noddy wrote:it seems to be a phenomenon of middle aged men whos wives have stopped listening to them so they inflict their prejudices masquerading as knowledge on anyone else in earshot.
ive heard many different versions of this - from chinese to indians and several flavours of european, all who believe they have some deep cultural insight into the true nature of each countries people.
orientalism type gibberish is usually more of a mirror into the person having the opinion than the thing being opined upon.
Very good Grasshopper!
"Be like water."
water is very insensitive.
water needs sugar and yeast to realize its full potential.
Excellent article Typhoon. Thanks for posting. White privilege and compassion ain't what it used to be! Who do "we" blame for that?
A few years ago, I was informed by my 30-ish niece, that using the term "oriental" was racist, but the term "Asian" was understanding, compassionate, and enlightened.
Typhoon, a question, Do all orientals know the term oriental is racist? Or just the enlightened ones?
. . .
Well, given that The Orient starts east of the Bosphorus and ends around the International Date Line, thereby including several billion people, it's a bit hard to generalize.
However, I have heard well educated Japanese speaking English occasionally use the term "Oriental" unaware of its current pejorative status in the West.
Way back when... when it was prophesied that your tribe's culture was taking over the world, when Bruce Lee and David Carradine were both Oriental, and the song "I think I'm turning Japanese" was popular.... Conversations discussing the prophesy with a friend who was from Japan (so he claims, he could have been Chinese or Korean...) often were summarized by him saying "You stupid Occidentals! Replacing your culture will be easy!"
If there is one thing that I've learned over the decades, then it is that most predictions about the future are invariably wrong. Often laughably so.
Simple Minded wrote:
Luckily, neither of us were sophisticated enough back then to realize that was "Racist!"
Insensitivity is underrated....
Quite.
May the gods preserve and defend me from self-righteous altruists; I can defend myself from my enemies and my friends.
