I strongly disagree with the racist sentiments. However if you challenge the comment directly you would need to be prepared to get involved in a fight which like you say can’t be a recommended course of action all or any of the time. I was just imagining how horrible it would be for a person who was put in fear by those remarks and was very aware that no-one else said anything perhaps imagining that they secretly agreed.

So GweiLo to turn the question around what do you think of the expression GweiLo? Personally I have a love hate relationship with the word but clearly it is an offensive term…you wouldn’t find any Chinese being happy to be called a ‘gwei’ anything. I like it because it is exotic but I don’t like it because it is exclusionary and offensive (although I don’t take offence since that is simply the standard term for westerners. Even when speaking to me people will still use the term with an apologetic little smile, because they know that the word is derogatory, unless they are so PC aware and think to use a different term). I heard there was an article in the Xing Dao claiming it wasn’t derogatory, but I don’t feel it is at all possible to hold or prove that argument. Either way you would have to say that racism from Chinese to English is not such a problem as racist Chinese would not physically attack or threaten Westerners, which must be seen as the most intrusive form of racism. It seems the only way racism is expressed is via exclusion and derogatory nomenclature in the native language. You certainly seem to be taken with it as you have adopted it but perhaps you have a particular reason for using it...or do you just like the emotion in the word?

GweiLo · Joined: 22 Feb 2004 Posts: 149

I adopted it on-line because it had always been directed at me in clearly insulting terms. It is offensive, people shouldn't use it. I decided to use it for much the same reasons that black people reclaim the N word or many gays reclaimed the term queer.

It doesn't deeply offend me and I ain't going to get my knickers in a twist about it, but lets face it racism is just as widespread amongst the Chinese as the British. It does them no harm to look within thier own culture and community from time to time and when it comes to terms that may offend some then I favour two things.

Firstly a bit of tolerance and understanding on the part of those who are offended. I am not getting in anyones face for using the term, but quietly trying to explain that it is derogatory and offensive. I think there has long been an assumption that if we don't speak Chinese, we aren't going to understand, so it is OK to call us it. I recall having a discussion about the term Chinky some time ago. My mum and dad don't have a racist bone in thier bodies and have always used the term when reffering to a Chinese Takeaway. In that sense it was never intended to be derogatory, it is just a dimunition of Chinese Takeaway.....Ch.n.....k...y. Nonetheless I accept that it does offend some people and am am happy to support the view that the term should be eradicated....but I would also prefer that the people who are offended show some tolerance and understanding and deal with it by education. My mum and dad know it is offensive now, they still occasionally slip up and say it and are greatly embarrased when they do. But hey, they have used it for decades and old habits die hard. I guess that is my approach to Gwailo, lots of Chinese people either think it isn't very offensive or use it out of long established habit. I want to educate them not punish them or point the finger at them.

The other thing I'd like is for people who do want to challenge racism to think carefully about how they do it. I would like to see them do it in cahoots with people from other ethnic backgrounds as racism isn't an issue exlusively about the Chinese, or even visible ethnic minorities.

It is ironic, in my view, that some people who want to challenge racism gravitate together to form Sinocentric, Afrocentric, etc groups. In my view that does two negative things. Firstly it prevents you from understanding the other chaps perspective and tends to reinforce your own prejudices, secondly it reinforces racism generally, one of the fundemental truths about racism being the divide and rule concept. If we let racism divide us into racial camps then that is a success for the racists.

In terms of priorities though I don't think eradicating the use of Gwailo is very important or urgent, few people know its roots so it isn't going to offend many. Racial violence, of course, must be the priority. Thereafter we do need to create an environment where certain terms are so socially unacceptable as to make a pariah of anyone who uses them. We have done it with the N word. We can do it with other terms too.

Guest · Posted: Sun Aug 22, 2004 3:26 pm Post subject:

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