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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)

#111

Post by wincy »

zodiac2 wrote: post #96
runawaybottle wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bro, Asian on Asian racism is like way higher than western racism towards that region. I’m almost positive Koreans think they are better than Chinese, and the Chinese think they are better than Koreans, and they both low key hate Japan’s uppityness (Of course the Japanese consider them ‘less than’, we can certainly throw in some historical advantage taking to add flame to this). This is like a age old tale in almost…

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.

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

#112

Post by [deleted] »

radicalbyte wrote: post #22

This American Life did a great podcast on the origins of this myth; I strongly recommend listening to it. Here's the transcript: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/668/transcript TLDR: it started as a bet/prank and became an accepted truth thanks to racism and people being simple. EDIT: this article is literally based on the podcast. Just listen go it, it's a good one :)

[deleted]

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

#113

Post by zodiac2 »

fraudsyndrome wrote: post #60
runawaybottle wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bro, Asian on Asian racism is like way higher than western racism towards that region. I’m almost positive Koreans think they are better than Chinese, and the Chinese think they are better than Koreans, and they both low key hate Japan’s uppityness (Of course the Japanese consider them ‘less than’, we can certainly throw in some historical advantage taking to add flame to this). This is like a age old tale in almost…

What kind of (racist) actions are taken in the east due to this prejudice they have? And how does that compare (or how is it way higher) to how western racism is towards those minorities in the western countries? Thinking they are better doesn't really compare.

You make it sound like racism only occurs in USA. This is naive. Racism is across the world and some are worse than others. Japanese took Korean women as literal sex slaves during their occupation and didn’t give them rightful citizenship in Japan and just looked down on them.

In China during the Rape of Nanking Japanese also did horrible atrocities, like cut open pregnant women and gamble on the sex of the fetus. Really horrible things but in America is only sounds like only white people commit racism, which is not true.

The most modern incidents of genocide happen in Asia. Cambodia in the 1970s and even Myanmar committing genocide in the last few years against Rohingya, lead by former Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi.

In Korea, many half-Korean Half-black children from American army were born and until recently they were openly spat on by Koreans in public. Until Hines Ward who is half Korean half Black won MVP for NFL Super Bowl, then it raised awareness in Korea over this.

So please don’t think racism is only in the US. What blacks experience today is much better than what they experience in other countries where there is true hate, not just stereotyping.

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

#114

Post by bsder »

cube2222 wrote: post #2

This article is very long and having skimmed it I'm still not entirely sure: is monosodium glutamate unhealthy or not after all?

Is salt unhealthy or not?

I'm being a little snotty about this, but the problem is that things often don't have "clean" stories behind them.

Excess salt has been one of the "heart health" bugaboos for years. Yet the evidence that it is unhealthy is quite thin on the ground.

"Nutrition science" is often anything but.

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

#115

Post by newen »

xyst wrote: post #79
alliao wrote: post #27

the trick to MSG is to double what naturally occurring rate. Chicken that tastes like nothing can taste wonderful with a tinest dash and it'd taste like the best damn chicken. doesn't work well with food already full of umami like parmesan cheese.. and don't keep adding if you're already adding food additives like stock from a can/carton. Those are usually already heavily "fortified" with msg by itself.

This is partly why chic-fil-a is so popular in the United States. https://www.chick-fil-a.com/menu-items/chick-fil-a-deluxe-sa... (expand the "Ingredients" sub-item and search for "monosodium glutamate") I say partly because we the consumers have been tricked into thinking fried chicken is somehow healthy because it has all of the buzz words associated with it ("organic", "free range")

Nobody thinks fried chicken is healthy, lol.

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

#116

Post by wwweston »

yongjik wrote: post #26
louisvgchi wrote: post #10

Dave Chang has a small scene in one of his Ugly Delicious (great show, by the way) episodes where he gets a group of non-Asian Americans, who claim to be MSG-allergic, to come and share their stories of MSG-related symptoms after eating at Chinese restaurants. He then hands out Doritos and American products that the participants claim they love and can eat all day. Hard to see where this is going... he says, all thes…

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?)

Does anyone who swears that MSG is bad for health do so because they personally hold anti-chinese racist views? Probably not.

Is it possible that:

* the MSG mythology in some Western nation was proposed by those with some degree of bias against foreign things or chinese cuisine or people specifically

* it caught on and was repeated by people who were enthusiastic about it because of some degree of that bias

* MSG was attended to in some food but not in others because of some degree of that bias

* as this reached critical mass in western culture the idea became common wisdom even among those with no particular bias and exported anywhere that western culture has reach

People sometimes refer to this kind of construction as "systemic" racism. The majority of people subscribing to the myth might be entirely innocent of any kind of identifiable racial stereotyping or discrimination and yet inputs from people who are might be enough to tip the system that way.

Maybe there's other equally credible explanations, but this one is hardly incredible.

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

#117

Post by eigenket »

dotancohen wrote: post #80
rayiner wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not a “USA” thing. Different groups of people are skeptical of other groups of people, all over the world. The US is just unusual in having enormous amounts of people from different groups interacting with each other. The UK, for example, isn’t just 90% white. It’s 80% white British. Same thing for Germany and France. They’re borderline ethnostates. The US isn’t more than 15% of any ethnic group (with German Ame…

> The UK, for example, isn’t just 90% white. It’s 80% white British. Is that still the case? My then-13 year old daughter visited London two years ago, when she returned I asked her if the British are as polite as they are rumored to be. Her answer was that there are no British in London, it's a city of all immigrants and tourists.

London is a massive outlier in basically every way compared to the rest of the UK, but London is still like 45% white British (according to the wiki page).

In 2011 roughly 35% of the population of London was born outside the UK. In terms of population the biggest groups are from India, Poland, the Republic of Ireland, Bangladesh and Nigeria (in that order).

Our last census was 2011 so the data is pretty close to as out of date as it could possibly be. We'll have another in 2021 (I say we although I'll be out of the country for that one).

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

#118

Post by fingerlocks »

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.

That term is over 50 years old and not commonly used, if at all, ever. The only time I've seen "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome" brought up is either in a article about how that term is racist, or a historic piece referencing the origins from the 1968 New England Journal of Medicine.

However, my local Hippy Organic Community Grocery Store has all sorts of products proudly claiming the absence of MSG.

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

#119

Post by dotancohen »

CraigJPerry wrote: post #102
dotancohen wrote: post #45

This article is trying to equate a medical controversy with racism. There exists a medical controversy over the effects of MSG. There exists racism, both in general and in particular against Asians in the United States. There also exists a very profitable industry that relies on flavour enhancers, and MSG is one of the most potent yet least expensive flavour enhancers available. I'll tell you that I've inadvertently…

>> There exists a medical controversy over the effects of MSG. That’s not true. >> most potent yet least expensive flavour enhancers available Salt is approx 1/4 the price, as is sugar. >> I've inadvertently done the double-blind "Is MSG harmful" test too many times Cheese, tomatoes, it would be hard to avoid it. What kind of restrictions do you need to follow?

  >> There exists a medical controversy over the effects of MSG.

  > That’s not true.
Of course it's true. Otherwise why would the fine article exist?

  >> most potent yet least expensive flavour enhancers available

  > Salt is approx 1/4 the price, as is sugar.
Both of which are also overused in the American food industry. Every new tool (flavour enhancer) enables the creation of new snacks. Do you think that Doritos would be as popular if they were all salt and no MSG?

  >> I've inadvertently done the double-blind "Is MSG harmful" test too many times

  > Cheese, tomatoes, it would be hard to avoid it. What kind of restrictions do you need to follow?
I don't eat cheese anyway, so I didn't even know that cheese is an issue. I do eat small amounts of tomatoes, and have never associated tomatoes with symptoms, but from what I've read here it's "heirloom tomatoes" that are maybe problematic? The tomatoes that I eat are pretty much water packaged in a red skin, mostly out of Turkey. My country does not have "Chineese restaurants" like those in the US, but any restaurant that I go to I have to specifically talk to the person preparing the food to ensure that I won't get MSG. Of course snacks such as Doritos are right out. Soup powders are the absolute worst, and are sometimes hard to avoid when eating at friends' houses.

My children are not sensitive, and I don't know anybody else who claims to be MSG sensitive. I'm sure that MSG is fine for the vast majority of people, just like gluten is fine for the vast majority of people. In fact, I know a few people who claim gluten intolerance who I serious doubt are celiac based on the things that I see them eat.

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

#120

Post by pzone »

mc32 wrote: post #56
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?)

My parents used to have an msg shaker. I don’t even recall what they used it for. The first time I heard something about avoiding MSG foods was from upper middle class fresh transplants from HK. Others of less means never mentioned it. So it’s news to me that someone would apply a blanket accusation as to where the myth comes from.

Seasoning with salt, pepper and MSG is typical in Asian cooking.
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