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	<title>The Hypermodern &#187; racism</title>
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	<link>http://www.thehypermodern.com</link>
	<description>Culture and politics on both sides of the Pacific.</description>
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		<title>Reparations</title>
		<link>http://www.thehypermodern.com/2011/10/29/reparations/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=reparations</link>
		<comments>http://www.thehypermodern.com/2011/10/29/reparations/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 29 Oct 2011 02:00:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>George Ding</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Humor]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[chinese]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Chinese-American]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[immigration]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[racism]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[<blockquote>The U.S. Senate has approved a resolution apologizing for the nation's past discriminatory laws that targeted Chinese immigrants, such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.
<p style="text-align: right;">- <a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/10/us-senate-apologizes-for-mistreatment-of-chinese-immigrants.html" target="_blank">Los Angeles Times</a></p>
</blockquote>
Well it's about fucking time. Gee it only took you, what, 129 years? Okay, it's ancient history, just tell me where I line up for my 40 acres and mule. What? Farmland is in a bubble and there's too many Chinese people and not enough mules? What do you mean, <em>too many Chinese people</em>? That's right, you'd better rephrase it. You know, maybe what you're really afraid of is you won't be able to tell all of us apart, you racist fuck.<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style " addthis:url='http://www.thehypermodern.com/2011/10/29/reparations/' addthis:title='Reparations '  ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like" fb:like:layout="button_count"></a><a class="addthis_button_tweet"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone" g:plusone:size="medium"></a><a class="addthis_counter addthis_pill_style"></a></div>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<blockquote><p>The U.S. Senate has approved a resolution apologizing for the nation&#8217;s past discriminatory laws that targeted Chinese immigrants, such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.</p>
<p style="text-align: right;">- <a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/10/us-senate-apologizes-for-mistreatment-of-chinese-immigrants.html" target="_blank"><em>Los Angeles Times</em></a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Well it&#8217;s about fucking time. Gee it only took you, what, 129 years? Okay, it&#8217;s ancient history, just tell me where I line up for my 40 acres and mule. What? Farmland is in a bubble and there&#8217;s too many Chinese people and not enough mules? What do you mean, <em>too many Chinese people</em>? That&#8217;s right, you&#8217;d better rephrase it. You know, maybe what you&#8217;re really afraid of is you won&#8217;t be able to tell all of us apart, you racist fuck.</p>
<p>Whatever, just give me some money and I&#8217;ll leave my shoe on my foot instead of up your ass. What? There&#8217;s no monetary reparations in this resolution? What exactly does it <em>resolve</em> then? It sure as fuck won&#8217;t resolve the money I owe my daughter&#8217;s piano tutor, or her future student loans for Princeton law. (Ann, I&#8217;m not going to have this discussion right now!)</p>
<p>You know what? Fuck your resolution. You owe us Chinese-Americans way more than some half-assed, century-late apology. Especially us first-generation Chinese-Americans. What the fuck did you just say? You don&#8217;t owe me anything because I only came to this country 20 years ago? Guess again fuckwad. Unlike Chinese-Americans who were grandfathered in, I had to scratch and claw my way to this country. I had to lie to my government and pretend I was going back after my Master&#8217;s in electrical engineering. Oh, and one small thing: I had to live through something called THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION. Umm, maybe you&#8217;ve heard of it. If not, here&#8217;s the Cliff&#8217;s Notes: it made Japanese occupation look like <em>A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte</em>.</p>
<p>If my family had been allowed to enter your precious little country at the turn of the century to build railroads or pan gold, I wouldn&#8217;t have to be subjected to taunts about my fobby accent every fucking day. If my grandfather had been allowed to demean himself a century ago, meet my grandmother in a Chinatown brothel, my mother could have been a waitress, working two jobs to send me to college. And I, I would own a software company and my son would be the Secretary of Energy by now, not some gang banger who races his riced-out Civic every night. That&#8217;s a joke but you laughed, didn&#8217;t you? I DON&#8217;T EVEN HAVE A SON YOU FUCKING RACIST.</p>
<p>Let&#8217;s face facts: 130 years ago, Chinese people were one-tenth of California&#8217;s population. If this abominable law had not been passed, Chinese-Americans could have taken over all of California by now, not just Berkeley. If you really want to make this right, you need to make someone Chinese the governor of California. He can still be a movie star. How about John Cho? I DON&#8217;T CARE, HE LOOKS CHINESE.</p>
<p>In addition to this, I want Panda Express to be rebranded as a legitimate and respectable Chinese dining establishment and all Amy Tan novels banned from public libraries. Chinese culture has been reduced to kitschy, Orientalist caricature for long enough.</p>
<p>I want the unfair portrayal of Chinese people in mass media to stop. All Chinese characters in movies or TV should either have a huge penis or drive well. They can be poor at math if it is integral to the story.</p>
<p>Lastly, I want a blanket apology for all of it. Everything. I want an apology for slavery (fuck it, why not?), Mickey Rooney in <em>Breakfast at Tiffany&#8217;s</em>, Short Round in <em>Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom</em>, and white people thinking Joe Wong is funny.</p>
<p>And I want it now. Unless you&#8217;re considering the money. Really, I&#8217;d settle for the money.</p>
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		<title>China is Icky</title>
		<link>http://www.thehypermodern.com/2011/07/26/china-is-icky/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=china-is-icky</link>
		<comments>http://www.thehypermodern.com/2011/07/26/china-is-icky/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 26 Jul 2011 01:57:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>George Ding</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Humor]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Most Popular]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[China]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[David Sedaris]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[food]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ignorance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[racism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.thehypermodern.com/?p=2741898072</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Before I went to China, I made sure to know nothing about it. No books, no movies, not even the lottery numbers inside fortune cookies. The only thing I knew about China was that my rosewood end table and Zen-chic Roman shades were manufactured there. It was a conscious decision, because I wanted to hate the country and the people as much as possible, and I was afraid that if I weren’t completely ignorant going in, I might accidentally gain perspective and unwittingly feel empathy, which, let me tell you, isn’t very funny. So it was for humor that I endeavored to be as prejudiced and anal retentive as possible during my trip, to see how much of a spoiled dandy I could be if I really worked hard at it.<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style " addthis:url='http://www.thehypermodern.com/2011/07/26/china-is-icky/' addthis:title='China is Icky '  ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like" fb:like:layout="button_count"></a><a class="addthis_button_tweet"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone" g:plusone:size="medium"></a><a class="addthis_counter addthis_pill_style"></a></div>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>Disclaimer:</strong> The following attempt at humor should not, under any circumstances, be taken seriously.</p>
<p><em><strong>Editor&#8217;s Note:</strong> This article is the second of three responses to David Sedaris&#8217; <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/jul/15/david-sedaris-chinese-food-chicken-toenails" target="_blank">piece on Chinese food</a> in </em>The Guardian<em>. The other two are <a href="http://www.thehypermodern.com/2011/07/24/the-wankerland-diaries-or-in-defense-of-chinese-cuisine/" target="_blank">a rebuttal</a> and <a href="http://www.thehypermodern.com/2011/07/28/a-response-to-david-sedaris/" target="_blank">a defense</a>.</em></p>
<p>&#8212;</p>
<p><strong>China is Icky</strong><br />
by David Sedaris</p>
<p>Before I went to China, I made sure to know nothing about it. No books, no movies, not even the lottery numbers inside fortune cookies. The only thing I knew about China was that my rosewood end table and Zen-chic Roman shades were manufactured there. It was a conscious decision, because I wanted to hate the country and the people as much as possible, and I was afraid that if I weren’t completely ignorant going in, I might accidentally gain perspective and unwittingly feel empathy, which, let me tell you, isn’t very funny. So it was for humor that I endeavored to be as prejudiced and anal retentive as possible during my trip, to see how much of a spoiled dandy I could be if I really worked hard at it.</p>
<p>The first thing you notice about China is the <em>people</em>. All the people, people here, people there, people just walking, <em>walking</em> on the street like cavemen waiting for the wheel to be invented. It certainly didn’t help that I had just come from Japan where no one walks—a civilized country where people take cabs or feel each other up in crowded trains instead of lumbering around like ambulatory automatons.</p>
<p>Come to think of it, Japan is better than China in every conceivable way. I lost track of how many times I wished, standing amidst a herd of sweaty Chinamen, that the Japanese had finished taking over the country when they had the chance because I am sick and tired of having no place to hang my umbrella when I go to the bathroom. In addition to the lack of umbrella hangers, there was not a bidet in sight. In Japan, my hand never got within a foot of my own rectum but in China, not only is there no toilet paper in the stall, but you have to wipe your ass… by yourself. I’m sorry, I’m a clean freak so the only time I touch my own asshole is when I’m enjoying a lazy Saturday night in bed with <em>Amelie</em> and an anal bleaching kit.</p>
<div id="attachment_2741898079" class="wp-caption alignright" style="width: 310px"><img class="size-medium wp-image-2741898079" title="Photo © Noema Pérez from Flickr" src="http://www.thehypermodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/dumplings-300x239.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="239" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Don&#39;t believe Chinese people eat shit? Then why are dumplings so popular?</p></div>
<p>What’s more, In Japan, no one looks like a peasant. I was at dinner one night and this beast of a woman whom I was pretending to enjoy the company of took the liberty of ordering for me. When the food came, I asked the question no else dared: “How are you supposed to eat these rabbit heads?” She looked at me as if I were some uptight twat and said, “Use your hands.” My hands? But I just moisturized.</p>
<p>Anyway, it was one of these “authentic” countryside restaurants, which basically meant that it was in the middle of nowhere and inhabited by dark-skinned, wrinkly animals, I mean poor people. In Japan, there are no poor people. Everyone is well-dressed and professional. But in this restaurant there were so many mismatched outfits—Mao suit with sneakers, hello?—it was almost as if 15.9% of the population were living on less than a dollar a half a day.</p>
<p>The food was so terrible I didn’t eat anything. Literally. I didn’t have a single bite but I know the food was terrible because it looked terrible. And luckily I write books about my own myopic opinions and shallow experiences so I don’t have to justify them in any rational or factual way. It’s also fun being a famous writer because I can make fun of anyone and they can’t fight back unless they have a book deal. But I doubt that fat whore who ordered the rabbit’s head knows anyone at Random House. By the way, if you’re reading this: you&#8217;re fat, stop pretending it&#8217;s a thyroid problem.</p>
<p>Some of you might find this offensive but remember: this is all just my witty and incisive opinion. I take no responsibility for anything I write or say because I am a caricature of myself. I shield myself from criticism by hiding behind nonchalance and self-deprecation.</p>
<p>The next morning, with a different group—people kept making excuses to get away from me for some reason—I fed my masochism and ventured into another restaurant. But here our tour guides—two harpies from England whom I fantasized about decapitating with my scrapbooking scissors—insisted that we use chopsticks, which are like the official Chinese utensil or something. Did the fork never make it over here? If I had a time machine, I’d go back and hand Marco Polo a set of cutlery before he set off for the Orient.</p>
<p>I don’t get why Chinese people can’t act like civilized people, like Westerners. I don’t mean to be racist here, but what are they, retarded or something? They spit on the street and don’t use diapers and piss in sinks. I mean, I might be able to accept that if their per capita GDP were six times less than America’s. Or if their traditional culture and beliefs had been beaten out of them by 30 years of deleterious class struggle, but—and I haven’t read any books or anything—I’m pretty sure that didn’t happen.</p>
<p>I guess what I don’t like about China is that the people there are poor and dirty. But that’s just between you and me LiveJournal.</p>
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		<title>Facepalm d&#8217;Or</title>
		<link>http://www.thehypermodern.com/2011/05/22/facepalm-dor/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=facepalm-dor</link>
		<comments>http://www.thehypermodern.com/2011/05/22/facepalm-dor/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 22 May 2011 11:56:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Oscar Moralde</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Op-ed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cannes International Film Festival]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hitler]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[intolerance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Kirsten Dunst]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Lars von Trier]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Melancholia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nazi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[racism]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Danish film director Lars von Trier was at a press conference at the Cannes Film Festival on May 18, promoting his new film <em>Melancholia, </em>where he made some remarks that have become the talk of the cinema blogosphere.

The camera angle here on Kirsten Dunst (star of <em>Melancholia</em>) lets you watch her go through a whole range of emotions as she processes what von Trier is saying. As one Internet commenter put it, it's like a real-life performance of <em>The Office</em>, with von Trier as Michael Scott issuing forth an awkward stream of verbal diarrhea, digging himself into a deeper and deeper hole while everyone in the room sits uncomfortably, hoping that it will stop.<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style " addthis:url='http://www.thehypermodern.com/2011/05/22/facepalm-dor/' addthis:title='Facepalm d&#8217;Or '  ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like" fb:like:layout="button_count"></a><a class="addthis_button_tweet"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone" g:plusone:size="medium"></a><a class="addthis_counter addthis_pill_style"></a></div>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Danish film director Lars von Trier was at a press conference at the Cannes Film Festival on May 18, promoting his new film <em>Melancholia, </em>where he made some remarks that have become the talk of the cinema blogosphere:</p>
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<p>The camera angle here on Kirsten Dunst (star of <em>Melancholia</em>) lets you watch her go through a whole range of emotions as she processes what von Trier is saying. As one Internet commenter put it, it&#8217;s like a real-life performance of <em>The Office</em>, with von Trier as Michael Scott issuing forth an awkward stream of verbal diarrhea, digging himself into a deeper and deeper hole while everyone in the room sits uncomfortably, hoping that it will stop. His remarks:</p>
<blockquote><p>For a long time I thought I was a Jew and I was happy to be a Jew, then I met Susanne Bier [Danish director of <em>In a Better World</em>] and I wasn’t so happy. No, that was a joke, sorry… [the room laughs]. But it turned out I was not a Jew, and if I had been a Jew I’d have been a second-rate Jew, because there’s kind of a… hierarchy in the Jewish population.</p>
<p>But no, I really wanted to be a Jew but then I found out I was really a Nazi. Because my family was German, which also gave me some pleasure. [chuckle] What can I say? I understand Hitler… I think he did some wrong things, yes absolutely. But I can see him sitting in his bunker at the end&#8211; [Kirsten Dunst: Oh my God, this is terrible.]</p>
<p>What? There will come a point at the end of this- I will- No, I’m just saying I think I understand the man. He’s not what you would call a “good guy” but I understand much about him. I sympathize with him a little bit. I don’t mean I’m in favor of World War II and I’m not against Jews, not even Susanne Bier. That was also a joke. In fact I’m very much in favor of them. All Jews. Well, Israel is a pain in the ass but… Now how can I get out of this sentence? [laughter] No, I just want to say about the art- I’m very much for… Speer, is it? Albert Speer I liked. He was also maybe one of God’s best children, but he had some talent. It was possible for him to use during… [giving up] Ok. I’m a Nazi.</p></blockquote>
<p>You can watch <a href="http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/mediaPlayer/11391.html">the entire conference here</a>, including a bit at the end where von Trier desperately tries to salvage the Nazi schtick by making another joke about how &#8220;maybe you could persuade me into… to… yeah, the Final Solution, with journalists.&#8221; The situation received more prominence when the <a href="http://www.indiewire.com/article/lars_von_trier_declared_persona_non_grata_at_cannes_effective_immediately/">festival released a statement</a> declaring von Trier &#8220;persona non grata&#8221; and asking him to leave the festival, although <em>Melancholia </em>remains in competition.</p>
<p>Let&#8217;s just go down the litany of ironies here:</p>
<ul>
<li>Mel Gibson, who has been recorded as saying, &#8220;Fucking Jews&#8230; the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world,&#8221; <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/mel-gibson-skips-beaver-press-189085" target="_blank">received a 10-minute standing ovation</a> at Cannes on May 17.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.life.com/image/74198061" target="_blank">Here is a photo</a> of Cannes Film Festival president Gilles Jacob warmly receiving director (among other things) Roman Polanski in 2007.</li>
<li>In writing their press release on von Trier, the festival managed to summon the incredible cognitive dissonance required to come up with</li>
</ul>
<blockquote><p>The Festival de Cannes provides artists from around the world with an exceptional forum to present their works and defend freedom of expression and creation.</p>
<p>The board of directors profoundly regrets that this forum has been used by Lars von Trier to express comments that are unacceptable, intolerable, and contrary to the ideals of humanity and generosity that preside over the very existence of the festival. The Board of Directors firmly condemns these comments and declares Lars von Trier a persona non grata at the Festival de Cannes, with effect immediately.</p></blockquote>
<div class="callout">As for the actual content of von Trier&#8217;s remarks, they approach off-color at the worst; as mentioned before, they&#8217;re more Michael Scott than Michael Richards.</div>
<p>Yes, it took them all of one sentence to segue from defending freedom of expression to kicking a director out for something he expressed.</p>
<p>As for the actual content of von Trier&#8217;s remarks, they approach off-color at the worst; as mentioned before, they&#8217;re more Michael Scott than Michael Richards. Anyone who watches the clip can easily see it&#8217;s far from hate speech or Nazi worship in any sense. Von Trier has always been provocative, even boorish in his comments outside the space of his films: earlier in the same interview he made another uncomfortable joke about how he was casting Dunst and <em>Melancholia </em>co-star Charlotte Gainsbourg in a hardcore pornographic film that would be three hours of them having &#8220;unpleasant sex.&#8221;</p>
<p>This isn&#8217;t even to the level of Prince Harry in a Nazi uniform, where that act showed a stunning lack of understanding by Prince Harry of his own privilege, his family and national history, and the power of symbolism. On the other hand, the issues that von Trier jokes about in an unsophisticated way form the core of his incredibly sophisticated films; the question at the conference that prompted the whole debacle was about the role that the aesthetics of German Romanticism played in his work.</p>
<p>What von Trier approached with his invocation of Albert Speer, Hitler&#8217;s chief architect, were the friction points between aesthetics and politics and how art must be, by its very nature, part of a political dialogue and embedded in political space. After all, his 1991 film <em>Europa </em>was about a Europe shattered and broken by the Nazi regime, and the existential crisis that results from being inextricably implicated in a political horror show. (Incidentally, von Trier made waves at Cannes with that film: upon learning that he hadn&#8217;t won the Palme d&#8217;Or, he gave the festival jury the finger and stormed out of the venue.)</p>
<p>And the comments about understanding Hitler&#8217;s basic humanity and seeing &#8220;him sitting in his bunker at the end,&#8221; which seemed to be the breaking point where Dunst had to laugh out of sheer embarrassment? That&#8217;s the plot and theme of the 2004 German film <em>Downfall</em> (directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel), which was nominated for an Academy Award.</p>
<p>While it doesn&#8217;t necessarily excuse anything he said, there&#8217;s also this intriguing interplay between racial and political identity; beyond the conflation of German-ness with the Nazis, he&#8217;s expounding on his own struggle with personal identity, of thinking that you belong to one group and then realizing that the truth is something different &#8212; and those identities on some level shift the boundaries of what one can and can&#8217;t say, boundaries which von Trier seems to have difficulty locating. It&#8217;s a battle that the <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/adl-speaks-lars-von-triers-189815">Anti-Defamation League noted with their response</a> that &#8220;He seems to be struggling with some personal ghosts. This is one way I guess he resolved them, in a very, very bizarre way.&#8221;</p>
<p>Overall, the conference debacle is a performance of the tension created by a provocative film from an insensitive filmmaker &#8212; the fact that great art may issue from not-so-great people. (Björk was reported to have spit at von Trier while working on his 2000 film <em>Dancer in the Dark</em>)<em>. </em>Take von Trier&#8217;s crude public persona and<em> </em>compound it with him trying to tackle a complex issue in the adrenaline-charged sound bite space of an international press conference in a language he&#8217;s conversant in but not native (note the construction of &#8220;there will come a point at the end of this&#8221;), cutting off avenues of nuance and shades of meaning: the result is film festival melodrama.</p>
<p>At the end of the above video of the conference, Dunst is still on mic as everyone is wrapping up; she tells her director, &#8220;Lars, that was intense.&#8221; That&#8217;s a better way of describing what happened than what anyone else has tried.</p>
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		<title>UCLA&#8217;s Asian Racist</title>
		<link>http://www.thehypermodern.com/2011/03/21/uclas-asian-racist/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=uclas-asian-racist</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 21 Mar 2011 03:07:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>George Ding</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Perspectives]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Alexandra Wallace]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[human flesh search engine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[internet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[intolerance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[racism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[UCLA]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Alexandra Wallace, the so-called "Asian Racist," is a political science student at UCLA who uploaded a YouTube video complaining about Asians talking on their cell phones in the library.  The video has become the flashpoint for a national discussion about racial insensitivity and the limits of free speech.  Wallace has since dropped out of UCLA after having her class schedule posted on the Internet and receiving multiple death threats.  But what does the video, and the response it has evoked, actually say about American society?<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style " addthis:url='http://www.thehypermodern.com/2011/03/21/uclas-asian-racist/' addthis:title='UCLA&#8217;s Asian Racist '  ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like" fb:like:layout="button_count"></a><a class="addthis_button_tweet"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone" g:plusone:size="medium"></a><a class="addthis_counter addthis_pill_style"></a></div>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em>Alexandra Wallace, the so-called &#8220;Asian Racist,&#8221; is a political science student at UCLA who uploaded a YouTube video complaining about Asians talking on their cell phones in the library.  The video has become the flashpoint for a national discussion about racial insensitivity and the limits of free speech.  Wallace has since dropped out of UCLA after having her class schedule posted on the Internet and receiving multiple death threats.  But what does the video, and the response it has evoked, actually say about American society?</em></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline;">George Ding</span></p>
<p>Alexandra Wallace is a fool, but not for the reasons people think.  In fact, the basic premise of her rant is quite sound: don’t talk loudly on your cell phone in the library.  She even says, albeit as an afterthought, “even if you’re not Asian, you really shouldn’t be on your cell phone in the library,” which she promptly qualifies, “but I’ve just never seen that happen before.”  But too little too late.  By this point, the offended are already offended.</p>
<p>Wallace’s most basic mistake was to take an inconsiderate action and generalize it to an entire group of people composed of many different ethnicities.  That makes her a moron.  Then, she assumes that the trend must come from a cultural or racial deficiency.  Hence the, “if you’re going to come to UCLA, then use American manners,” and, “Hi, in America, we do not talk on our cell phones in the library!” Asia, she seems to imply, is a land of cell phone library talkers, which might be okay there, but not in the U S of A.  This makes her ignorant.</p>
<p>But all this is forgivable.  In the jungle of college campuses, the moron and the ignoramus are not endangered species.  And the fact that she is a political science major only adds to the farce.</p>
<p>But what makes her a fool is that she filmed these offensive thoughts and then uploaded it to the third most visited website on the planet.  Many people, including UCLA’s Asian Pacific Coalition, which wrote a <a href="http://www.dailybruin.com/index.php/article/2011/03/ucla_community_should_respond_to_viral_offensive_youtube_clip_with_civility" target="_blank">beautiful rebuttal</a> to the situation, are assuming malice where clearly ignorance and foolishness will suffice.  Wallace would never have put this on YouTube if she’d known a million strangers would watch it.  Instead, she would have commiserated with friends and shared her stereotypical views privately like the rest of us.  Sure, Wallace will think twice before blurting out some culturally insensitive remark and videotaping it again, but probably out of fear and not understanding or compassion.</p>
<p>The condemnations of Wallace—the name-calling and death threats—are as without merit as the original remarks.  Denouncing the tirade of an angry buffoon isn’t going to educate anyone.  What makes Wallace’s video abrasive is that she doesn&#8217;t try to understand any of the, shall we say, Asian phenomena around her: she doesn&#8217;t ask herself why Asian parents might visit their children on the weekends, and just generalizes that it is something that “all the Asian people that live in all the apartments around” her do.  There are reasons why some Asian parents “don’t teach their kids to fend for themselves,” as with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Emperor_Syndrome" target="_blank">Little Emperors</a> in China, but understanding these reasons is not the aim of her video. Although Wallace&#8217;s depictions are not entirely wrong, her way of thinking is.</p>
<p>But what about us?  Why are we getting mad at an ignorant person venting on the Internet?  Isn’t that the Internet?  What is the difference between this rant and a bad standup routine?  In the lighter moments, that is, before she jokes about the tsunami, one can almost tell that she is joking.  At least that’s how I read the, “So being the polite, nice, American girl that my momma raised me to be,” line.  In the end, who knew what she was thinking.  In fact, she probably wasn’t.  But the hurtful and hateful responses, the information mining, the death threats, those <em>are</em> calculated, and much more dangerous.  Intolerance is alive and well, but most people know better than to upload it to the Internet.</p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Oscar Moralde</span></p>
<p>The Alexandra Wallace affair merely reinforces the idea of the Internet as Panopticon, in which the private and public spheres have been blurred to the point that it&#8217;s all a public sphere. It used to be that there was a very delineated and specific way that you entered the public discourse, with clearly marked ways of speaking and behaving that signaled that you wanted to be heard and that you could be judged for it. This of course allowed for institutionalized hypocrisy, but it was accompanied by decorum and boundaries; there were limitations on acceptable targets.</p>
<p>There are no longer any limits, and the Internet is a free-fire zone. It&#8217;s easy to pick on Wallace as a target because her words were incredibly offensive, her choice of venue was ridiculously visible, and the whole debacle shows her lack of awareness of the reality of the Internet. But not every case is as extreme as Wallace’s.</p>
<p>Should Gilbert Gottfried have been fired by Aflac for making off-color Twitter jokes about the recent tsunami? How about former Washington Post blogger David Weigel, who was forced to resign for making inflammatory comments about conservatives on a private LISTSERV years before he even took the Post job?</p>
<p>The most disturbing development is how Wallace has been rendered a non-person by this incident. She seems to have realized her grievous error and is trying to withdraw from the public sphere. She&#8217;s already been branded and humiliated and she&#8217;s making a tactical retreat, but that’s not enough. The Internet is legion; it neither forgives nor forgets. Wallace tried to take her bikini photos off the Internet, but someone found them and posted them back up so the world can crack jokes about her tits. The Internet finds her personal information and her address and circulates it; it issues threats and attacks every possible outlet that Wallace has out into the world. The human flesh search engine demands blood, and once someone like Wallace makes a mistake like this she only exists as a target to be violated and destroyed.</p>
<p>The sad thing is that Wallace is only a visible target like this because she lacks the power to defend herself. She’s simply a girl with some unfortunate prejudices who made a mistake and expressed those prejudices in a way that allowed a vendetta to accrete against her. There are plenty of people with the same prejudices, some of whom have their hands on the levers of power and can actively use them to oppress. They will avoid the punishment that Wallace received simply because they&#8217;re more conscious of their audiences and can manipulate them more easily. For them, there will never be retribution.</p>
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		<title>Ching Chong Ling Long Ting Tong</title>
		<link>http://www.thehypermodern.com/2011/03/14/ching-chong-ling-long-ting-tong/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=ching-chong-ling-long-ting-tong</link>
		<comments>http://www.thehypermodern.com/2011/03/14/ching-chong-ling-long-ting-tong/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 14 Mar 2011 05:52:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Michael Thai</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[America]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Alexandra Wallace]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Asians]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[racism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rant]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[UCLA]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Last Friday, an American girl who attends UCLA posted an angry anti-Asian rant on YouTube. In the video, political science student Alexandra Wallace lists off a number of complaints against Asian UCLA students, beginning with their use of cell phones in the library. Currently many students at the prestigious Los Angeles university are busy studying [...]<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style " addthis:url='http://www.thehypermodern.com/2011/03/14/ching-chong-ling-long-ting-tong/' addthis:title='Ching Chong Ling Long Ting Tong '  ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like" fb:like:layout="button_count"></a><a class="addthis_button_tweet"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone" g:plusone:size="medium"></a><a class="addthis_counter addthis_pill_style"></a></div>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><object width="640" height="390"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/DoLLEZlpUxk?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US&amp;rel=0" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/DoLLEZlpUxk?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US&amp;rel=0" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></p>
<p>Last Friday, an American girl who attends UCLA posted an angry anti-Asian rant on YouTube. In the video, political science student Alexandra Wallace lists off a number of complaints against Asian UCLA students, beginning with their use of cell phones in the library.</p>
<p>Currently many students at the prestigious Los Angeles university are busy studying for final exams, and they spend many of their hours inside the numerous campus libraries. There are currently 9,712 Asian undergraduates at UCLA, making up 37.12% of the undergrad population, which is greater than any other ethnicity.</p>
<p>Throughout the rant the self-described “polite, nice American girl” derides Asians for their lack of “American manners” and their inability to fend for themselves; she complains that these &#8220;hordes of Asian people&#8221; bring their family members onto campus to do housework and buy groceries. She also remarks that finding out news about the recent tsunami is no excuse for talking on the phone in the library.</p>
<p>Wallace quickly took down the video but copies of it have been re-uploaded to YouTube by other users. The video has gone viral, spreading quickly amongst an angry UCLA population and wider Asian community.</p>
<p>In a statement Sunday evening UCLA spokesman Phil Hampton called the video “repugnant.” On Monday UCLA Chancellor Gene D. Block issued a statement condemning the video, where he acknowledged that it had “caused a lot of pain” and was not reflective of the UCLA community as a whole. The administration has remained silent about the possibility of disciplinary action against Wallace.</p>
<p><object width="558" height="314"><param name="movie" value="http://newsroom.ucla.edu/tools/videoplayer.swf" /><param name="flashvars" value="root=/portal/ucla/&amp;fileId=134990&amp;sRoot=/cds/public/ucla/electronic/&amp;l=2&amp;enableExternal=false&amp;parentUrl=http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/chancellor-block-statement-199032.aspx" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="558" height="314" src="http://newsroom.ucla.edu/tools/videoplayer.swf" flashvars="root=/portal/ucla/&amp;fileId=134990&amp;sRoot=/cds/public/ucla/electronic/&amp;l=2&amp;enableExternal=false&amp;parentUrl=http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/chancellor-block-statement-199032.aspx" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></p>
<p>The Internet backlash has been fierce and quick, ranging from benign insults and jokes to circulating personal information and bikini photographs of Wallace. On Monday evening Wallace issued a statement to the UCLA newspaper <a href="http://www.dailybruin.com/index.php/blog/off_the_press/2011/03/viral_youtube_video_called_repugnant_by_ucla_administration" target="_blank">The Daily Bruin</a> apologizing for her remarks:</p>
<blockquote><p>Clearly the original video posted by me was inappropriate. I cannot explain what possessed me to approach the subject as I did, and if I could undo it, I would. I&#8217;d like to offer my apology to the entire UCLA campus. For those who cannot find it within them to accept my apology, I understand.</p></blockquote>
<p>Her video, translated into Chinese, is posted below. Chinese netizens, what is your reaction?</p>
<p><strong>UPDATE:</strong> Alexandra Wallace has decided to <a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/03/ucla-student-who-made-controversial-video-says-shell-leave-school.html" target="_blank">withdraw from UCLA</a> after receiving multiple death threats and &#8220;being ostracized from an entire community.&#8221;  A UCLA spokesman said that although the sentiments in the video were offensive, the school will not pursue disciplinary action against Wallace.</p>
<p><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="400" src="http://player.youku.com/player.php/sid/XMjUwNzE3MTQ0/v.swf" quality="high" align="middle" allowscriptaccess="sameDomain"></embed></p>
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		<title>Race Relations in China</title>
		<link>http://www.thehypermodern.com/2009/12/22/race-relations-in-china/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=race-relations-in-china</link>
		<comments>http://www.thehypermodern.com/2009/12/22/race-relations-in-china/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 22 Dec 2009 08:28:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Michael Thai</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Middle Kingdom]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Asian-America]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[black]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[China]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[music]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pop]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[racism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[white]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Two things I saw this week made me think about prevailing race relations in China. First, the music video for American made Chinese pop star Chloe Wang’s debut single “Uh Oh”. And secondly this headline article on CNN’s homepage about an aspiring mixed race singer from Shanghai named Lou Jing.<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style " addthis:url='http://www.thehypermodern.com/2009/12/22/race-relations-in-china/' addthis:title='Race Relations in China '  ><a class="addthis_button_facebook_like" fb:like:layout="button_count"></a><a class="addthis_button_tweet"></a><a class="addthis_button_google_plusone" g:plusone:size="medium"></a><a class="addthis_counter addthis_pill_style"></a></div>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Two things I saw this week made me think about prevailing race relations in China. First, the music video for American-made Chinese pop star Chloe Wang’s debut single <a href="http://www.mtviggy.com/chinese/music-video-chloe-wang-uh-oh" target="_blank">“Uh Oh”</a>. And secondly this <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/12/21/china.race/index.html" target="_blank">headline article</a> on CNN’s homepage about an aspiring mixed-race singer from Shanghai named Lou Jing<em>. </em></p>
<div id="attachment_2127" class="wp-caption alignright" style="width: 310px"><img class="size-medium wp-image-2127 " src="http://www.thehypermodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Chloe-Wang1-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Chloe Wang, China&#39;s next big thing?</p></div>
<p>Chloe Wang is an American in every sense of the word. She hails from Chicago, her father is Chinese, and her mother is white. She didn’t speak a lick of Mandarin and knew little of China until the Beijing Olympics. This did not stop U.S. manager Peter Coquillard from packaging the seventeen year old’s first single for the Asian market. Chloe shares the producers of her first album with Madonna, Britney Spears, and Miley Cyrus, and launched her first single in both English and Chinese.</p>
<p>(Sidenote: I wrote an <a href="../2009/10/05/exporting-asian-america-abroad/" target="_blank">article</a> a few months ago about exploiting Asian-American talent for global audiences. Looks like this boat is taking off!)</p>
<ul></ul>
<p>Chloe Wang, despite her abysmal Chinese, has had a positive reception in China. And why wouldn’t she? She’s beautiful, sexually charged, and half-white. She has a dedicated, growing fan base and is quickly being <a href="http://cfensi.wordpress.com/2009/05/24/chloe-wang-has-her-eye-on-the-chinese-market-with-her-first-mv-uh-oh/" target="_blank">idolized</a> in true pop fashion.</p>
<div id="attachment_2124" class="wp-caption alignleft" style="width: 310px"><img class="size-medium wp-image-2124  " src="http://www.thehypermodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Lou-Jing-300x199.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="199" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Lou Jing, the mixed-race singer creating a stir in China.</p></div>
<p>Take now the case of Lou Jing, a struggling singer who was featured on an American Idol-esque show in Shanghai. Lou Jing was born in Shanghai to a Chinese mother and African-American father, whom she has never met. She is a Chinese citizen and speaks perfect Chinese. But unlike Chloe Wang her reception on the show has been anything but glamorous. Angry netizens have gone so far as to say she should &#8220;get out of China&#8221; and that she &#8220;never should have been born.&#8221; Those who watch the show surely do so not for her talent, but because of the color of her skin. She has been dubbed &#8220;chocolate girl&#8221; and &#8220;black pearl&#8221; by the hosts. I find it difficult to believe that a show in America could get away with similar behavior without being universally crucified.</p>
<p>I am not one to sound off against trolling netizens of any country. But these two cases clearly display, if not overt racism in China, undertones of what racial identity means and the implications of skin color in a country whose population is 90% Han Chinese.</p>
<p>One implicit difference between these two girls is the race of their fathers. Chloe Wang has a Chinese father. Does this mean something to Chinese citizens in comparison to Lou Jing’s African-American father? In my opinion it does, at least on a subconscious level. Chloe Wang is a product of a Chinese man hooking up with a white woman. That’s pretty cool if you’re Chinese. But to Asians, Lou Jing is a product of an African-American man having an illicit affair with a Chinese woman. The father is nowhere to be found. In this scenario Lou Jing becomes a symbol of Western imperialism, the loss and &#8220;rape&#8221; of Chinese culture—something unnatural, and shameful.</p>
<p>Another difference is the way white and black people are perceived in Asian culture. Pop culture, media, politics, history and a host of other things cultivate these perceptions. The bottom line in the minds of many Chinese; it is at least commendable (if not a step up) if you have a relationship with a white person, it is a step down if you go black. There is a very real mindset in China and many colonized nations of the idea of emasculation, of a colonial power not only raping the country of resources but also of women. To many the fact that a Chinese man and white woman marry is a sign of modernism. For some Chloe Wang serves as a representation of an upwardly mobile, confident, new, and modern China. Lou Jing perhaps is viewed in a backwards, illicit, shameful light. A step forward, a step backward.</p>
<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lu_Xun" target="_blank">Lu Xun</a>, China&#8217;s foremost modern author, perhaps best captured Chinese attitudes towards foreigners:</p>
<blockquote><p>Throughout the ages the Chinese have had only two ways of looking at foreigners. We either look up to them as superior beings or down at them as wild animals. We have never been able to treat them as friends or to consider them as people like ourselves.</p></blockquote>
<div id="attachment_2137" class="wp-caption alignright" style="width: 309px"><a href="http://www.occidentalism.org/?p=138" target="_blank"><img class="size-medium wp-image-2137" src="http://www.thehypermodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/nooffendchinesewomen-300x186.jpg" alt="" width="299" height="186" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">&#39;No Offend Chinese Women&#39; a slogan used during anti-African race protests in Beijing which alleged rape of Chinese women by African students.</p></div>
<p>I am ashamed that these perceptions exist in the minds of neo-con Chinese. Not everyone in China is guilty of feeling this way and very rarely do people take it to the extremes that I have earlier elucidated. But these are cultural perceptions and stereotypes that exist below the surface, en masse. Stereotypes which are rarely vocalized to outsiders yet subconsciously influence many parts of cultural exchange and interaction.</p>
<p>To date, China’s treatment of ethnic minorities has been appalling. Especially entrenched are racist attitudes towards those of African descent. In 1988 a Christmas party in Hehai University in Nanjing spurred an all out <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_anti-African_protests" target="_blank">race riot</a> against Africans studying in the city. The incident was sparked after two African men escorting two Chinese women were involved in an altercation with security over correct identification. The resulting fight left 11 Chinese students and university employees injured. A false rumor was spread thereafter that an African had murdered a Chinese student. That’s when the Chinese took to the streets.</p>
<p>Nicholas Kristoff of the <em>New York Times</em> recounts on December 31, 1988:</p>
<blockquote><p>…on Thursday, more than 130 of those African students remained confined to a Government guest house in Yangzhou, 80 kilometres north-east of Nanjing, to protect them from angry crowds that earlier in the week screamed for the &#8220;black devils&#8221; to face punishment.</p>
<p>With them were a handful of dark-complexioned Nepalese and Pakistani students, who also were threatened by Chinese who, in some cases, had only a hazy idea of what an African looked like.</p></blockquote>
<div id="attachment_2140" class="wp-caption alignleft" style="width: 232px"><a href="http://www.occidentalism.org/?p=138" target="_blank"><img class="size-medium wp-image-2140" src="http://www.thehypermodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Black-Solidarity1-207x300.jpg" alt="" width="222" height="321" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">“Firmly support American Blacks in their righteous struggle!”</p></div>
<p>This past summer’s <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_2009_%C3%9Cr%C3%BCmqi_riots" target="_blank">Urumqi riots</a> in which the government and many Han Chinese violently quelled unrest and protests by the ethnic Muslim Uighur minority is indicative of the racial tensions still prevalent throughout China.</p>
<p>I find it difficult to imagine that China will make sweeping reforms in the way race and culture are perceived unless their society becomes less homogeneous. The question I ponder is if one day China, as a premier global superpower, will embrace a cultural and racial definition of itself as amorphous and diverse as America’s.</p>
<p>Lastly I return to Chloe and Lou Jing to proffer a possible explanation for the difference in reception between the two that has nothing to do with race and everything to do with media. An explanation that may confirm that the Chinese are quickly becoming more like America than we give them credit for. Chloe Wang enters China as prepackaged, glamorous, and ready for consumption by the prevailing Chinese pop machine. She has the support of an American record label and one of China’s most successful <a href="http://english.cri.cn/6666/2009/02/15/1221s453953.htm" target="_blank">producers</a> on her team. Lou Jing does not. She is just another reality TV contestant, no publicist or multimillion-dollar record label backing her. Could this have made the difference for Lou Jing? Picture for a moment Lou Jing, marketed as China’s Beyonce, her video and single released with all the pomp and circumstance that such a title entails. I can definitely see her being loved, accepted, even mobbed by Chinese. Maybe it was never her race that was at issue, maybe it was just a question of &#8220;packaging.&#8221;</p>
<p style="text-align: center">
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