Wednesday, February 12, 2014

These Asians ... A Daily Dose of Racism

When long time ago a friend of mine told us about him being asked "can you speak Asian?" while he was getting ready to move to Taiwan it was funny. Now I am in the situation where I hear "Asian" every day and is increasingly less funny. "We still have to call the Asians!", "Is this package from the Asians?" are some of the harmless examples I hear every day. It was annoying when people in Taiwan would generalize "Foreigners'" behavior, like "this is how foreigners do it", but here it often has an offensive, degrading tone. "The Asians screwed up again!","Why are these Asians doing this?", "Again these Asians". Or like a recent comment from my boss: "You know, how the Asians are." "hm, do you mean the Indians, the Afghans, or the Japanese? Or are you talking about the Chinese?" And the funny thing is, our company only exists because two Asians are investing millions in it.
Racism is alive.

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