I think you are only bringing up names that do action choreographed films. And I thought it was a lie that sagal was part asian…along with many lies he told. But I think the successful ones are the ones that actually are good at their craft and put in work. Bruce was legit, Donnie Yen (IP man, Rogue one) is legit, jet li is good, Daniel Wu (who is doing a cool series of bringing HK style choreographed fights scenes into a western TV show into the badlands even said himself that the whole team puts in months of training to do the scenes. And they even decided to cast him as the main character when they couldn’t find anyone that was as good) Even Jackie Chan is actually a legit martial artist but he made it into a joke sadly. I don’t think if they are mixed or white, I think the ones that are successful are actually good at what they do.
Plenty of asian actors in regular roles now, more and more. Steven Yuen from the walking dead was a fan favorite, sadly I heard he can’t get a role right now even though he was so good. So there are cases where I think an Asian actor is good and hollywood just don’t write roles for them. Daniel dae Kim from lost was good and found a nice role after lost. Another good actor is Daniel Henney, half Korean and white. He was in the wolverine and if I may say so really good looking but havent seen much of him. He even learned Korean to do a really good Korean film, and looks full Korean and not really mixed. I think the there are talented Asian actors, but unfortunatly they don’t write many roles for them besides the stereotypical roles. But when they do, many seem to shine like Steven Yuen.
can’t be accepted by both sides? more like still accepted as a laowai in taiwan even though they are born here and are as taiwanese as the next person.
in western countrys you still might get some racist wankers like the ones mentioned in this thread but at least you can officially identify with the country you were born in let alone if you are 100% asian or mixed.
“Many people will also greet all Asians with konnichi wa and fold their hands like for the Thai-greeting. This may be annoying, but I’m sure they just try to be funny, instead of hostile.”
This is so true.
I’ve met people greeted me “Konnichi Wa”(Japanese) and “Ni Hao”(Chinese / Mandarin), with their palms pressed together(Thai greeting), and then told me the location of the best Pho(Vietnamese cuisine) in town. I didn’t know I can be Japanese, Chinese, Thai, and Vietnamese at the same time before. LOL. But as long as they were nice and friendly, then I didn’t mind those generalizations.
Regarding the slanted-eyes gestures, I had only one encounter. Probably because I do not have particularly slanted eyes, nor do most ethnic Chinese, I would say.
One woman greeted me first, but when she asked me whether I was Chinese, she used one hand to pull an eye back as if it was a necessary explanation of what she was talking about.
What’s ridiculous of those gestures is that many ethnic Chinese like myself don’t even have that particularly slanted eyes.
Just take a look at the passengers on the street of Taiwan, I would say maybe only 3 out of 10 people in Taiwan would have that particular slanted eyes(and I didn’t even notice those people’s eyes that much until I found it was in fact a joke in Western cultures), the other 7 have eyes that are of medium size and shape.
I think the mockers who are still doing those gestures nowadays are just doing it because of the old stereotype, not because of the real size and shape of the eyes of anyone whom they’re mocking.
So, all in all, it seems to me that the “small slanted eyes” joke is more like the old lame joke of some non-Americans mocking “Fat Americans”, while those mockers themselves may be in worst body shapes than most Americans.
One example of MLB player Bruce Chen.
He actually look a bit Latino, and he doesn’t have the stereotypical small slanted eyes.
However, his Latino teammate still thought it was funny to do those gestures toward him.
I remember me and my classmaytes doing that “Chinese-Japanese” slanted eye thing…when when were in first grade. Then again we only had one Asian kid in the whole school, a Filipino kid in my grade who looked Mexican. It wasn’t even really racism; it was the early '90s, and I thought Japan/Asia was the shit; I religiously watched Ninja Turtles, Bruce Lee, Van Damme and American Ninja movies, played Japanese video games like there was no tomorrow, and started learning karate under a sensei from Japan.
I think it’s more a sign of immaturity and lack of experience with other people. Heck, the Taiwanese word for foreigner is “tall nose” isn’t it?
Things have got so much better for immigrants to the West. Asia has a long way to go believe me.
The odd stupid slantyeye joke is nothing compared to state enforced ethnic discrimination.
I disagree, to say something that I find quite hurtful after many years of living in the US is nothing because things are “worst” somewhere else is part of the issue. A man can only endure so much of this stupid mockery before it becomes something I find much more of an underlining issue that is deep rooted. I’m willing to understand things from yours and others experiences, but i’m not ok with someone saying my experiences is not as bad and I should not take it to heart.
My experiences with racism in the west shaped me a certain way, oddly enough in some ways it helped, but in many ways it was hurtful and frustrating.
Odd and funny ways it helped me that I can remember is.
In college I lived in the dorms with 3 rooms attached to a common room with 2 people in each room. My roommate and I were smoking weed and someone called the police because of the smell. Cops came and sat us down and questioned us. We lived in a college hick town in Virginia so funny the cop looked at me and said “you look like a smart guy blah blah blah” and basically gave me a pass. I said I had a test and I needed to study and he just let me go. I packed the weed in my bag and left the room and the cops didn’t find anything
This was a double edge sword, I was a good athlete in basketball and baseball in high school. I think I honestly could have played at a D2 school for both at least. But no scouts took me seriously for basketball, got no offers when i was embarrassing guys on the other team who I knew got scholarship offers. But for baseball, the asians are good at baseball thing worked. I remember going up to bat and teams and the crowd would say things like “oh man, he’s asian, looks good like a Ichiro” or something along the lines. I did get more attention for baseball but took a academic scholarship instead.
Ways it hurt me
I moved to the US as a kid, and as kids I experienced zero racism. We were all kids and just did kid things and I felt like everyone else. As we got older, all of a sudden I was Asian, I became different. It was so weird and it really shows that racism is taught because no one ever said anything, I felt like I was just another human. But the older I got, the more emphasis was put on that I was Asian.
Again, although the slanty eye thing is not really that bad as maybe some guy screaming “we don’t serve your kind here you nigger” But after a while, when it happens so much it becomes really hurtful. It’s just not funny anymore when you go through it for years and people think it’s so funny and they are the first ones to do it.
Asian male masculinity, this one was weird. I had some girls that were really into asian guys that I found really weird. They really liked things like K pop and stuff. But for me it’s like I’m just a regular guy, I like the things I like. I like baseball, I don’t really like sushi. It made it weird as I don’t fit into the stereotype. And the other side is you get girls that won’t even look at you. Or girls that are really confused and say things like you’re the first asian guy I been with. You’re so white and not asian at all. IDK what that even means.
Asians are model citizens that do well in school and work. I think this one is also a double edge sword. There were times when I did struggle with school but wasn’t really offered help because I must be smart and get all As. And I certainly wasn’t a model citizen.
Yeah it’s painful, no it doesn’t get you turfed out of the country or denied a passport or lose the human rights of fellow residents (e.g. Caregivers in Taiwan). There is a major difference.
BTW I am 100% against racism in all forms don’t get me wrong my own kids look more Chinese than anything!
As for references to looks If you had seen it here ‘back in the day’ as a person of a non East Asian it was no party…adogah…hei ren…hello…meiguoren…10s of Times a day.
It’s still not great to be honest but it is SO much better than it used to be.
Even then I still walked into a professional technical sales meeting last week in the capital and immediately the topic of the meeting…was …me ‘wah…you Yi ge waiguoren/adogah’…excruciatingly I understood every word. If was pathetic and nobody even apologized for their initial rudeness…not my own colleagues nor the other side.
I’m there for a fucking meeting not for you to discuss what I fucking look like nor should you be so stupid to assume I can’t understand Chinese you fucking cretins (later I found out they were all highly ‘educated’ and some of them spoke very good English and had probably studied overseas at some point. Afterwards one asked did I play sport and want to join them for badminton or something. It’s not done in a malicious way but it WAS insulting, very uncomfortable , borderline racist and they come off as village idiots.
Do you think this would happen in any ‘proper’ western country?
I don’t disagree, I do find things like that really frustrating when I see other Taiwanese do that. Like you are some strange species. Sometimes I get asked really stupid questions like how I talk to “waiguoren” and why so many of my friends are them. They almost reject me because of this when I just choose my friends that I like to be with. Don’t matter who you are. And very annoying is when I get guys asking me how to talk to western women because many times I do date white females simply because my English is much better and more comfortable. When I do date Asian girls it is because they do speak English well. It’s such a stupid thing as they treat white females (sadly non white foreigners don’t get the same love at all) like they are some weird special species. Just treat them like normal people is what I tell them but they always act so weird around them.
It’s true, it’s another point that not all “foreigners” get treated equally in Taiwan. Taiwanese can be so superficial on things that it affects me as well. For example, I came back to teach to get on my feet years ago. It was hard to find a place that wouldn’t give me a lower pay compared to white teachers even if they would hire me. Black, asian, latino/hispanic, arab have a hard time finding work in that field still. My gf who is from Italy actually found a tutoring job for extra cash even though English is not her native language and it’s not perfect. It’s fluent but you can tell it’s not 100% native.
I started to coach and I had parents that wanted the black coach, pretty frustrating.
Things like that really piss me off the wrong way because I think it really holds the country back when you have this mentality.
Things like that happen back home too. Just seems less from a distance. I just had six months of applying for an Irish visitor visa, won’t bore you with the details, but six months… If that’s what the beurocracy do to the Irish citizens families can you imagine what they do to immigrants. Meanwhile they are digging dead babies out of sewers and still handing hospitals over to the nuns. People denied a place to live and shuffled from hotel to hotel with their young children. Guy froze to death in dublin. Indian woman who died because she was denied an essential abortion, told by the midwife ‘this is a catholic country’. ‘Gangs of youths in tracksuits’ beating and stabbing people randomly. And that’s just in Ireland, an ant of a country. The police are shooting people dead in the streets in the US based on skin color… I’d say its the west that has something to learn.
Good point Liam Ireland has its internal backwardness as well. Every country has its issues but I was referring to the difference between institutional racism and racist incidents (that are not tolerated legally and generally frowned upon).
As for the visitor visa bullshit Unfortunately the Irish govt apes a lot of what the Brits do …Brits get ‘tough’ on non EU visas…Ireland gets ‘tough’ .Brits bring in a minimum income for Their citizens to bring in their non citizen spouses, Ireland does it as well.
Why nobody knows but it seems they are keeping up with the Jones.
Brits start roadside testing for Marijuana…Ireland does it…list goes on and on.
Now on the other hand they give out social welfare like confetti in Ireland first come first served as long as you have a few years work history under your belt. That’s the only difference really.
(Taiwan treat a lot of foreigners fairly well in some regards…it’s a real mixed picture but you don’t want to be in the blue collar class as then you have no rights at all)
Indeed, although the racist incidents are not so random when the institutions are the ones carrying them out. Last time we went home the border guard at the airport gave us a going over that started with ‘you know this lady do ya?’ Made disgusted facial expressions when he found out that the missus doesn’t speak English, started yelling at us, and then said he wasnt stamping the passport because "I dont know who she is’ Thankfully i was armed with plenty of notarised certs. But yes the paperwork is tricky here too if you are blue collar for sure. I still think its no better in Ireland and the UK. You know the latest in Ireland is fishing slaves too.
I think I’ve reached the point that all women are the same to me now. And, as a matter of fact, women are no different, regardless of ethnicity. If you know what I mean.
Regarding romance and relationships, I think language is the last thing to worry about.
I know a few cases that it is the White females who fall for the Asian / Taiwanese guys that they learn Chinese / Mandarin in order to better communicate with the guys.
I’m not as lucky as those guys, though. Sigh.
I guess for each person it’s different. For me, I would prefer to be with someone that I can communicate comfortably. I can speak Chinese and I would not say I would never date someone who can’t speak English, but if I have the option, I would prefer someone that does speak it well.
What kind of institutional racism are you referring to?
The difficulty to get the Taiwan R.O.C. citizenship?
Is it easier for a foreigner to get citizenships in Western countries?
I have witnessed Taiwanese people doing that to my Caucasian friends, so I know what you mean.
But what is strange in the West is, usually, an Asian person gets more stares and weird looks than any other non-Whites. It’s weird.
Yes legal preference for overseas Chinese (ethnic preference).
Also problems for blue collar workers from south east Asia getting permanent residency and not being offered any kind of labour insurance. Severe exploitation and even murder of foreign fishermen.
Something like 95%+ of all foreigners who got ROC nationality are female spouses from four SEA countries who renounced their citizenship or else overseas Chinese…until very recently it was extremely hard for others to apply for citizenship due to various barriers put in place.
Many western countries have a faster process to citizenship (often within 5 years) and don’t put SO much emphasis on ethnic background (although some like Ireland and Italy do have a grandfather rule but they really did come from those countries and not some foreign land like china). There’s also less delineation between different ‘classes’ of foreigners. We see that the Taiwan governnent has quite extreme ‘classist’ or even semi-fascist views on humans…there are officially ‘special foreigners’ down to ‘regular foreigners’ and then ‘workers’. I just don’t agree with that kind of classification.
