Lee Kwan Yew gives me the HOTS!
i do mean many of the foreigners who are in taiwan for the long term. i’m happy to be the first to admit that this is an opinion and it is somewhat of a social stereotype (but not a stereotype based on race and physical appearance, unlike the “asian fetish”), with no hard data. i formed it by living in an area with a lot of foreigners, frequenting places with a lot of foreigners - because i like the same food, interacting with many foreigners here. i do believe it doesn’t apply to every foreigner in taiwan for the long term, or short term. but it certainly applies to a lot of forumosans. i do apologise if this gives you offence but i did qualify my observation.
i don’t think you should be taking the “asian fetish” thing so personally. afterall, we can all take offence from social level studies because there must be some sort of characteristic that applies to any one of us right? and makes social -level generalisations based on that?
Maoman: i haven’t been able to log in to the almondcookie account so i assumed i was banned.[/quote]
Is this is a version of the xxx are yyy, but you are different theme?
Should I tar you with a social - level generalisations of how ABC that return to Taiwan, especially those who feel more comfortable in English, have major indentity issues? If you want, I’m willing to talk offline about my experience straightening out my Brother-in-law’s sons whom get forced to come to Taiwan each year.
But, it is interesting that 90% of the racial tripe I have to listen to comes from, ironically enough, Asian Americans. You’d thought they would have learned something from their own experience.
[quote=“Elegua”]Is this is a version of the xxx are yyy, but you are different theme?
Should I tar you with a social - level generalisations of how ABC that return to Taiwan, especially those who feel more comfortable in English, have major indentity issues? If you want, I’m willing to talk offline about my experience straightening out my Brother-in-law’s sons whom get forced to come to Taiwan each year.
But, it is interesting that 90% of the racial tripe I have to listen to comes from, ironically enough, Asian Americans. You’d thought they would have learned something from their own experience.[/quote]
i’m not ABC, nor am I more comfortable with either English or Chinese. i am not Asian American either - and i haven’t observed them to be more racist at all as you have claimed, but i generally find that they themselves find pockets of America to be very racist and they find the history of Asians in America very disturbing. (that’s been quite interesting to me when i talk to American Taiwanese friends), and that this view informs their double-culture experience very much - and it’s very interesting.
the important point is that those you talked about above are stereotypes you yourself clearly prescribe to.
perhaps to join things up, the nature and substance of the actual stereotypes that ppl subscribe to matter?
perhaps it’s a matter of context and the nature of the stereotype that makes it relatively more acceptable (provided that we keep it in our minds that it IS a stereotype and are vigilant in using it in our reasoning) or not acceptable at all?
to me the asian “fetish” is something worth discussing because it can be linked feminism, objectification of women in the media, representation of asians in popular culture (focused in america since american popular culture is so prevalent), history of east asians in america, etc. that was where bhlhuijia was trying to turn the discussion before, with her background knowledge, before it become, “but no, i don’t have a ‘fetish’, and that’s that, so shuddup.”
[quote=“Elegua”]Should I tar you with a social - level generalisations of how ABC that return to Taiwan, especially those who feel more comfortable in English, have major indentity issues? If you want, I’m willing to talk offline about my experience straightening out my Brother-in-law’s sons whom get forced to come to Taiwan each year.
But, it is interesting that 90% of the racial tripe I have to listen to comes from, ironically enough, Asian Americans. You’d thought they would have learned something from their own experience.[/quote]
How do you conclude that? Where did Elegua say that he held those stereotypes?
Let’s say they are just very American and interested in teenage boy things in the US as opposed to being sent to Mandarin bootcamp with thier grandparents.
You’ve just spoken volumes about where you are coming from.
[quote]i’m not ABC, nor am I more comfortable with either English or Chinese. i am not Asian American either - and i haven’t observed them to be more racist at all as you have claimed, but i generally find that they themselves find pockets of America to be very racist and they find the history of Asians in America very disturbing. (that’s been quite interesting to me when i talk to American Taiwanese friends), and that this view informs their double-culture experience very much - and it’s very interesting.
the important point is that those you talked about above are stereotypes you yourself clearly prescribe to[/quote]
Pockets of America certainly are very racist. My point that despite running into predjudice, Asian Americans are quite capable of exhibiting the same form of racism they find so offensive. At times this ‘Asian Fetish’ business just smacks of it.
No. I don’t ascribe to the stereotype - it was offensive - as most sterotypes are. Look at the rational response it provoked from bhlhuijia. You are talking to a population that get slapped with stereotypes all the time. What response to do expect?
The origins of the stereotype in no way changes what it is or the negative impact it has on the people it gets applied to and it no more worthy of discussion than any other stereotype.
No one in this forum really buys into that objectified Asian Woman stereotype. And certianly they find the other half of the stereotype, the Asian Fetish, Rice King, Yellow Fever, Egg stereotype highly offensive.
I tend not to pay attention - but I certainly got an education today.
In other words, the type of academic post-Edward Said “Orientalism” nonsense that you read in a book and litters campuses far and wide across North America (because no Americans off-campus take any of this vogueish academic theory seriously). Ignore the people on this site with real-life experience in Asia, you’ve taken a course in Orientalist Semiotics 101 and written a paper on “The Histrionic Post-Colonialist Discursive Transracial Fixations of the Caucasian Hegemonic Classes and Its Oppressionist Impact on Transgendered People of Color in the Hermuneistic Bricolage Post-Post-Racial Pre-Post-Modern North American Society”, you are the authority on this subject. Which is, “Whiteys Stop Stealing OUR Women!”
Bravo Quentin
I don’t think I’ve read such a long thread on such nonsense outside the IP forum. (And I wondered when we would get on to Said, who regarded anyone from the West of Cyprus who studied anything east of Cyprus as a racist imperialist.)
Really, what sort of a person even forms a question containing the phrase “Asian fetish”? Asians make up half the population of the world. And the premise of the poser of the question in the first place is that “Only Asians should have sexual relations with Asians - Whitey FUCK OFF!”
Presumably this sort of racist claptrap exists in all communities: Why Chinese men should not have an “Indian fetish” and why black women should not have a “white man fetish” and why East Coast co-eds from “respectable liberal” families should not have a “Redneck Fetish” and so on until we grow up.
We had this at home too - Protestant Men! Don’t let your daughter marry a Fenian!!! It was called “sectarianism” and it is beneath discussion.
Hey guys, please continue this discussion here. Thanks!