Bin Laden jokes among Taiwanese people

A rather strange trend has surfaced on this fair island, and I think some posters might know what I mean. It seems that many Taiwanese people, especially among the lower classes or uneducated classes, think that saying the words BIN LADEN out loud to a foreigner they see on the street, especially if the foreigner seems to be, or is known to be an American, is FUNNY. Huh?

We all know about the baseball “fan” in Kaohsiung during the recent world cup tournament who held up a picture of BIN LADEN during a game there laSt week with the words “America you will lose” on the bottom of the poster in English. Not only that, but the TV screen in the stadium continually played the scene over and over again, panning to the guy in the bleachers with the offensive sign. This made the news bigtime. Ugh.

During the baseball finals, another fan, maybe the same one, tried to sneak in another BIN LADEN poster but it was confiscated by the police as being in poor taste for Taipei stadium fans. In addition, in announcement was made on the PA system during the team USA game not to hold up any BIN LADEN pictures out of respect for the players from the USA.

Yesterday I attended a family affair in Taipei and one of the uncles began laughing at me and saying BIN LADEN out loud several times when he learned I was American. I just didn’t get the joke. Why do Taiwanese, some Taiwanese, think this is FUNNY? And why, instead of showing empathy with the 911 tragedy, do they laugh in our faces, as if saying the two words BIN LADEN is some kind of very funny joke. The uncle I mentioned above, kept laughing and laughing, thinking this was so funny, to say these words to me.

I bought some takoyaki at a night market stall the other day and the bossman kept saying BIN LADEN BIN LADEn to me over and over again, and laughing.

So my question to the forum here is, are some taiwanese lacking in a gene for empathy ? Or are some Taiwanese so stupid that they think it is funny to mentioon BIN LADEN name to every foreigner they see? And why is this funny?

I cannot imagine this happening in Japan, where I am sure Japanese people who show empathy to what the 911 attack waS All about. But here in Taiwan, a very perverse kind of humor has surfaced that i fear reveals a very sick, immature state of mind in some Taiwnese of the lower, uneducated classes.

Can anyone EXPLAIN what this is funny – mentioning the words BIN LADEN out loud and laughing??? I fear for Taiwan if this is a national sense of humor…

I await serious explanations…

There are ignoramuses and insensitive sods in any society, anywhere in the world. I shudder to think of the “jokes” you might hear on the terraces should a US soccer team ever go over to receive a drubbing from Celtic or Rangers.

Seems that in your case, though, you’re related to them, so why don’t you ask your wife to point out to her uncle that he’s a prick?

Trouble is, he probably won’t have a clue what she’s talking about and will then decide that her ah-doh-ah husband has addled her brain.

Yeh, saandman, you right. But one thing: what is the funny part of BIN LADEN? Does is sound FUNNY in Chinese, to say these two words? I mean, is it a word joke, a word game, a sound joke, heh her BIN LADEN, or what? Would the Taiwanese sods also joke about SHIT LA (Hitler) if it was 1941…? There is something pathologically wrong here, it seems to me. BIN LADEN is just not funny. 5000 dead people in the WTC is NOT funny, no matter how much of a sod one is. ANd this UNCLE dude I mentioned is in every other way a real nice person! REALLY. So explain…

BTW, you might want to consider deleting one or two of these posts. Your subject, I think, is a valid one and it would be a shame to piss people off by spamming almost every forum. Also, it will only serve to dilute the focus of the responses.

thanks, sandman, sorry about that. Didn’t meant to spam, and will take the other things off ASAP, good advice. It is an interseting issue.

When it happened the first time a few days after 911, I just shrugged it off. But then I began hearing the so-called JOKE again and again, just the words uttered as if they were funny. Now i hear it almost every day. So a trend is born. But my question remains unanswered: what is it that Taiwanese see as so funny in his name or in uttering his name to Americans? I just don’t get it at all, except in a childish sense of a five year old saying NAMES to hurt people! Is that it?

i remember I had a friend who was eating lunch on the 12th when he saw the footage for the first time. Of course, my friend started crying. some cab driver was parked on the same street and saw him crying, and started laughing, mockingly rubbing his eyes.

People here also don’t have a sense of Hitler not being funny, or Nazism as unacceptable to be paraded about as fashion.

Makaiwen: You are so right about Hitler too, and thanks for story about friend crying and reax by cabbie. It is a kind of Taiwanese way of confronting reality: I have seen Taiwanese friends laughing at the plight of people killed in floods here or even the 921 quake. It must be a learned psychological reaction to traqedy; whereas we in the so-called West learn to show emapthy, Taiwanese learn from culture and parents to show lauhging/mocking for same emotions. Surely they are not really laughing at the 5000 dead at the 911 WTC attack! But strange… thanks for post. There is a trend here, worth watching and studying.

This is not such a strange phenomenom, if one ponders on the mentality behind it (re: Bin Laden cat calls etc.) This is a place where they haven’t yet heard of the expression “politically correct”; a place where the place for litter/trash is “anywhere execpt my back yard”. What holds society together here (at least in my opinion) is a balance between moral bankrupcy and tradtional chinese values; decent behaviour is not taught, since the social fabric is basically OK, and certainly has a few meritable aspects as compared with US/European societies, albeit severly lacking in other areas. I mean, look at Japan - they can’t even face up to what they did in the second world war. That’s what really scares me; if you don’t learn the lessons of history, repetition is on the cards. So having a balanced international outlook in many Asian countries is not to be expected. Maybe its the teachers who should be instilling the right kind of value into the kids - but here, I’m afraid education is all about cramming, i.e. memorization. They are not taught to think. A subtle but humungous difference. Perhaps its one we take for granted (those of us educated in the west).

Being a German I had far to often listen to "Heil Hitler’ jokes in Malaysia were I worked before yet I didn’t really feel offended as I was quite sure those people don’t have a fucking clue what they were talking about. Thus I just ignored them, knowing that trying to lecture them would not help either. Though those were not only uneducated people I found that this subject is too complex and too far away for most Asians as to really understand and perhaps as it happened a too long time ago they don’t feel bothered.
Though my generation was not involved all Germans will always have to carry this load and I agree that it should not be forgotten, but I expect that I am as an individual will not be blamed for it.

I believe similar applies to the 911 incident, those not directly affected or far away can’t feel the pain nor understand (comprehend) what happened.
Making jokes about it might still be another issue but this happens the same way some people think it’s cool or funny to great me with the ‘Heil Hitler’ gesture.

I don’t think we can change this and I don’t think it’s going to be a big national problem so perhaps the best thing would be to ignore them - after which they hopefully loose interest and stop making this sick joke.

" What holds society together here (at least in my opinion) is a balance between moral bankrupcy and tradtional chinese values; decent behaviour is not taught… "—Ashley Hines

Wow… the nerve to paint the entire continent with one broad stroke like this amazes me. I cannot understand why these “Bin-laden cat calls” happen either, but I believe it is a tiny fraction of local population. I have not experience such “cat calls”, only sympathies from friends, acquaintances, and strangers.

To accuse the entire society of being morally bankrupt is going a way to far, don’t you think?
As for politically correctness, its very much a relative concept. What is PC here is not PC in many places and vice-versa. That’s the irony of politically “correctness”.

Ashley, have you never heard the acronym NIMBY? Not-in-my-back-yard. It comes from the states.

There’s more than enough passing the buck, ignoring the obvious in our own societies. I certainly hope you aren’t a Republican. I have a fantasy were all Republicans (or Reformers in my native Canada) are forced to live for a year in Chungli. How quickly would they all become EPA, goverement interventionsist supporters?

The Bin-Laden cat-calls are obnoxious, without exception. So are the “Chinks go home” statements I’ve seen written on stones, announced on the streets of muticultural Vancouver.

My point, and I do have one somewhere, is that the Taiwanese as a whole, display no less or more civilized qualities than any other society I’ve lived in.

interesting reactions to my comment" What holds society together here (at least in my opinion) is a balance between moral bankrupcy and tradtional chinese values; decent behaviour is not taught…"

and “the nerve to paint the entire continent with one broad stroke like this amazes me.” ; the problem with being overly politically correct is you never get to make any generalisations; nothing is wrong with generalisations, as long as you don’t apply them to individuals. But I really do think there is a high level of moral bankrupcy here - yet I did not imply the society is completely morally bankrupt, since I went on to say "balanced by traditional chinese values - which are actually ones to be admired, one many in which the west is severly lacking. Indeed it is these very values which MORE than make up for the 200 missing people unaccounted for in tawian last year (and I dont think they have joined the mormons or some weird sect; many are children). I don’t feel threatened in this society like I do in the US or Britain; the Tawianese are a gentle, kind people, apart from the Chen Jin Xin’s of this society. A quick comparison of the US’ homicide rate and Taiwan’s soon puts this into perspective. Its just its different here; the reasons for being nice or nasty are quite differnt from those in the west. You have to think about those reasons to make some sense of the Bin Laden jokes - otherwise, to judge the locals by the same standards we use in “the west” doesn’t make for a better undersanding of what’s going on in people’s heads here.

YES. Regarding Ashley Hines’ comments…It is perfectly okay to make generalizations. Everybody makes generalizations every day. It is impossible to have mental thought processes without generalizing. Both inducing and deducing involve generalizations – either formulating them or reasong from them to particulars.

Generalizing does not mean “all”. That is a universal proposition, NOT A GENERALIZATION. How many times does this have to be made clear? I do not appreciate people trying to shut down others’ opinions by saying or implying they are immoral or stupid for making generalizations. This is not only illogical and mindless but also dangerous if enough people start thinking like this. Interestingly, here is one area where Taiwan is more sensible than Western society.

Regarding the BIN LADIN stuff…I have not heard people joke about that much. But those of you who understand Chinese language and have opportunities to see how Chinese behave and talk among themselves in private know there was a significant amount of gloating about the 911 attacks. Gloating at the misfortune of others is both a strong and common Chinese trait, as even noted fairly recently by the Editor of the Taipei Times. Some of you know some of the common CHinese sayings that Chinese use to point out this phenomena among themselves.

Heh, I think it is time for a generalization! Here goes: Chinese people like to gloat at the misfortune of others.

One Chinese professional man told me that Chinese expect that people who act proud will get ‘hit’ or whatever. In the workplace Chinese routinely covertly attack (by rumors, lies, etc.) those who are succeeding better than others. Just interpolate to the national and international level. Countries are just collectivities of individuals.

I think that most people in Taiwan (but I am not altogether certain) felt bad about the attacks. But I also believe that most people in Taiwan had a gloating feeling about the attacks. To pre-empt a knucklehead response: it is perfectly possible to hold two seemingly contradictory feelings at the same time.

One interesting note before I shut up…as a personal project I monitered the reactions of some Asian countries via the media and friends I have in those countries. The outpouring of public sympathy in Taiwan was much less than the outpouring in Japan, Korea, and even Mainland China. It was what I expected except for the strong outpooring of sympathy by ordinary Mainland Chinese.

I forgot one thing. BIN LADIN sounds kind of like BIN LUNG TAN (beetlenut stand) in Chinese. When I encounter stupid (technically speaking) or coldhearted people in a foreign country, I like to let their comments bounce off by making some kind of goffy reply. If someone says “BIN LADIN” to you and laughs, I suggest saying BIN LUNG TAN and laughing back even harder. I have no idea what that means, but therein lies the effectiveness! The more confused the person is the better you will feel.

=

quote:
Originally posted by Forsythe: I think that most people in Taiwan (but I am not altogether certain) felt bad about the attacks. But I also believe that most people in Taiwan had a gloating feeling about the attacks.

I monitered the reactions of some Asian countries via the media and friends I have in those countries. The outpouring of public sympathy in Taiwan was much less than the outpouring in Japan, Korea, and even Mainland China. It was what I expected except for the strong outpooring of sympathy by ordinary Mainland Chinese.


You observations are different than mine.

I do not believe most Taiwanese had a “gloating feeling” about the attacks. Some may have thought that the powerful and often arrogant United States was due for something bad. (Not that it deserved it, just that it could expect it, because “that’s the way things work.”) But gloating? That implies smugness and joy, neither of which I think was felt in the local population about the attacks.

As for the reactions of people in various countries, could it be that some of the outpourings of sympathy by ordinary Chinese that you mention were prompted by disgust with the glee many in the mainland took in the attacks? Many of the comments I heard in the media and from friends and acquaintances in China were made in reaction to other comments that came close to celebrating the attacks.

Could be. Interesting contribution. I really can’t say about Mainland Chinese since I didn’t witness the reactions there. Always good to hear others’ contributions. To be honest, I am not completely clear on what I mean when I say “gloat”. It just seems to be the English word that is most similar to the Chinese meaning. So, there can obviously be different interpretations of Chinese people’s reactions based on our understanding of the word ‘gloat’.

It is not polite in Chinese culture to ‘gloat’ outwardly, as it will cause a loss of face. (Although I have seen much more outward gloating in Taiwan than I have anywhere else.) So, the gloating is reserved primarily for private expressions when there are no foreigners around. This stuff is not easy to see; surface level observations won’t detect it. I still believe – based on my experiences in and readings about Chinese culture – that most people gloated. And some inside information I heard from good Taiwanese friends confirmed this. And I stand by what is commonly understood among Chinese people themselves – Chinese people gloat at the misfortune of others. In fact, this has been a topic of scholarly discussion in Chinese society: what causes the culture to have this unpleasant trait?

That said, I did receive some kind words of sympathy from Taiwanese regarding 911. They were all appreciated. On the night of the attack, some stranger on the street stopped me and said, with a look of desperation on his face, “The attacks on the United States, how terrible. It is aweful.” I’ll always remember that.

Now that I think of that, I wonder how many non-Americans received expressions of sympathy from Taiwanese thinking they were Americans. Poor non-American caucasians – I almost sympathize sometimes. Not quite…but almost!

As most would agree, comments of this kind come from uneducated people. I read in the Taipei Times shortly after the attacks about how some in the mainland appeared to celebrate the attacks. The article went on to suggest that the mainland chinese were “soulless” people, due to a repressive communist dictatorship. They never learn to think for rhemselves or make thier own judgements. Now, again with these dangerous generalizations, I wonder if the taiwanese are soulless also. How many taiwanese do you know who can think for themselves? It all seems to come down what is acceptable in thier culture. It appears there is no real regard for life here, witness the traffic and thier willingness to risk killing anyone on the road, including children. Even at my university here, some students called out bin Laden when they saw a classmate who happened to be indian. I know I am opening myself up to some really hot flames here, I am not perfect and lots of people everywhere consider what is correct in thier society. The truth is, I feel the taiwanese and the mainland chinese generally don’t care about anything but thier immediate family. And one more thing, try saying chiang kai-shek’s name in chinese and lauging in thier faces

I am not American, but I happened to be in Shanghai in September. All our (“educated”)Chinese friends felt very bad about what had happened and sympathetic towards the American victims and their friends and relatives. The “worst” reaction I came across was when two women in the office started discussing whether or not the 3rd World War was about to break out (these two had a university education as well!). They didn’t seem to feel threatened in any way by the prospect of a world war. It just showed that they still see Mainland China as the Centre of the World and nothing that the (Mainland) Chinese government can’t control will happen to them.

I don’t say that there were no anti-american, pro-Bin Laden reactions in Mainland China, but it would definitely not be fair to say that all Mainland Chinese applauded Bin Laden. And the government itself used the attacks for anti-muslim campaigns, to show off, of course (in a way that I don’t necessarily agree with), but still more pro-America than pro-Bin Laden. I personally never happened to come across any Bin Laden-jokes, neither here in Taiwan nor in back in Mainland China.

Apart from that, I see Chinese people (Mainland as well as Taiwanese) as pretty self-centered and only concerned with was happens to them, their family and friends and the people they immediately rely on. I think it is a historical thing, embedded in history, culture and education, and I don’t think it will change much in the near future, especially not in Mainland China.

Iris

I always knew about this “delighting in the plight of others” syndrome in the Chinese. I’ve learned it from daily experience. OK, yes not everyone. But I believe that it IS a prevalent trait of culture. I have my own theories on “why,” but that’s too complicated to get into now.

The worst I ever witnessed was when I walked out my apartment in Jingmei and found a woman who had just a minute ago jumped from the 17th floor of my building and splattered on the pavement. Aparently she committed suicide from later reports. Surrounding the scence was a group of young boys joking and laughing at the sight. It was in contrast to some of the other people I saw stunned by grief.

Some would say that it is a Chinese way of expressing shock, that being laughing, similar to laughing when one is embarrassed. However, I don’t buy it. I’ve seen all sides of this trait expressed from different angles. There’s got to be a different explanation.

quote:
Originally posted by jeremy: I always knew about this "delighting in the plight of others" syndrome in the Chinese. I've learned it from daily experience. OK, yes not everyone. But I believe that it IS a prevalent trait of culture. I have my own theories on "why," but that's too complicated to get into now.

The worst I ever witnessed was when I walked out my apartment in Jingmei and found a woman who had just a minute ago jumped from the 17th floor of my building and splattered on the pavement. Aparently she committed suicide from later reports. Surrounding the scence was a group of young boys joking and laughing at the sight. It was in contrast to some of the other people I saw stunned by grief.

Some would say that it is a Chinese way of expressing shock, that being laughing, similar to laughing when one is embarrassed. However, I don’t buy it. I’ve seen all sides of this trait expressed from different angles. There’s got to be a different explanation.


Wow nice blatant generalization about Chinese culture and mentality. Here’s a little tidbit you should read…note all the white Americans telling this woman to jump to her death. Pot…kettle…black.

http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2002/042002/04272002/389998

“Some frustrated drivers–stuck in traffic in the southbound lanes of I-95 as Dunham negotiated with Myers–yelled as they passed over the bridge. Dunham told other police officers that he was sickened to hear at least a dozen people shout for her to jump as they passed over the bridge.”

It’s amazing how someone lives in a different country for awhile and think they are fully qualified to make generalizations. How would you like it if I compared all white people to Adolf hitler or Jeffrey Dahmer? After all it’s mostly white people that go around preaching race based fascism and serial killers are predominately middle aged white males.

From my travels abroad i’ve learned that no one culture has a monopoly on sadistic inconsiderate assholes.