What about Germans?
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I’ve pointed this out before. In the US, UK, and even Chinese-privileged Singapore, they are the highest income earners. But they haven’t created a modern state of their own, despite being the majority in Mauritius and Guayana (although Mauritius is wealthy by African standards). Ethnic Chinese have created three modern states.
A lot of Taiwanese people today recognize Indians are smart and good engineers.
Although I knew a girl who simultaneously believed Asians were good at math and poor rice farmers.
I do think nationality matters a ton. I’m dark skinned Indian racially, but am born and raised in America. Noticed that people instantly became more interested me when they realized I was American in Japan and Korea.
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Had a girlfriend in Singapore many years ago, she thought wealth of the country was shown by the currency rate….
1 Singapore dollar > Malaysian Ringit > Thai Baht → Indian Rupee so in her mind India was a very poor country
Sadly I confused her brain a lot when asking her about the extremely poor Japanese in that case…
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No seriously, if a shop owner has a problem with browsing without buying they should put up a sign saying “Only enter if you are going to buy something.” Now if they ate curry in the shop without buying something, l could understand the complaining.
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I think the root of “racism” is assuming that all people from a given culture are all the same. The two things your friend mentions can be simultaneously true. My experience of “poor” countries goes something like this: the system is set up to ensure everyone fails. It might not be entirely deliberate or entirely conscious, but that’s the way it is. And the result is that everyone fails … except for those who don’t. It’s a trial by fire: most people are consumed, but a few walk away like a boss:
This is why there is such massive inequality in poor countries: the people who thrive are those who beat all the odds, by some combination of skill, brains, luck or ruthlessness, while the rest just sink into apathy, accepting their fate. Sometimes they do it simply by being motivated enough to try - since the pool of successful people is so small, there are plenty of niche opportunities.
95% of the time, unless they’re politically connected, these people never realize their true potential because they are continually being slapped down by the system, but when they’re dropped into relatively benign situations - where procedures are less byzantine, the Law is less dysfunctional, and the people around them are less inclined to kill them and steal their stuff - their skills really shine, and they succeed like nobody’s business.
Co-operation is a huge factor in this. “Poor people”, generally, are shit at co-operation. That’s partly because they know they can’t trust anybody, and partly because they’re untrustworthy themselves. Successful Indians invariably have a well-connected social/family network who they can trust. They operate little mini-mafias (albeit usually in a benign and lawful way) that act as economic powerhouses in their own niche.
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I’m with you. Just busting your chops.
Colonialism is frowned upon these days
Wait, are you saying ethnic Chinese founded Singapore?
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For the most part, I think those immigrants do recognize the dysfunctions back in India and bring out the positives. But there are still issues like lack of care for trash. Our first apartment complex in the UK was full of Indians and we caught them so many times throw trash around. Even had to confront them because their address was in the trash they left around so they couldn’t deny it.
This aspect of their culture prevents me from wanting to go there. Everything I’ve seen and everyone who’s been and even Indians have said it’s extremely dirty.
That’s because SGD and MYR used to be parity a very long time ago. Malaysia obvioulsy hasn’t gone anywhere while Singapore has been successful, but the memory of 1 SGD = 1 MYR is still fresh in some people’s memory so they assume that all currencies used to be parity like this pair, which obviously isn’t the case.
+1, I look Indian AF, but people become way more interested in me after they realize that I studied/worked in the US and don’t sound like Apu from The Simpsons.
I’m surprised because Indians in the US, on average, earn the highest of all ethnic groups. There was a study from New York Times about this last year. We all know about engineers and CEOs, but the masses won’t interact with them. A ton of doctors in many cities (not just the famous ones) are Indian and all folks probably have to interact with this group way more.
These stereotypes are definitely formed out of prejudice.
Many Indian-Americans are very clannish and prefer to interact, form friendships with, date and marry their own kind.
And even their own caste, in at least some cases
I noticed this about Koreans and Chinese (incl. ABCs) as well as an international student in a top US college. Not sure why you would single out Indians here.
Even within the very large & diverse group of Indians that are often considered as one unit, I saw cliques form between Hindus, Muslims and between speakers of many different regional languages in India. Although I personally like to meet people from different cultures, I think it’s reasonable for people to want to hang out with those who speak the same language and/or have the same faith.
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Birds of a feather, like likes like
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Its true. it results from a very strong sense of individuality among indians which is both good and bad thing. Good in a way that Indians who leave india still remain connected to their roots and dont give up on their lifestyle they had back home. They form their own communities there as a result. Bad in a way that some of them only carry this philosophy to their local community and dont extend it to the whole country and thus anyone who is not of their caste or area or city or region is seen as “different”
Because you were talking about the masses not interacting with them. True to some extent with other Asians, but I found it most pronounced with Indians and Vietnamese (in their case it seemed to be partly due to poor English communication skills). I was also told by an Indian cab driver that he refused to pick up black passengers, but that’s another issue. 