I was floored recently when someone I spend a lot of time with told me, “I don’t like fat people. I think they’re yucky.”
She said this in front of my six-year-old. I was not happy. She was laughing about it.
I was stunned into silence, mouth open. (No kidding.) I think she must have misunderstood because then she added, “Oh, but you have an excuse. You just had a baby.”
To me, saying something like this is no different from saying “I don’t like white/black/Chinese people.”
So the question is, could you/would you be friends with someone like this?
Could I be friends with someone who said, “I don’t like fat people”?
Perhaps I’d put it myself, “I don’t like people being fat.”
Are you a Mormon by chance? Or of some other ultra-conservative religion?
I don’t like smelly people; I don’t like people who are rude; I don’t like people who chew betelnut constantly…
Jesus! I hope your 6-year-old can’t read this! Sorry my garment is riding up on me again…
I know what you’re saying Braxton. There’s a girl in my office with a big fat butt, totally out of shape, who slouches into the office at 10:30 every morning, eats a bag of stinky breakfast food at her desk, then snacks on junk food most of the afternoon, and one day she told me “you should do Tai chi, because it will help YOU get rid of your stomach.” Well, I really don’t have that much of a gut, but she’s got a big fat butt. But she claims to do tai chi once in a while and apparently feels that entitles her, despite her fat ass, to go telling people how to get in shape.
As we all know, people in Taiwan often say the stupidest things. I can’t count how many people have asked how much I earn. So, I don’t think your “friend” is all that unusual, but I know how you feel.
What would be funny is if this person became massively obese.
I doubt you’re questioning your friendship due to this comment alone, so you should probably examine your relationship a more closely. Maybe she’s said other things that have subconsciously put you off in the past. Take a break from her and meet a few new people. You may find you’d prefer not to share her company in the future if there are less callous folks to be around.
I wouldn’t mention it to her though. At least not until she says something else thoughtless and then rip her a new asshole!
Well, it IS different. People can’t change their skin color. Fat people could easily stop shovelling food into their face all day and do something about their, erm … “yuckiness.”
Maybe she hasnt seen her ass lately!
Take a picture of her with your digital camera from BEHIND! Then show it to her and tell her how lovely the picture is. She’ll hate that!
The thing about Taiwanese saying such things is true. I don’t chalk it up to naivete about western rules of politeness either. It’s just nasty and bitchy. Anyone with a braincell knows that!
The only way around it is to dose it right back out.
braxton, was she commenting about YOU??? Not just in general? Twit!
Damn, you people want to see fat, buy a plane ticket back to North America. Holy Mother, but this is a continent of porkers. I’m no model myself (184 cms and 96 kgs), but over here, I’m one step away from anorexia in the physique department. And no wonder, the food is great, the supermarkets are huge and stocked with a wide variety of good quality products and all the portions are supersized. My petite wife is feeling like a freak.
Let’s hope your friend doesn’t sneak over to Aus any time soon, actually let’s hope she doesn’t sneak outside Asia at all, she’d be in danger of becoming a hatemonger.
Let’s not talk PC for a minute, ok? Who of you can honestly say they find massively overweight people not unattractive?
Let’s face it, fat people are an annoyance not just to the eyes; they also have a higher tendency to smell, make strange sounds when they breathe (especially when climbing stairs) and take up lots of space on trains and airplanes.
Being fat is a choice for fat people. Show me one person who doesn’t lose weight when he eats less and exercises more.
That said, I do like sumo, though. However most of those guys are pure muscles and have less body fat (percent of weight) than most of us.
Oh, come off it Wolf! I don’t like obtuse people, an saying that is different than saying I don’t like fat people.
This is really something that lots of Taiwanese do, so your friend may not realize that she shouldn’t do it. I know she know’s it’s not polite, but it’s accepted behavior here. If I pointed it out to her and she didn’t quit, or if I thought she was making a dig at me, no I wouldn’t be her friend. Also, I might not even bother explaining to her because I might be too bussy explaining to my kid why that’s not an acceptable thing to say.
Good God Housecat! I am righteously indignant…why, I am intoxicated by outrage! How dare you call me OBTUSE and then say that you don’t like obtuse people! What are you? A hate-monger?
Next you will be saying I drink too much beer and you will be saying that you hate beer drinkers…or that I’m fat and you hate fat people…
If you think someone should be dropped as a friend because they say they hate or dislike fat people then you are thin-skinned and just more foot traffic on God’s superhighway. If someone said that to me I wouldn’t even notice it, much less raise an eyebrow. Get serious here.
This is really something that lots of Taiwanese do, so your friend may not realize that she shouldn’t do it. I know she know’s it’s not polite, but it’s accepted behavior here.[/quote]
Bullshit! Even if you grew up on the wrong side of the rice paddy, one should know better than to be as overtly critical as the Taiwanese tend to be ‘under the guise’ of concern. Boo fuckin hoo!
As for fat people, one of the reasons I stay so far away from the US is that the temptation to “overindulge and wallow” is a national pasttime.
I hate sitting next to really really obese people on airplanes. And they do smell funny, sweat too much, but they tend to die young. However, I don’t think that braxton comes anywhere close to what we’re talking about. Nor have I seen too many people in Taiwan who do. Foreigners or not. Haven’t been up to Tian Mu recently though!
:?
Just as we said in the discussion on the appropriateness of ‘Lao-wai’ and ‘A-dou-a’, Chinese people have NO POLITCAL CORRECTNESS FILTER. They will lable people, tell you you’re fat and ugly, say they hate your race. Then they smile at you, totally unaware of what they’ve done.
Chill out, y’all. It’s ok… they are often not doing it to be insulting; they are just totally devoid of tact. GET USED TO IT. THEY WILL NEVER CHANGE (unless Taiwan becomes a diverse society (race, culture, etc.)… HA!)
I spent years welding K-frames and could eat anything I wanted. I like people, and some of the nicest folks I have ever met were obese. They also were very poor. I can’t make a juggement on this issue.
Sounds like that chic or dude is a pretentious idiot.
Ditch him/her and get some real friends Braxton.
Dunc
Okay, Frederika, what I mean by acceptable behavior is like your saying bullshit and no one calling you on it. Bullshit isn’t “nice” but it’s generally accepted. And maybe Braxton’s Taiwanese friend wouldn’t have said it to another Taiwanese. Maybe it’s like it’s accepted behavior for a Taiwanese to ask a foreigner how much he/she makes. All I can say is that I hear a lot about this kind of thing from some very good, quite over weight friends.
And Wolf, you were sharp enough to catch my barb. Perhaps I should say, “I don’t like people being obtuse.” Or maybe, “I don’t like people being disrespectful.”
Amen to that! It really bugs me that I have to pay the same price as Mrs. Porkchop when her flabby arms are spilling over the armrest and pressed against mine. It is my belief that Mrs. Porkchop should be buying double seats rather than imposing on others’ comfort.
Hell, airplane seats are so narrow that you spill over to the seats next to you even if you’re average (for an American, that is). Blame the airlines, not the other passengers.
And Mrs Porkchop gets the same baggage allowance as me, so if I choose to bring an extra 10Kg with me - in my bag instead of in my body - I have to pay more. How fair is that?
No, I don’t like fat people. I don’t mean obese people, there’s a difference and you don’t see many here anyway. I mean ordinary fat people, the ones that are always going on and on about how I can’t eat this or that 'cos it’ll make me look like them. The ones that meander around the MRT station at half-speed, getting in my way 'cos they’re too heavy to walk like they’re going somewhere.
But that’s just my opinion and it’s only 'cos of their behaviour. It has nothing to do with my not being able to handle their different physical characteristics.
I know, or have known, plenty of people who are naturally ‘stout’, and no amount of exercise or fasting is going to make them look like me. It doesn’t make them bad people, or mean that we can’t be friends. Fat chicks can be really good in bed too!
If one of my friends started saying such openly discriminatory things I would have to give them a hard time. To do otherwise is to let stupidity and ignorance prevail. It means to be friends with someone who is openly derogatory about people that I am quite fond of.
How can you possibly continue to be friends with such a person? My mother is fat, and saying so would be a very good way to cause the other person to think about what they are saying. Of course they will try to backpeddle, but it won’t change the fact that they have just grievously insulted me and they know it.
So what if she’s had several kids? She’s still yucky in your friend’s eyes. So what if she’s as perfect a being as existed until she gave birth to me? Your friend still hates her. Hold on to that line of debate for a whole minute and your friend will have changed her opinion or vowed never to speak to you again.
I heard a few years ago of a gym in San Francisco? that advertised itself with the slogan “When the aliens land they’re going to eat the fat people first!” Apparently they were picketed by wobblebottoms until they changed it.
Sorry my garment is riding up on me again…
