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The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)

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Re: The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)

#261

Post by ineedasername »

aksss wrote: post #206
rayiner wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the idea is to get everyone on board with the idea that the deck is still stacked against minorities even in the absence of conscious contemporary racism (which I believe to be true) Chinese Americans have higher incomes than white people on average. In terms of income mobility: Vietnamese Americans who came here in the 1970s as refugees went from being among the poorest groups in the country, to parity with whi…

Thurston County in WA, which is the seat of the state capital, has decided Asian people are not “people of color” anymore because they’re doing too well. https://reason.com/2020/11/16/equity-report-north-thurston-a...

It's very strange to qualify the "of color" designation on the basis of socioeconomic parity.

Are multi generational pockets of poverty-stricken caucasians granted "of color" status by Thurston County?

Re: The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)

#262

Post by thaumasiotes »

rangibaby wrote: post #159
yongjik wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is the reason Koreans think it's bad for health? Pretty much the same reason why Americans think it's bad for health. It has a scary-sounding name (it's also called "MSG" in Korea), it sounds like a "chemical", and you can find it in ingredient lists of all popular junk foods - most notably instant ramen, which is basically an MSG+salt solution masquerading as noodles. Give something in food an exotic name, an…

You might be onto something with the name theory. In JP it’s commonly called “flavor salt”, and there is no sign of anti-MSG anywhere

> In JP it’s commonly called “flavor salt”

In China, 味精, "essence of flavor".

Re: The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)

#263

Post by xbmcuser »

fraudsyndrome wrote: post #39
yongjik wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish people stopped invoking racism everywhere, when plain "being misinformed" explains things just fine. Millions of Koreans swear up and down that MSG is bad for health. Are we also being racist? (Against whom?)

Are they for different reasons? What is the reason Koreans think it's bad for health? As I haven't read about that. Given that in the west it was also dubbed "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome" I would think some form of prejudice played a part.

MSG is bad is a myth that came out from the US years ago and spread world wide. I have seen no MSG signs in Thailand, Singapore, Pakistan and Malaysia. And when I asked the cooks why is MSG bad they did not have an answer just that everyone thinks so or that they are tourist hot spot and such signs get foreigners into the restaurant.

Re: The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)

#264

Post by thaumasiotes »

wincy wrote: post #111
zodiac2 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As Korean, yes there’s plenty of racism of Asians vs Asians. My aunts in Korea were terrified of Chinese people when they were kids because there were always rumors of them kidnapping kids etc. There’s a lot of anger across Asia for Mainland Chinese these days. Practically all countries look down on Mainland Chinese, even those in Hong Kong does too. They think Mainland Chinese are dirty and loud and obnoxious becaus…

My (Chinese) stepmother told me to be careful about dating/marrying Korean girls because “they get a lot of plastic surgery and your kids will be ugly”. Definitely some ingrained racism between all these different Asian ethnic groups.

> “they get a lot of plastic surgery and your kids will be ugly”

This practice has successfully crossed from Korea to China. :/

Re: The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)

#265

Post by ineedasername »

rubicon33 wrote: post #203
reitzensteinm wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It totally is systemic racism. But I wish there was another word for it, or that racism were not used interchangeably with systemic racism. There's a hell of a difference between "you're racist" and "you're spreading misinformation that only exists because your grandparents were racist". The latter will get a reaction from the vast majority of people like "oh shit, I had no idea, that's awful". The former will cause…

It's called being biased, misinformed, or at worst stereotyping, and it used to be accepted that everyone does it and it's not the end of the world that your aunt from Wisconson thinks MSG gives her hives. Nowadays that aunt is racist, her whole family is racist, and it's the reason why everyone else can't get ahead in life.

I might agree that the pendulum has swung too far, but we also now have a better understanding of how bias and stereotyping can nonetheless be damaging. though yes, racism is much too loaded of a term to be thrown around the way it currently is. If you admit to no gradations, well that's when you get cancel culture, when a joke in poor taste that might reveal some bias can result in the same consequences as blatant hate speech.

Re: The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)

#266

Post by mlyle »

Frost1x wrote: post #204
eli wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t have to knowingly possess a racist motive to be racist.

I think you do, otherwise this opens the door to anyone and everyone being a "racist" by some secondary, tertiary, or nth order effect. Essentially everyone would have some degree associated with them of how racist they are. I propose the following question: are people who eat at Chik-fil-A anti-LGBT (specifically gay) rights because they financially support a business through continued purchases that support anti-LG…

> > You don’t have to knowingly possess a racist motive to be racist.

> I think you do, otherwise this opens the door to anyone and everyone being a "racist" by some secondary, tertiary, or nth order effect.

Surely there's something in-between. Say, perhaps, black people make you uncomfortable, such that you're inclined against hiring them and you preferentially hire whites instead. Then, you wouldn't knowingly possess a racist motive but would be definitely acting racist and perpetuating racism.

Everyone has, from their own point of view, good motives and intentions.

Re: The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)

#267

Post by aksss »

bobthepanda wrote: post #255
aksss wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Chinese food” is not analogous to Taco Bell. Panda Express might be your Taco Bell equivalent.. maybe.

Americanized Chinese food would probably make up most of what Americans are eating as Chinese food, so the Taco Bell comparison is apt. American Chinese food is a lot sweeter, thicker, and more soy sauce based.

It’s still not an appropriate comparison. Taco Bell is junk food. Americanized Chinese food (or Mexican food) is not at the same level unless you’re intentionally using that term as a pejorative.

Your equivalent statement about Mexican food would be that you assume Taco Bell is what most Americans are eating as Mexican food. That doesn’t seem a valid assumption at all - maybe for a certain demographic (e.g. young) that’s true, but I’m very skeptical that such a claim would stand up to scrutiny.

Similarly, you cannot group the corner store (nominally) Chinese restaurant owned by a Chinese (or as likely in much of US, Korean) family as being in the class of highly processed, pre-made food as Taco Bell. Sorry but no.

Re: The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)

#268

Post by thaumasiotes »

newen wrote: post #121
dotancohen wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually we do have a lower bound for the MSG dose that will negatively affect 50% of the population. But that dose is about six times higher than the normally-served dose. The fine article mentions that. Some people have a lower tolerance than "most people", for any given chemical, MSG included.

Interesting. Six times is in the same order of magnitude, so it’s entirely plausible that a significant number of people would be affect by MSG with its normal dose. And it’s entirely plausible that some restaurants would put six times the normal dose in some meals, especially fast food restaurants that don’t use standardized measurements like Chinese restaurants.

> Six times is in the same order of magnitude

I don't think this sentence has any meaning. What is "the same order of magnitude"? By the normal definition (still not great, but at least it's well-defined), 6 times x is only in the same order of magnitude as x when x is in the range [0,1.7), and it's in the next order of magnitude up when x is in [1.7,10). Even if we adjust that to a log scale, 6x is in the same order of magnitude when x is in the interval [0,0.23] and in the next higher order of magnitude when x is in (0.23, 1).

This is not a solid foundation for the idea that "six times is in the same order of magnitude", even if we think the sentence is interpretable.

Re: The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)

#269

Post by thaumasiotes »

rayiner wrote: post #209
aksss wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thurston County in WA, which is the seat of the state capital, has decided Asian people are not “people of color” anymore because they’re doing too well. https://reason.com/2020/11/16/equity-report-north-thurston-a...

Oh it’s worse than that: https://www.wsj.com/articles/can-school-be-antiracist-a-new-... Under a policy proposal by the Evanston, IL superintendent, white and Asian students would be held behind doing remote learning while other students were prioritized for return to in-class education. When people opposed the policy, they were called racists. The condemnation was worse for Asians who objected to their kids being gi…

> The classical liberal, even left-liberal view, doesn’t require an explanation for Asian economic success. Asians don’t face the legacy of say Jim Crow, and the American system is otherwise basically fair, so Asians have been able to prosper even if roadblocks have hampered other groups.

I guess, but this viewpoint fails pretty badly at explaining why Asians prosper so much more than whites do.

> Asians are thus stripped of agency—their success isn’t their own, but instead the byproduct of a ploy by whites.

To be fair, critical theory says exactly the same thing about blacks -- their lack of success isn't their own, it's the product of a ploy by whites. I don't see why we'd expect a different analysis for Asians.

Re: The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)

#270

Post by rootusrootus »

bobthepanda wrote: post #256
jacobolus wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> instant ramen, which is basically an MSG+salt solution masquerading Non-instant ramen is also essentially salt + oil + glutamate flavoring + noodles. If you like you can take instant ramen and add a soft-boiled egg, some vegetables, and some fatty pork, or whatever other set of toppings you prefer.

In fact, if you want to eat ramen at home it’s the most practical (at least for the soup.) Actual ramen broth takes a lot of time to make from scratch.

I've heard that before, that many people like to buy Top Ramen (I think, IIRC it's considered better than Maruchan, but I may have it backwards) and then toss the noodles and keep the powdered soup pack. Much easier than the real thing, and respectably good given where it comes from.

Not sure what noodles to source, tho.

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