So it seems that we have quite the conversation going over encountering racism in Taiwan and/or getting more violent. Chris Bates has addressed the issue in the comments section by referring to his book Cutlture Shock Taiwan. He has some great info here that many of you may not be aware of unless you’ve lived here. For example, the toothpaste that he mentions is still quite popular. My wife likes the flavor. There are a few knock-off brands that retain the racist labels.
So here’s Chris on Taiwan and racism:
Some comments from the Culture Shock Taiwan book deal the way Taiwanese Chinese view foreigners.
“”We had finished our warm-ups and basic drills when a little boy, about 5 years old who had been looking at me, came over to stare at my arms. Without a word or a second thought, he pinched up a mass of my arm hair and tore it out, then stared closely at the blonde fuzz in his fingers. Without a word or second thought, he walked off.”
-October 15, 1976 in a martial arts class in Taichung, Chris’ diary.How do Taiwanese perceive foreigners
Pride in their Middle Kingdom heritage directly influences how Taiwanese perceive foreigners. Ignore the fact that most Taiwanese are descended from farmers from Fujyan during one of its poorest times, ignore the fact that the major achievements associated with Chinese culture were not accomplished by the people of Fujyan. It matters not. The indoctrination of the populace by the educational system of their Chineseness, serving the purpose of strengthening the ties to Mainland China for eventual reunification, and from the family inculcates them with a sense of cultural superiority. This colors how they perceive all others from outside the Middle Kingdom.
A tall, mustachioed American conversant in Chinese language and mores attended a cocktail party. He entered into a conversation with the wife of a Taiwanese diplomat; a college educated, internationally travelled woman. She began to discuss how much further evolved the Chinese races are, as evidenced in their relative lack of body hair and smaller delicate features. He proceeded to inform her of several ethnic, historic and cultural facts in support of the premise that her view was rubbish. Both people certainly left the encounter maintaining their original views.
Once your ear is trained and tuned to Mandarin, you may hear others call you various names. These epithets are used frequently and loosely. They do not denote bigotry in the racial hatred sense, but they are used condescendingly, if unconsciously. All cultures create terms to demean or belittle that which they do not understand or with which they are not comfortable. Chinese in Taiwan are no different.
Epithets: What They See is What You Get
LaoWai is the least offensive, perhaps endearing, term. It merely means “old foreigner”. Come to think of it, most Westerners do tend to comment that the Taiwanese look younger than their years, perhaps the inverse is true of Westerners. Another less benign term which is frequently translated into English as foreign devil is YangGwei. Westerners were very definitely a plague on the Ching emperor during which time this appellation came into use.
Then there are the physically descriptive terms. DaBiDz is common and means Big Nose. This is given to Westerners with typically large probiscus. If you watch Mark Salzman’s autobiographical movie “Iron & Silk” about his experience teaching English and training martial art in China you will notice the large plaster cast nose he has attached to his dormitory room door. Touche. The final epithet is AngMo as used in Taiwanese dialect and means Red Beards. This alludes to Westerner’s relatively hirsute bodies.These terms describe outward appearance. They tell us what Taiwanese find conspicuous about foreigners. But you are blonde, you protest. Doesn’t matter, you are still an AngMo. A foreigner’s hairiness is a source of much condescension. They see it related to one’s general level of evolution, body odor, neatness, and civility. Remaining clean shaven and well groomed will improve their impression of you. This also relates to women’s leg and underarm hair.
Though not singled out with its own epithet (that we are aware of) size is also a major concern of Taiwanese relating to foreigners. Their impression of Westerners is that we are BIG. Big noses, big beards, big torsos, big bellied sometimes, otherwise big muscled, big boned, big limbed. In proper proportion, this might be attractive to the opposite sex (Taiwanese man to Western woman or vice versa), but it is intimidating to members of the same sex. In the West, it is a fact that the majority of Top 1000 company CEOs are over six feet tall. Size can be used at the sales meeting, cocktail party or in the boardroom. Size and success have a correlation. Not so in Taiwan. Many CEOs are five foot six inches+/-. The foreigner who is bigger than the average Taiwanese should be aware that his size may be making those around him uncomfortable. In keeping with the local preference for humility in projecting oneself, this person should make an effort to physically “bring himself down” to the level of the people s/he is addressing. Sittting with the person, rather than standing, or standing one step lower on the stairs to talk are some techniques you might use.
The above comments relate to Westerners in general, whose organizing capacity and modern technology the Chinese grudgingly accept were able to subjugate most of the world in the last century and bring the Middle Kingdom to its knees. What about brothers and sisters from the African continent? It is sad to report that many Taiwanese view black or more darkly colored people even more condescendlingly than they do the caucasian Westerner. It is generally felt that dark skin indicates a life of manual labor out in the sun. To avoid the stigma, Taiwanese farm women traditionally cover themselves from head to toe leaving only the eyes exposed to the sunlight. This despite the very hot and humid Summer growing season in Taiwan. They do not want to be tanned. Parasols are still popular. Beyond this consideration, it is held that the African peoples have nothing to contribute to China, unlike the Western barbarians who at least have technology, money and markets. Until recently, one of the most popular brands of toothpaste in Taiwan was “Darkie” and its yellow tube had a black man wearing a top hat and beaming a bright white smile. Under pressure from race relations groups, the English name of the product changed to Darlie, graphic designers utilized more negative space in the drawing to obscure whether the person was black or white, but, tellingly, the Mandarin name of the product remains HeiRenYaGau (Black Man Toothpaste).”
Be careful of taking on taxi drivers. I observed a motorcyclist knocked over by a cab. The angry cyclist got up and agressively opened the cab door to haul the cabbie out. The cabbie came out stabbing repeatedly into the cyclists abdomen with a screw driver.
Best just to chill out. As martial artists, we can handle the situation if it goes the distance. But our abilities and perspective should allow us to divert the cabbie’s rudeness. Better to state with firm friendliness. “Friend, you are the taxi driver, I am the passanger. I have told where I want to go. If you do not know the way, just say so.”
Then again, you could use the line a friend of mine used when he grew tired of his Taiwanese neighbors torturing their dog. He stormed over to the house to complain and it rapidly escalated to the point the neighbor was going to get physical. My friend said to him with cold calm “If you want to see a real foreign devil, just make a move.”
8 responses so far ↓
1 chessman71 // Apr 1, 2007 at 2:50 pm
A couple of comments.
A company I worked for was going to hire another editor. The second applicant was a big, black man that was very qualified. I was very happy after the interview, thinking that we had just found our next editor so I figured in the post-interview powwow session, we’d just finalize our thoughts on hiring him. Instead, the chief editor just blurted out how big and dark the guy was and how scared everybody in the office would be of him. I couldn’t believe it. There was no talk of hiring him at all, even though he was obviously qualified, intelligent, and well educated. But I simply couldn’t even swing the conversation onto those subjects. The other two interviewers kept making remarks about how great they thought his physical prowess would be. In the end, they said they wouldn’t even think of hiring him.
As for being a martial artist and handling situations, I didn’t feel I could handle the cabbie with my boy on my lap and the tons of stuff in bags that I had. I really learned a lesson there. DON’T buy so much that you can’t defend yourself. If something had started in the car, I couldn’t have controlled the situation at all.
While these incidents may have been nothing, I did detect more than the usual amount of racism in both of them. Again, the fact that my son was there was not a coincidence in my opinion.
As for the weapon I’m considering, this is it:
http://www.copsplus.com/prodnum1597.php
2 baichi // Apr 1, 2007 at 4:07 pm
A lot of the things Chris describes can be seen in mainland China as well. In fact, it’s even more severe there, probably due to stronger indoctrination through the government and less education. No wonder, this way of thinking originally came from the mainland, they still are best at it :-/
Some of the differences in wordl view and mentality are not, like the Chinese usually want to see it, due to some form of ‘Chineseness’. It is more of a difference in time, like the idea that dark skin color is related to physical labour. We had that in Europe as well, that is one of the factors why racism against black people started. The hair thing is funny though, mainlanders in general hold the same opinion, but the women there usually don’t shave at all. And while it’s true that more body hair usually means more body odor, having no hair doesn’t help against the smell if you don’t shower!
3 Q // Apr 1, 2007 at 4:30 pm
Racism for jobs is definitely very bad here in Taiwan, but it usually swings better for Caucasians than dark skinned people or the natives. Never did understand the reason for the name of black man toothpaste, but I’d suspect it’s this perception that black people have whiter teeth due to there being a greater contrast. As for the kid pulling out the hair I wouldn’t say it’s racism. It’s just modern day lack of manners in children’s education here. I’d blame the misinterpretation of freedom for that. In fact, I’d say if there’s an increase in racism that’s probably just a component of crappy upbringing the kids are getting nowadays. They are getting more obnoxious everyday. I don’t remember the specific nicknames for the different generations but there was a “as long as I want to there’s nothing I can’t do” generation,” which you would think is as bad as it gets. Now there’s a new “only I can do whatever I want to” generation! When I was in the boot camp some of those bastards really pissed me off and I would’ve loved to kick their asses.
4 Hermann // Apr 1, 2007 at 6:40 pm
Guys,
the above mentioned, I can confirm, more or less, even my experiences in mailand China’s cities in 1982, just returning from Wudang and a devastated Chen village (no discirmination what so ever on the countryside)were a bit different.
People went with me to the departmentstore and bought the same gongfu slippers as I did, just because a foreigner should know what’s good.
At university the party members sniffed out any foreigners, whites or blacks all alike.
Shanghai in the late 1990s was already a trade place, concepts of the big foreigner intimidating company stuff were out of the history book, those days are long gone, sorry. Cooperation, and I mean successfully, was mandated by the cadres and the party.
As long as the Guomingdang ruled in Taiwan, all Chinese stereotypes were valid here, too.
But then the big change came and the Taiwanese turned out to be worse than the mainlander supressors. Taike (Taiwan fanatics) were encouraged to show their patriotic, but unknowing brute feelings, beating up red shirts as late as last fall here in the south. And their leader was a former DPP chef, so it shows that the hatred against openess is indiscriminent of race and origin. It is political stance that matters. And all who question Taiwan culture (which I never understood, beetle nut girls, nice man) were fought, as a kind of stupid revenge. There is no more reasoning, and it is something like indigenisation vs. globalisation, probable only caused by fear of the alien and fear of red China.
But hopefully, all will, yes, all this must change, if Taiwan wants to survive in this global village.
It’s too simplified, what I wrote, I know, but Chinese racism is also no real explanation.
5 Chad // Apr 2, 2007 at 6:08 am
Dave,
Be careful abt the weapon thing. Where racism is involved, if you get into a confrontation with a weapon you can easily be made a bad guy and the likelyhood of further trouble will increase. take a lesson from the Civil Rightspeople back inthe 60’s. Racismmeans the deck is stacked against you and you may be punnished for exerting your own rights or protecting loved ones.
6 Hakchigi // Apr 2, 2007 at 8:55 am
I agree with Chad about the weapon thing -consider repercussions if it goes to court, gets in the media … an umbrella might be an option -good defence against the rain aswell. The art of avoidance I think is important anyway -a bad cabbie guy like that is going to get all his buddies anyway and one weapon won’t make a difference -avoid the dodgy looking cabbies… make friends with respectable people in society -build you’re social base, I think that’s the best way in Asian societies.
7 chessman71 // Apr 2, 2007 at 12:08 pm
I agree to some extent about the weapon. But remember — my little boy was there.
Courts, rights, media, etc., etc. simply mean nothing to me where he is involved. If we had gotten out of that cab, he WOULD HAVE been in danger. I have no doubt about it. Holding his hand, carrying him, etc. limited me as did the huge bag I had and my backpack.
I apprecaite the suggestions and I’ll take them seriously.
Maybe in some situations, there’s nothing you can do. I guess you can’t prepare for every situation. Something to think about, I guess.
8 asiandude // Apr 3, 2007 at 10:24 pm
Casey wrote:
> I really can’t imagine anyone taking offence to a Chinese man being married to a white woman in all but the most rural backwaters
You’re right about that. As an asian male with a white girlfriend eating dinner in a not-so-rural backwater of the US, we received a KKK business card left anonymously on our car windshield.
That is not to say one encounter is worse than another. Reading all these posts, I’m woefully not surprised at all the racism. I’ve seen it in Asia, experienced it in the US, and heard it from various people of various colors and races directed at various groups. It is horrible how rotten human nature seems, but then again, these attitudes are LEARNED. When I’ve seen the mix of races and backgrounds in my kids’ preschool classes, there was no racism whatsoever. Once kids are in about 2nd grade, that’s when all sorts of bullying and prejudices for anything that’s different starts - and unlike weight, hair, other things, race can’t be changed, and then these wrong views can persist for many years. Also, kids learn horrible prejudices from their parents as well as their friends. To combat it, one has to examine one’s own prejudices, try to stop them, treat people as individuals (e.g., individual racist cabbies) rather than as a class (turns into another sort of racism if you prejudge the whole class in your mind, then those erroneous perceptions from both sides self-perpetuate for generations), and avoid the violence. What seem like small actions lead down a slippery slope. At the extreme they turn into wars, genocide, “ethnic cleansing”, torture, internment camps, and other human rights injustices.
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