IMA vs Reality

[mixjourneyman]

色鬼 is better than 鬼佬。

[wayne hansen]

A few years back I was talking to a Chinese master of several systems
I said something about his Chinese students
His response
Your Chinese there not Chinese
He was talking about attitude and tradition
I use the word gwailo often about myself
Claim it negate it
It means nothing

[willywrong]

A few years back I was talking to a Chinese master of several systems
I said something about his Chinese students
His response
Your Chinese there not Chinese
He was talking about attitude and tradition
I use the word gwailo often about myself
Claim it negate it
It means nothing

I've never claimed it. My response excuse the spelling is 'due lay low mo'. English translation is 'go fuck your mother'. I must say it correctly because it definitely gets the correct behavioural response from said perpetrator for their implied insult.

[Michael]

It's rarely meant as an insult because, would a human insult a dog for being stupid a dog?

[willywrong]

The gwei lo thing reflects a Chinese attitude toward foreigners in general as being another category of culturally and intellectually inferior being. This belief is so ingrained in Chinese thinking that malice is not intended, merely inviolable matter-of-factness. It's rarely meant as an insult because, would a human insult a dog for being stupid a dog?

The way Chinese relate to foreigners is described by Ralph Ellison hilariously and eloquently in the same way that white Americans relate to blacks. Sorry for the spoiler, but his masterpiece The Invisible Man helped me to understand this attitude. When Ellison's main character, the romantic young black man, gets a job at the American Paint Company, which makes only white paint, the young black man is instructed to put the black dope, meaning a kind of dye, into the white paint by his white boss. The young black man scratches his head and says wouldn't that discolor the perfectly white paint? No, the boss replies, the black dope actually makes the white paint whiter. For non-native English speakers, dope also means a stupid person.

IMO, after living here over 9 years, the Chinese attitude toward foreigners is the same, that having a gwei lo around, who is always presumed to be inferior in every possible way (e.g. Chinese people do not believe it is possible for me to use buses with route numbers because I can't understand the meaning of Chinese characters denoting bus stops), actually makes a Chinese feel more Chinese. Several times per week for 9 years, as a technically unqualified teacher of oral English, my only real qualification being that I am white, I have been asked by my students and/or the staff to literally sing and dance in class. Have never gone one week without this request.

As surprising as this may be to people who know me on the forum, in person I can give the impression of joviality, but there is nothing in my makeup that suggests I am a singer or a dancer.

Having worked into Chinese restaurants run by Cantonese Chinese here in Australia, probably for six months as a dishwasher or kitchen man which ever title you're comfortable with.
Numerous oil cooks came and went and I presume they were in and out on quick work visas. Probably at least 5 to 6 times in that period. I had the expression used in reference to myself along with the term which you can correct me on this Michael fai ji meaning fat man or fat boy. The fat man term was used whenever they chose to order me to do something around the kitchen.
The other term was used with an accompanying nasty look, which is what made it offensive and got said response. The term is also used dozens of times in talk amongst themselves always a backbiting bitchiness was present in their tone.
My mate May Ling who was the boss's wife sister who came to Australia and did not speak in a word of English, but 10 years later received her PhD from the Australian National University here in Canberra. She would go off like a firecracker whenever she heard them using that word in relationship to me. This was even before I gave it any attention and took care of myself.
I spent nearly 10 years around Chinese people in Penang and never once ever heard that word used in relationship to myself.
I think like most words that exist in language Chinese or English. It would depend on who is using the word.

As for singing and dancing well we know what Bob Dylan says (you gotta serve somebody) just to make a living hey.

[NoSword]

I think the attitude that Michael describes is certainly not absent from Chinese culture, but it is only one side of the coin. Lu Xun said it best when he wrote, 'either we look up to them as gods, or down on them as barbarians.'

[Michael]

@ NoSword, that makes sense, too. Defining who a people are socially by abstract comparison with an 'other' is a convenient cultural belief to implant in people's minds because it allows other irrational ideas to be accepted, such as superiority, because those beliefs will never be tested, just like a bogus belief in mythical martial arts skills that are never properly validated or tested within an insular group of people in the same IMA school.

[Michael]

@ Willy, I don't think I've ever been insulted here, either to my face or near me, behind my back or anything like that. However, I'd rather be insulted than have my head patted, but that's just me

[Steve James]

The way Chinese relate to foreigners is described by Ralph Ellison hilariously and eloquently in the same way that white Americans relate to blacks. Sorry for the spoiler, but his masterpiece The Invisible Man helped me to understand this attitude. When Ellison's main character, the romantic young black man, gets a job at the American Paint Company, which makes only white paint, the young black man is instructed to put the black dope, meaning a kind of dye, into the white paint by his white boss. The young black man scratches his head and says wouldn't that discolor the perfectly white paint? No, the boss replies, the black dope actually makes the white paint whiter.

It's "Invisible Man" not The Invisible Man. He makes that clear in the first paragraph

I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids -- and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination -- indeed, everything and anything except me.

The section of the book at the Liberty Paint company is an hilarious nightmare. Anyway, I think it's related to the Chinese perception of White people, perhaps especially Americans because they may presently be the representatives of Whiteness. And Whiteness is often equated with positive qualities. Hence the whitening creams and eyelid operations. No Sword picked up on something that relates to Ellison's novel and the Chinese issue.

I think the attitude that Michael describes is certainly not absent from Chinese culture, but it is only one side of the coin. Lu Xun said it best when we wrote, 'either we look up to them as gods, or down on them as barbarians.'

Behind the denigration, there is a certain amount of admiration. The US situation is somewhat different, but Ellison's idea in the paint factory episode is that the "pure white" paint wouldn't be so without the "black" dope: that element of blackness that was necessary to make the paint whiter. That was the secret that the Black paint-mixer knows, and the narrator of the novel slowly realizes ... before he accidentally blows the place up.

[Michael Babin]

I'm not Chinese and as a teacher of Chinese martial arts; I have experienced racism at the hands of Chinese teachers more than once over the years as well as would-be students who disappeared after discovering that the instructor wasn't of their ethnicity. Sometimes it was just because they wanted someone who spoke their language and sometimes their French or English was better than mine so that couldn't have been an issue.

Like does attract like as the old saying goes and there's nothing intrinsically wrong with that idea except that it often seems to breed ideas of exclusion and superiority [or inferiority, if you're on the receiving end].

My "favourite" experience was my mother-in-law telling me that she had been telling her brother's wife over the phone that my first book on taiji had been published. The wife enquired if I was Chinese as she was a recent immigrant to Canada from the mainland. When my mother-in-law replied to the negative; the wife said in a matter of fact voice [knowing nothing about taiji herself, as it turned out] that "he can't be any good if he isn't Chinese."

or is that

[Michael]

Nice reply, Steve The whole black dope diluting-yet-transforming the white is also reminiscent of the yin/yang taiji tu symbol of change.

A couple of extreme examples that are familiar to many here.

The Kiai master vs. MMA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEDaCIDvj6I

Yellow Bamboo on the beach

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1ykNZ7rAcw

[C.J.W.]

As a Taiwanese guy who immigrated to America in my early teens and also lived in Hong Kong, I'd like to toss in my two cents about "gwai lao":

"Gwai Lao" is actually a Cantonese term that is only exclusively used by Cantonese speakers to describe male foreigners of Caucasian backgrounds. The reason it's become so widely known in the West is that most of the early Chinese immigrants in Western countries (and those who subsequently settled in Chinatowns) were Cantonese who used the term freely in their daily conversation, thus leaving some Westerners with the impression that all Chinese people refer to foreigners as gwai lao. It simply isn't the case. In fact, I had never even heard of the term until I moved to America and came in contact with some Cantonese speakers.

And to be honest, Cantonese people aren't exactly the friendliest and politest ethic group China has to offer. As a Mandarin speaker who knows very little Cantonese, I often feel discriminated against by Cantonese speakers whenever I am in an American Chinatown or in Hong Kong (e.g. getting poor service at restaurants because I can't understand what the waiters and waitresses are yelling in Cantonese)

Growing up in Taiwan, people here have always called foreigners "Lao Wai" 老外, which has the endearing connotation of a friendly "foreign dude."　And it's also likely how a Mandarin speaker would address a foreigner in speech; I have heard the word on popular Chinese talk shows produced by CCTV and from non-Cantonese friends from China as well, so the usage is by no means only limited to Taiwan.

[C.J.W.]

I'm not Chinese and as a teacher of Chinese martial arts; I have experienced racism at the hands of Chinese teachers more than once over the years as well as would-be students who disappeared after discovering that the instructor wasn't of their ethnicity. Sometimes it was just because they wanted someone who spoke their language and sometimes their French or English was better than mine so that couldn't have been an issue.

Are you serious? I used to teach English at private language schools in Taiwan, and the situation here seems to be the exact opposite. Parents and students prefer foreign teachers way more than local teachers, and some schools even cheat by hiring Europeans and South Americans, and passing them off as native-speakers of English. It is almost always the local (Asian) teachers who experience racism and unfair treatment, as a foreign -- especially Caucasian-- teacher with a non-language related college degree can often make more money and are in greater demand than a local Asian teacher who may hold an M.A. or even a Ph.D in the field of language-teaching .

A number of years ago a lawsuit made the headlines here. It was filed by a Taiwanese American woman against her would-be employer at a language school. The woman was born and raised in the States, an American citizen, and had an English degree from an Ivy League school. She answered an ad placed online by the school looking for a "foreign native-speaking" teacher," passed the phone interview with flying colors, and was told to report to work the next day. However, when she appeared, the boss saw that she was Asian and immediately retracted the job offer, telling her she was not the kind the native-speaker they were looking for. The furious woman then sued the school for racial discrimination, and eventually received money in compensation. During the trial, the school spokesperson was seen on TV denying any wrongdoing, while others in the industry commented, "we know it's not right, but our students expect to see a non-Asian teacher when a class is advertised as being taught by a foreigner."

[Steve James]

... answered an ad placed online by the school looking for a "foreign native-speaking" teacher," passed the phone interview with flying colors, and was told to report to work the next day. However, when she appeared, the boss saw that she was Asian and immediately retracted the job offer, telling her she was not the kind the native-speaker they were looking for.

The same thing happened to me years back, and I'm Black But, I think that the comparison Michael B. was making concerned a non-Asian teaching Asian martial arts in Asia or to Asians. In China, I guess that a western English speaker would be considered more authentic than Chinese English speakers. I'm not sure that's racism. It's more about the stereotypical expectations that students have for their teachers. For example, a man teaching a women's studies class, or a White guy teaching Black History, might go against the expectations of the students. I don't think it has to do with anyone's sense of superiority. Well, it does sound like the dismissive treatment given to tcc teachers. I mean reacting to the question "Who is your teacher?" with "Oh, he can't be that good."

[willywrong]

@ Willy, I don't think I've ever been insulted here, either to my face or near me, behind my back or anything like that. However, I'd rather be insulted than have my head patted, but that's just me

Michael further along in the thread C JW does mention that this could be just peculiar to Cantonese. Anyway, I won't be insulted or have my head patted. I have a simple set of rules which are verbalise me all you like, but you touch me I'll rip your f**king head off and shove it up your proverbial.
Like your your first clip with the old master and the MMA fella a real hoot. Thanks.