Yesterday morning I took my Taiwanese wife up to the Carrefour in Tianmu to buy baby shampoo etc. While wandering through the computer/electronics section we saw a black guy (he was African) looking about very flustered. I walked over and asked him what the problem was. He pointed to an Acer notebook and said he wanted to buy it but it was in Chinese and he wanted the English version. And no one would help him.
I waved at a store employee and suddenly we were surrounded by the dept manager and 4 clerks. I explained the problem to him and he shrugged. He spoke to me, didn’t even look at the black guy. “He can download it off the internet”…and then they all strolled off.
This was a $1000US notebook but I guess it was too much for them to have to deal with a foreigner. And a black. So the notebook was left unbought.
Race could have entered into the picture, but it’s pretty tough to get an non-Chinese language pre-installed version of Windows. Basically, you’re on your own for that no matter what your color is. Especially for a cheap notebook like the one that guy was trying to buy.
I wouldn’t expect that a department store will customize their goods based on individual requests as they typically sell a pre-defined product/configuration in bulk quantities, hence the low(er) price.
The problem was he couldn’t get anyone to help him. I would have installed an English version of Windows for him but the assholes working there wouldn’t even look at him, much less talk to him.
Uh, read my post again and tell me where I disagree with that. The problem however with stories like this is that they are based on hear-say, e.g. we don’t know why he didn’t get any help: Was it really because of his race or perhaps because he doesn’t speak Chinese and none of the staff he met spoke English?
Did he actually ask anyone before he met you? Isn’t clear from your post, his claim that ‘no one would help him’ could mean anything …
What would it take for many of you that posted that race didn’t matter to get that it DOES
matter in the eyes of the Taiwanese? Stop with the justifications, and excuses and accept the fact that many people do look down on people who are black or have dark skin color. It has happened to me quite often here. I have noticed that now when I go into Carrifore, that security is notified of my presence, by radioing up to the eye in the sky room. Quite often I have been ignored when I want to ask questions about a product that I am interested in. And add to the fact that this is a patricatrical (sp) society, I am even more looked down on because I am a woman.
Rascal and Feiren you posts to me just smack of negating someone’s exprience. :fume: :fume: :fume:
Uh, read my post again and tell me where I disagree with that. The problem however with stories like this is that they are based on hear-say, e.g. we don’t know why he didn’t get any help: Was it really because of his race or perhaps because he doesn’t speak Chinese and none of the staff he met spoke English?
Did he actually ask anyone before he met you? Isn’t clear from your post, his claim that ‘no one would help him’ could mean anything …[/quote]
Rascal. there was no “hear-say”. I was there. No one would come to him and talk. Whether he spoke Chinese, English or Swahili,
NO ONE WOULD TALK TO HIM. NO HELP. HE COULD NOT BUY THE NOTEBOOK BECCAUSE NO ONE WOULD HELP. THEY IGNORED HIM.
I agree that there is lots of casual racism against dark-skinned people in Taiwan. I think that Rascal and I are both saying that nobody gets any service in Taiwanese electronics shops for notebooks. I’ve been completely ignored in Cankun etc many times. The sales staff in those places has no interest in helping customers–they don’t get any commission. And it costs the stores too much money to provide any service given the business they are in ( as rascal explained).
I’m not negating someone’s experience. I’m providing an alternative explanation.
I see what you are saying but then again you are generalizing and imply that race is always an issue in such situations. That I disagree with.
You are right, no doubt that many people do that.
If you read my posts more carefully then you will see that I do not deny that race was (or could have been) an issue. I merely question if there couldn’t have been another reason, because sometimes also non-blacks make such experiences.
I was referring to his claim that ‘no one would help him’, which does include the time before you met him.
You only know what he told you about that time, so that it is hear-say.
[quote]No one would come to him and talk. Whether he spoke Chinese, English or Swahili,
NO ONE WOULD TALK TO HIM. NO HELP. HE COULD NOT BUY THE NOTEBOOK BECCAUSE NO ONE WOULD HELP. THEY IGNORED HIM.
DO YOU UNDERSTAND?[/quote]
Gee, no need for shouting but you are missing the point, though since you were there why don’t you tell us what he did to get the attention of the staff and thus get help?
I am not excusing it either, which seems you are unable to recognize. And as long as you keep on repeating that he didn’t get any help without telling us if he actually made any attempt to get the same your claim that race was an issue doesn’t work for me.
What I don’t understand is why you don’t tell us what he did to get the same.
There is nothing ‘casual’ about racism. It’s demeaning and humliating. And I find your last post still a justification.[/quote] Racism happens to us white skinned people here too. It’s probably not so apparent in the big cities.
Personally I hate shop attendants getting really close to me maybe because they think I may steal something. Honestly I don’t know if this racially based or not. There is a real possibility that some of these shops have had a lot of goods stolen from them in the past.
[quote=“Rascal”]
What I don’t understand is why you don’t tell us what he did to get the same.[/quote]
OK Rascal. He was motioning with his hand trying to get one of the clerks standing maybe 4 meters away to come over. They looked at him and then turned away. I saw them looking back to see if he was trying to steal something. That’s why he was getting upset. When I motioned for them to come over, they were all there in a second. They had no trouble coming to help me because I am Aryan (well…of the Anglo-Saxon Celtic line if you want to be exact).
[quote=“Matchstick_man”]
Personally I hate shop attendants getting really close to me maybe because they think I may steal something. Honestly I don’t know if this racially based or not. There is a real possibility that some of these shops have had a lot of goods stolen from them in the past.[/quote]
Notebooks at Carrefour are attached to the display. You can’t move them.
A while ago one of Carrefoure’s janitors yelled racial epithets at me. My crime? I had brought my backpack into the store, forgetting to check it at the door, and a security guard politely stopped me in the store to ask me to go and check it. I complained to their French managment team (not sure if there is one left anymore) but I see they haven’t changed much. Truthfully, I don’t expect much from your average Carrefoure employee.
But this kind of crap happens in the States as well–my mother was shopping with a Taiwanese friend in Walmart and they would not help him in the eyeglass section. My mom walked in and they wouldn’t stop approaching her for help. :help:
Something similar at Costco recently, though not to do with customer service. An African-American woman in the check-out line gave her card to the cashier. Being a card issued abroad, it requires a key-in sequence by the cashier to process the transaction. I know this, because I’ve had the same experience using my card, issued in Taiwan, abroad. The cashier was obviously not up on how to do this and spent the next five minutes trying to chase down his supervisor to help him proceed with the transaction.
Being in line a few customers behind said women, I was pretty surprised at the two old local amahs in front of me throw a bit of a verbal trantrum in mandarin somewhere along the lines of: “Oh, those people! Always trouble!” Man, I was furious and informed them that the problem was not the woman, but the ineffectual cashier who doesn’t know how to process the card properly. One of the women was bold enough to reply: “This is Taiwan; she should get a card issued here.” And I, in turn, replied something like: “And I suppose you think Costco is a Taiwanese company, as well.” Things got real quiet after that.
