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Kenyans Say Chinese Investment Brings Racism and Discrimination (2018)

nytimes.com

81–90 of 125 posts

Re: Kenyans Say Chinese Investment Brings Racism and Discrimination (2018)

#81
post #3

With China being very homogeneous in terms of race, they never worked through those issues. I don't blame them. My grand parents, who lived in the countryside all their life would react in a similar way. Small anecdote: I attended an English class at a Chinese business university. The teacher (young girl, never left China in her life) told us that everything "French" means "sex/porn/etc", i.e. "french book", "french…

My favorite example is Darlie toothpaste. It used to be called Darkie toothpaste, based on the idea that black peoples have exceptionally white teeth. The Chinese name is still “black person toothpaste.”

Re: Kenyans Say Chinese Investment Brings Racism and Discrimination (2018)

#82
post #47
post #3

With China being very homogeneous in terms of race, they never worked through those issues. I don't blame them. My grand parents, who lived in the countryside all their life would react in a similar way. Small anecdote: I attended an English class at a Chinese business university. The teacher (young girl, never left China in her life) told us that everything "French" means "sex/porn/etc", i.e. "french book", "french…

> 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 a…

Minor spelling note, "colleague" is an acquaintance or co-worker. "College" is an institution of learning.

Re: Kenyans Say Chinese Investment Brings Racism and Discrimination (2018)

#83
post #81
post #3

With China being very homogeneous in terms of race, they never worked through those issues. I don't blame them. My grand parents, who lived in the countryside all their life would react in a similar way. Small anecdote: I attended an English class at a Chinese business university. The teacher (young girl, never left China in her life) told us that everything "French" means "sex/porn/etc", i.e. "french book", "french…

My favorite example is Darlie toothpaste. It used to be called Darkie toothpaste, based on the idea that black peoples have exceptionally white teeth. The Chinese name is still “black person toothpaste.”

Kind of reminds me of Aunt Jemima Syrup.

Re: Kenyans Say Chinese Investment Brings Racism and Discrimination (2018)

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting! Is it at all comparable to how Scandinavians can read each other’s languages but most have a hard time understanding the spoken languages?

Much more divergent, less like Danish and Bokmal (Dano-Norwegian) or Swedish than French and Romanian. But Romanians write in French which they can translate on the fly into Romanian as they read though a very different form of Romanian than what people speak. And written Romanian is used for scripts, songs, transcripts and under a 100 novels. French is Mandarin, Romanian is Cantonese. None of the other topolects hav…

"And written Romanian is used for scripts, songs, transcripts and under a 100 novels"

You meant that there are only less than 100 novels written in Romanian? If yes, that's one of the most absurd claims I've read in my life.

Re: Kenyans Say Chinese Investment Brings Racism and Discrimination (2018)

#85
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it's going to depend on your definitions. By American categories, India is 100% asian, and almost every sub-saharan country is 100% black. Of course local definitions vary. But that aside, GP has a point that contemporary American culture spends a lot of energy worrying about this. The energy expended is a poor measure of the size of the problem.

==By American categories, India is 100% asian, and almost every sub-saharan country is 100% black. Of course local definitions vary.== But the claim was about "ethnicities", not races. People frequently refer to their ethnicity as Irish, Sicilian, Catalan, etc. Rarely have I heard someone say their ethnicity is white. ==The energy expended is a poor measure of the size of the problem.== Who gets to be the judge of th…

I'm not defending that the US is the "most ethnically diverse", I think that's far from true, but pointing out that this isn't an unambiguously defined question. I'm not sure I've never heard anyone state an ethnicity, but have heard the same people state belonging to multiple groups in different contexts. The dividing lines between what's an ethnicity and what's a race or a language group tend not to translate accurately between different places.

Judging the extent of racial prejudice is also hard. But only crazy people think the US is more racist now than 100 years ago. 100 years ago the NYT did not devote many pages to white self-flagellation. Nor does China today. Nor does Liberia, for that matter.

Re: Kenyans Say Chinese Investment Brings Racism and Discrimination (2018)

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You didn't hear about it because the majority of the West is too busy directing their moral outrage at the most ethnically diverse country on Earth, which, surprisingly, has problems with racism. My pet theory is that this is because Americans are one of the few groups of people who are willing to accept the fact that they have problems with racism. Every other country mostly just denies the existence of any racism t…

If you think that country is US you are hilariously mistaken https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/most-ethnically-diverse-... Africa and India are more diverse than US

If I'm not mistaken, that study doesn't take into account how similar ethnic groups are. It would assign the same diversity index to a 50% Catalan, 50% Spanish country, as to a 50% Finnish, 50% Ugandan country.

Re: Kenyans Say Chinese Investment Brings Racism and Discrimination (2018)

#87
post #3

With China being very homogeneous in terms of race, they never worked through those issues. I don't blame them. My grand parents, who lived in the countryside all their life would react in a similar way. Small anecdote: I attended an English class at a Chinese business university. The teacher (young girl, never left China in her life) told us that everything "French" means "sex/porn/etc", i.e. "french book", "french…

That’s why it surprised me that over 50% of the ads in China often feature non-Chinese/non-Asian models.

Not only that, but if you go to the theaters, more than half the movies are non-Chinese.

Can you imagine turning on the TV in the US and seeing ad after ad featuring Asian models? Or going to the theater and seeing that over half the movies are Asian movies with—gasp—subtitles!

With how homogeneous China is, I’m surprised they are willing to consume such a diverse set of media, even Bollywood films can do well there!

Re: Kenyans Say Chinese Investment Brings Racism and Discrimination (2018)

#88

For the most part, Chinese in China don't have a culture of condemning racism like the US or other western nations. As apparent in the video, he isn't even ashamed of being called racist.

That’s because China’s racism is more about stereotypes and less about physical KKK type violence.

If there was violence, it would definitely be condemned.

The best analogy I can think of is the current Harvard Affirmative Action lawsuit. There are people who don’t feel they are racist/biased, but somehow justify to themselves that having a quota on Asian American students is fine.

Re: Kenyans Say Chinese Investment Brings Racism and Discrimination (2018)

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Racism in China is a big problem, but the laundry advert alone isn't certainty not a big issue and is pretty over blown: being overly political correct around lighthearted comedy. The skin pigment 'melanin' is what causes a black person's skin to be black, and is also the same as in a non-black person's tanned skin. It's a added pigment that the absence of causes light skin. Removal of melanin can happen (through non…

Wow your long history goes all the way back to Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Thanks for enlightening us Professor 26 Year Old.

Please don't post like this here, no matter how you feel about another comment.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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