[J m HofMarN]

It's kind of interesting that you mentioned the kids speaking the language of their grandparents, because that's a reason that a lot of immigrant families keep their language for a while. Older members of the family have trouble learning English but children can learn it much more easily. Can you imagine going home and having to ask your five year old to talk to someone because you can't? It really is a very difficult thing and such problems can cause a lot of discord in families.

And yeah, I'm sorry about jumping on that statement but saying "I don't want a lot of Koreans in my city but I'm not a racist" is kind of contradictory. I'm not trying to insult you, Jordan, just hoping maybe you'll see it from a different point of view and think about how hard these people have it. And besides, immigrants always end up doing a lot to help enrich the countries they go to. Without Immigrants we'd be missing out on many different quisines, different religious views, different social structures, various and sundry inventions, one of the governors of a very populous state, and Groundskeeper Willy from The Simpsons. Houw can ye say nae te Willy?

[Jordan]

I don't want to end immigration of Asians. I just wish the the immigrant pool was not so lop sided. They're huge consumers, most new development is for them. That is why our government loves them. I'm not really into developing Vancouver, it's what makes this place great, Trees and trails. The Asian parts of town behold everything I HATE about large urban settings. Big stupid BUY BUY SELL SELL malls, sprawling condos etc... And they literally control an entire district (actually almost two), not small part of city, but entire district. When Chinese characters are seen on all the stores, and are bigger than the English letters, I'm sorry, but it annoys me.


My beef with them not learning English:

1) I think you should try to adopt the language of the place you immigrate too.

2) The fact that my GF's parents lived here for 10 years with out even bothering to learn the language is one factor as to why we broke up. JYAMG is confused. I was not insensitive to her parents, I could not even talk to them. They did not like that, they wanted her to go out with a Korean guy so they could have a relationship with him. They could never have one with me. (unless I started to speak Korean) Korean parents have a real tight grip on their kids, they would not even let her move out of the house when she was 20, they thought that I'd be at her place having sex and doing evil deeds.

Immigrating is a HUGE DEAL. But these people play it down, it's like moving down the block to them, no biggie. Ya, we'll just move to another country, make our offspring marry our own kind, and not bother acknowledge their customs in any way.

I mean if you move away from your home land you have to accept the fact that your daughter may date and then marry a man of different color. But they won't. I found this very frustrating at the time.

And really JYAMG, I'm sure you love Korea, but tell me this, if you moved back home to find that 2/5 people that pass you buy is Korean, and then certain districts were exclusively Korean, with Korean Hangul everywhere, Korean movie stores, and Korean politicians, you would not feel a bit uneasy?

I don't think that makes me a racist. Just some body who believes in perserving culture and keeping BC the greenest and cleanest province. Heck, it's all we got going for ourselves.

This post has been edited by Jordan: 11 April 2005 - 12:02 AM

[J m HofMarN]

Ummm Jordan, Asian people are not the only ones who live in and purchase houses. "Our city is developing solely for Koreans" is a pretty silly act of scapegoating. And Koreans have their own language, they don't speak Chinese. You might know that had you made any effort to look into their culture.

[Jordan]

When did I say Koreans speak chinese?

I tried to warm up to Korean culture for 3 years, it was hard since the parents shipped their daughter back to Korea every summer to try keep her from me.

I'm well experienced with Asian culture. I have about 4 chinese, 1 taiwanese and 2 fillipino friends ( my boss is fillipino), dated 2 japanese and 1 korean, and live in a city (down town) that is roughly 50/50 asian/european.

This post has been edited by Jordan: 11 April 2005 - 01:50 AM

[J m HofMarN]

"When Chinese characters are seen on all the stores, and are bigger than the English letters, I'm sorry, but it annoys me."

If you're talking about a Korean part of town it would be Korean characters. I might have just misread that though.

[Just your average movie goer]

No, Jordan knows the difference.

Anyway, Jordan, I'm glad you clarified what you meant though. I can understand where you're coming from a bit better now.

And they literally control an entire district (actually almost two), not small part of city, but entire district. When Chinese characters are seen on all the stores, and are bigger than the English letters, I'm sorry, but it annoys me.

Yes, it kind of sucks when they turn multiculture into their own monoculture. There's not much anyone can really do about that. It's all about commercialisation and business. They just go for the biggest market and try to sell their merchandise - in this case, it means Asian people going for the Asian market. Government regulations may help alleviate this.

And really JYAMG, I'm sure you love Korea, but tell me this, if you moved back home to find that 2/5 people that pass you buy is Korean, and then certain districts were exclusively Korean, with Korean Hangul everywhere, Korean movie stores, and Korean politicians, you would not feel a bit uneasy?

I'm not a fan of that, no. I like MULTIculture but I can't stand MONOculture, no matter whose it is. That kind of thing does suck a bit. I think the main problem is that there are many people who won't associate with other people outside their ethnic group. This is an inherently bad thing, I agree.

Yes, you need to hang around with your own ... especially if you don't know the language. But once you're familiar with the language of your new home country and can get around easily enough, you really ought to expand your horizons and let a few other people into your circle.

So I understand what you're getting at. And if you say you hate ethnic gangs, I'll back you on that one 100%.

1) I think you should try to adopt the language of the place you immigrate too.

I agree. But from my firsthand experience, it's not as easy as one might think. It takes a LONG LONG time to learn another language... so you need to be patient with people. Just because they can't speak English, doesn't mean they aren't trying to learn it. Also, with older people, it gets harder as well. They've got more first language interference to overcome.

2) The fact that my GF's parents lived here for 10 years with out even bothering to learn the language is one factor as to why we broke up. JYAMG is confused. I was not insensitive to her parents, I could not even talk to them. They did not like that, they wanted her to go out with a Korean guy so they could have a relationship with him. They could never have one with me. (unless I started to speak Korean) Korean parents have a real tight grip on their kids, they would not even let her move out of the house when she was 20, they thought that I'd be at her place having sex and doing evil deeds.

Yeah, that happens a lot. But it happens with many cultures, even some western families are like that (I'm mainly thinking of all the redneck villes in the deep American South here). It does suck. But I think it's more a thing of fear than hate - fear of the unknown.

It's a shame you never got closer to your Korean girlfriend's family. I think they would have accepted you eventually. It's a hard thing for them. For us, the idea of going out with someone from a foreign culture is nothing unusual - so we don't make a big deal out of it. But for people from monocultural societies, it's a huge deal.

Or then again, they could have just been jerks. There are good and bad people everywhere. Nice Koreans are some of the best people you'll ever meet. And bad Koreans are some of the most detestable scum on the planet.

I guess people are people, hey?

[Just your average movie goer]

Oh, JM. Koreans don't use characters. They use an alphabet.

That's why Korea has almost 100% literacy rates, as opposed to all those countries that use a lot of Chinese characters.

[civilian_number_two]

Korean is in fact one of the more advanced alphabets of the world, since it was developed recently and was designed by a linguist with the purpose of increasing literacy. It did not suffer, as other phonetic alphabets have, from the troubles of evolution. JYAMG will be better abl to elaborate on this than I would, if anyone is interested.

Patrynlore: Being a person who lives in Canada, the defense "Immigration Canada will accept people on the basis of money" is nonsense. I live in Canada, and I know first-generation immigrants. You don't need any money; you need a sponsor. Immigration Canada is constantly under fire for trying to send Asians home, but never for sending, say, Poles or Germans home. I'll agree with anyone who says there is something culturally different in Europeans, since they tend not to sponsor one another, but I also know a man who had to argue for a year to get his German WIFE into the country. Seriously: there are fine and wealthy Asians along with all the fine and wealthy non-Asians, but Asian immifgration is NOT investment-based and it is NOT gentrifying Canada. If it were, then I could expect to see Asians owning all of the fine homes and running all of the more successful companies, instead of working 7 days a week in their family-run corner stores and working the six days overnight 12-hour taxicabs shifts. There certainly is something racist about Immigration Canada; I just haven't been able to figure it out.
Now I will give your Devil his due: if Immigrations Canada is allowing people in only if they invest some dollar figure, then these folks have to be investing in the companies of their friends, taking the money back after naturalization, and then sending it overseas to bring another person in. This would not boost the economy, by the way, and it's the only argument that makes sense, since this "wealthy class," I swear to God, are running the places where I buy my late-night pizza and they are driving me home when I leave the bar at 3 am.

JM: Your examples of fictional origins for Watto, Fagan and Shylock, are two of the more embarrassing examples of anti-semitism in English Literature. Fagan, of course, had Bill Sykes to take the curse off it a bit, but Shylock? His "redemption" at the end of the film is that he converts to Christianity! Some folks have really tried to paint Shylock in a more favourable light, but good grief! People have been calling THE MERCHANT OF VENICE racist for about 300 years now!

I'm not even sure what your point was: Watto is greedy, is obviously a Jewish caricature, and the whole thing stinks of racism, therefore it must be a coincidence and not racist at all? Is that it? Honestly? Man, I'd love to get caught poking your wife: I could look you right in the eye and insist "Hey, it's not what it looks like!"

[HK 47]

I'm not even sure what your point was: Watto is greedy, is obviously a Jewish caricature, and the whole thing stinks of racism, therefore it must be a coincidence and not racist at all?  Is that it? 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It's all in your mind Civ. "Obviously a Jewish character"? Really? Was there a Jewish uproar concerning Watto? An Asian outrage at the Nemoidians? If I recall correctly, when Jar Jar was criticized for being a negative racial stereotype by some of the media, members of the black community in the US responded by saying that "white people should get their act together", meaning of course that they thought the connection was ridiculous.

You find these things when you're hell bent on finding them. Being sensitive about issues like this is generally a good thing, but unmotivated overzealousness usually leads to undesired results. Victimizing minorities by comparing them to less than admirable Star Wars aliens is in my opinion not a good thing. Besides, I think you give the average Joe too little credit here. Would you start to distrust your asian buds cause of the Trade Federation? Thought not.

This post has been edited by HK 47: 11 April 2005 - 01:37 PM

[Mnesymone]

I could see some of the Jewish-Watto Asian-Nemoidian thing, but why did anyone think Jar-Jar looked/sounded/acted jamaican?
First of all he looked like too much of an amphibious rabbit to really associate with any human culture in my mind - as for acting jamaican - he didn't even stereotypically beat metal drums - all he did was be clumsy and stupid and not get blasted to pieces which would have been oh so sweet.
Rather off-topic - I always wondered why Qui-Gon dragged Jar Jar into that place on Tatooine rather than leaving him on the ship - but now I understand perfectly - he was hoping that he would dry out and die...
Shame really.

[barend]

let's not forget that Jar Jar was played by a black guy, who did the voice... and most likley, given Lucas famous lack of direction, stylized the voice and speech patterns himself.

and for that alone, i hope he never works again!!!

you can follow his career here!!!
Ahmed best

[Mnesymone]

Hah... that's an interesting point about Star Wars recism...
Was GL actually doing enough work to inject racism into the prequels?
Or was he sitting back believing his own press too much.

That's Jar Jar's career...
Most of the time he was playing Jar Jar... serve him right for his amphibious rabbit.

He's got nothing on Andy Serkis as a digital performer.

This post has been edited by Mnesymone: 11 April 2005 - 06:05 PM

[barend]

don't even mention them both in the same post!!!

[J m HofMarN]

Civilian- I don't deny that Shylock and Fagin are racist stereotypes. However they are also symbols of greed. Therefor if I were making a character who was going to be greedy that character might end up having features of Shylock and Fagin. Is this racist? No. It's using past exampled, or being subtly influenced by past examples. Just the same as if I were to make a film about a kid hanging around the Mississippii river he might bear a similarity to Huck Finn. Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer were a representation of young white children in their time. However I wouldn't necessarily have to make my character white, only take the transcendent properties from Twain's characters and use them in my own. Do you get it yet?

Lucas wanted to make a character who was greedy and despicable, so he used qualities of two characters that symbolize greed. I suppose if he had decided to give the highly opportunistic and ambitious Palpatine had qualities of Macbeth then you'd be up in arms because it was slandering Scotsman?

[Jordan]

Racist or not, the idea of Jar Jar, Watto, all the trade feds, and the Ewoks resembling racial groups on Earth is really lame.

Watto and the trade feds both felt Human. Their accents were ridiculous and everybody recognized them. Same goes with that stupid DEX character. HE was nothing more than a white trash short order cook. And let's not forget the racing pod announcers, their voices were directly pilfered from CNN sports.

The only group I've heard complain about SW are Asians, to be specific, Japanese. The Jedi is nothing more than a Samurai. He follows a warriors code and uses a deadly light-weight blade. I guess they felt that having at least one Japanese Jedi would have made more sense. But then again, it also would have been too earth like. However, the PT has brought people back to Earth so many times, including a Jedi named Yubuki Hamato would not have been inconsistent with what we've seen so far.

---

Fagin? LOL nice name! Is it pronounced FAG'in? If so, that name rules!!!

---

I'm still shocked that you're going out with your GF, JYAMG. Have you met her parents yet? If not, remember me, and don't make the same mistake I did - that being, do not enter her room with her. Stay in the living room with the parents. I fell about 100 points when I walked into her room. The funny thing is the parents say NOTHING at the time.

This post has been edited by Jordan: 11 April 2005 - 08:34 PM