A jaw-dropping comment in a news article in today’s TT.
The topic is Southeast Asian wives, of whom there are only 115,000 in Taiwan according to the Ministry of the Interior as quoted in the article.
Someone called Kathy Ke, described as “chief executive officer of the Pearl S. Buck Foundation” is quoted as follows:
“These foreign spouses, who are often the main caregivers at home, have little idea about how to raise their children.”
Jesus suffering fuck. I have been here a long time, and I’ve listened to some shit over the years, but this takes the fucking biscuit. She goes on: “The impact of cultural differences slows down the learning process of these children; they may have difficulty expressing themselves verbally and imitating and achieving the same vocabulary as other children of the same age.”
I thought this had to be a mis-translation, so I bought the Liberty Times to see if they had the story, but I couldn’t find it.
I want to find out who this person is, and what the “Pearl S. Buck Foundation” is. Does anyone have the Chinese of what this person said?
Of course I have a lot to say about this, but I’d rather not. As I was sitting in MacDonalds this morning watching uncontrolled ill-mannered Taiwanese brats run around demanding everything under the sun, I thought of asking their oblivious Taiwanese parents how they would feel if I told them they had “little idea how to raise their children” and advised them to attend classes given by White Europeans on how to raise children.
So what the hell is this woman doing telling us that women from SEA in Taiwan can’t raise children? I have never heard such bollocks. Christ save me from these patronising fucks who think people in SEA are so stupid, so different from them that they require “instruction” in raising kids.
And what is this utter shite about culturally diverse families raising kids who can’t express themselves. I’ve never heard such xenophonic bullshit. Has this Kathy Ke BEEN to places like Malaysia?
From their website:
[i]Pearl S. Buck International (PSBI) has three distinct functions that operate with one common mission of promoting the legacy and dreams of Pearl S. Buck
What the buck? That indeed, takes the cake. Cultural differences—[color=red]
aiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeee!!!
[/color] Can’t you see those kids, drooling and mumbling to themselves?
Of course everyone knows only Taiwanese people know how to be parents. How could mere southeast-Asians presume they know to perform this most fundamental of human acts.
Perhaps Ms’ Ke has some “cultural differences” in her background herself, or lead poisoning. I advocate a mercy killing in this case.
There are ways of making them talk–and I bet my ass they pay CLOSE attention to what’s coming through this e-mail “address”
A friend of mine makes this response to the email I sent to the Pearl S. Buck Foundation:
“Anyway, I think it would be much more interesting to bat around some inflammatory racist sterotypes about why so many Taiwanese men marry SouthEast Asian women, particularly if it isn’t for their child-rearing skills.”
A report in today’s Taipei Times newspaper (page 2), published in Taipei, Taiwan, contains a quote attributed to a “Kathy Ke” which I find to be racist and inflammatory. I would like to give your organisation an opportunity to verify whether the words attributed by the newspaper to the person concerned, who is stated in the report to be "chief executive officer of the Pearl S. Buck Foundation, were actually said by her or not.
The quotes are follows:
“These foreign spouses, who are often the main caregivers at home, have little idea about how to raise their children.”
“The impact of cultural differences slows down the learning process of these children; they may have difficulty expressing themselves verbally and imitating and achieving the same vocabulary as other children of the same age.”
The context was a discussion of Taiwanese men married to Southeast Asian women. I would like an explanation of why Ms Ke thinks people from Southeast Asia in Taiwan “have little idea about how to raise their children”, and why she is promoting the view that “[t]he impact of cultural differences slows down the learning process of these children” and how this fits in with the following statement on your website:
"Pearl S. Buck International (PSBI) has three distinct functions that operate with one common mission of promoting the legacy and dreams of Pearl S. Buck
Ever since I read The Good Earth, as a child, and learned about Pearl Buck’s life
(see afe.easia.columbia.edu/china/lit/good.htm), I was under the impression that she was a terrific woman, kind, compassionate and full of understanding for people from different cultures and when I investigated her foundation many years ago I had the impression that it was a very good entity that provides valuable services, so I’m surprised at Hexuan’s comments about its present CEO. I guess I’ll have to read the TT and see what she said. And if their present leader truly is a fuckwit, I hope that’s not true of the entire organization, because I believe that wasn’t always the case.
I edited a paper about congenital hypothyroidism a while back which contained the following sentence: “Since 1967, dietary salt in Taiwan has been fortified with iodine, so iodine deficiency is not a health concern, except perhaps among the children of immigrant mothers from other South-East Asian countries.”
This seemed a very dodgy thing to put in a paper without a solid reference. Congenital hypothyroidism causes mental retardation and it seemed that the doctor was implying that kids of S.E. Asian immigrant mothers were more likely to be retarded. I am not an expert in public health but surely if these kids were born and raised in Taiwan they would have eaten food prepared with iodized salt. It smacked of prejudice to me so I suggested the doctor support the statement with a reference and left it at that.
hex…as may be apparent I am about as far from being PC as I am from moon walking on Jupiter, however, as I read this today I was astounded.
Not only is this persons quote, apparently done in complete context, out-friggin’-raegeous but the entire context of the article is condescending and insulting.
I am continually amazed by the child-rearing I encounter in Taiwan. Although it does go a long way in explaining the resulting chronological adults I also encounter.
Another glaring example of the utter incompetence in the Taiwan english language press to print such crap as this. Completely oblivious to what they are writing.
hex, damn fine email. I do think I will follow suit.
MT - I have also always had a high opinion of the Pearl S. Buck Foundation. I have to believe this comment is the product of the skin-bag here and in no way reflective of the foundations core beliefs.
Although, as time goes by and new blood is brought in, things can change.
I would guess that the child-rearing skills of immigrant wives from Southeast Asia vary from good to bad, just like any other attribute.
An awful lot of Taiwanese acquaintances of mine fob off their young children onto the grandparents to raise, and said grandparents usually 1. park the kid in front of the TV all day, 2. beat the child, 3. feed it candy and other completely non-nutritious food all day, and 4. never read to the child or take it anywhere. Perhaps a stay-at-home mother could do a better job than that.
The TT article was misleading: Kathy Ke is not CEO of the Pearl Buck Foundation, as they alleged. She is CEO of the Taiwan branch of the Pearl Buck Foundation.
Her comments may have been stupid but hopefully others in the local office have more brains. In any event, Pearl S. Buck International is a great organization, helping children around the world, and in no way do Ms. Ke’s comments reflect on that organization.
It is very likely this woman was quoted out of context given the nature of the event which was supposedly to help SEA women. However, I detest the way all problems relating to Taiwanese men marrying non-Taiwanese women are presented as problems the woman has, and how the Taiwanese can’t help letting their racial stereotypes run away with them (all Chinese women are prostitutes, SEA women are thick peasants, Filipinas are only fit to wash toilets etc). Yuk.
What the Taiwanese have to teach Vietnamese and Thai women about raising children God alone only knows. And we Europeans certainly have nothing to shout about in that regard. What I know about raising kids could be written in capital letters on the back of a postage stamp, but what level of arrogance do you have to reach before you call SEA women incapable of raising kids? Can you imagine the furore if I went on telly tomorrow telling Taiwanese women they were incapable of raising kids and let me, a White European, show them how?! The problem, if there is one, is the Taiwanese husband, the Taiwanese in-laws.
And this fits right in with the constant drive to force the Taiwanese language down everybody’s throat. Can’t teach English in kindergartens because it would displace Taiwanese. Can’t use Hanyu Pinyin because it wasn’t designed for Taiwanese. Don’t like kids speaking Thai or Viet to mummy because they should be speaking Taiwanese (let’s break that mother-child bond, way to go, it’ll be worth it - isn’t little Johnny’s Taiwanese great!?) I don’t know if there’s any connection at all, but there’s a resurgence in the Irish language in Ireland (God even Northern Protestants are learning it!) precisely because (IMHO) it’s NOT being forced down people’s throats any more. No Malaysian or Indian ever suffered social ostricisation of the kind Kathy Ke is describing because they grew up speaking several languages. The problem is entirely Taiwanese. And of course the kid will grow up speaking both Mandarin and Taiwanese, as well as his mother’s tongue. Would anyone sacrifice this chance to learn three languages so easily on the altar of ultra-nationalism? Rant rant Grr Grr.
Above that story in the paper is one about how foreigners are responsible for AIDs in Taiwan and are currently kicked out upon a positive HIV test. Encouragingly, a slew of Taiwanese experts are quoted pointing out that there are 600,000 Taiwanese (men) in China and 3m Taiwanese travel abroad every year.
It is reasonable enough to speculate that the state of child rearing in one culture may be superior to the state of child rearing in another culture; but I have been to a number of SEA countries and one of the things that particularly impressed me about SEA women especially was the warmth and concern they showed for their children. If anything these women should be giving classes here as it seems that many Taiwanese mothers frequently seem to lack even the most basic affection for their children.
Actually, I am not surprised at all about the racist comments that pop up in the media about SEA mothers. Taiwanese people are, in general, quite a racist bunch.
They are not only racist towards other people of other countries, they are racist towards their own. :loco:
There is actually 2 kinds of Taiwanese people living in Taiwan:
1)Mainlanders who came over when the KMT lost in China
2)Local Taiwanese who have always lived on this Island.
The local Taiwanese are usually very racist about the mainlanders and inter-Taiwanese marriages are frowned upon. The younger generations don’t care about that as much but it still is noticable.
As an outsiders looking in, I find that quite odd/pointless. You live here, on this island, together. You speak the same language, eat the same food, look exactly the same and the mainlanders came over like 50 some odd years ago. You can’t even tell the difference when you pass each other on the street! I must admit: Taiwanese people do take racism to the extreme. I would laugh if it wasn’t so pathetic. I just know I’m going to get so many responses lecturing me about what is so different about the 2.
I think that’s why I love Canada so much. It’s one of the countries that actually promotes and LIVES the multicultural society. There is racism everywhere but as we live in Taiwan, it just happens that we notice it here.
I am not even going to get into child raising here. It’s such a mess. As long as you throw a lot of money at your child, that counts as good parenting and therefore you are a loving parent. All the kid needs more: toys/videogames/junk. I seriously think money equates to love here. The parents are too busy making money to bother with emotional support. Don’t get me wrong, they do love their kids, they really do. It’s the child-rearing part that I have problems with.
And I said I wasn’t even going to get into the child raising issue.
:bravo: I applaude your efforts hexuan to correct it in the papers however as media definately influences our outlook on people. If my remote wasn’t glued to my hand, I might be motivated to join your cause. :help:
Precisely. The Taiwanese are so good at raising kids they don’t even have to do it. Just get an Indonesian/Filipina to do it instead and ensure your kids treat her like shit. Or get the grandparents to do it. I can understand the arrogance of some Americans, or Brits, or Germans, or whatever - they have a lot to be arrogant about. Can someone please tell me WTF the Taiwanese have to be so arrogant about?
I have received a reply from the CEO of the Pearl S. Buck Foundation in America. The Taiwan office has nothing to do with them, and indeed the real Pearl S. Buck Foundation tried to stop the Taiwanese one using their name, but of course failed. How naive of me to think there might be a connection.
The CEO of the real PSB suspects (as I do) this person has been misquoted because the comments were so ignorant.
[quote=“Mother Theresa”]The TT article was misleading: Kathy Ke is not CEO of the Pearl Buck Foundation, as they alleged. She is CEO of the Taiwan branch of the Pearl Buck Foundation.
