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New York, 4:54 AM
Fri Nov 27
11 posts in the last 24 hours
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"It's a typical, passive-aggressive, casual ignorance towards the respect of real Chinese culture...."
Why must this one thing be about a deep seated respect for culture, and not about a fortune cookie gag -- fortune cookies aren't even Chinese? Could we pay too much respect to real Chinese culture -- for example, the Cultural Revolution, foot binding, one-child policy, censorship, China's treatment of Tibet or Vietnam?
09/23/09
It's like when you watch a Yankee game and Hideki Matsui steps up to bat and strikes out. Depending on where you are or the company around you, out come the samurai impressions and the bad pidgin english. "Ooooaaaaaa. I stlike out! I must commit halakili!" Hilarity ensues. It's all in good-natured, harmless, jokesy fun of people of a different ethnic background and culture who talk funny. This app is made for that crowd. No, it doesn't mean we should all go out and do a march on Washington or whatever. But let's call out laziness for what it is instead of giving it a pass.
09/23/09
09/23/09
No one busts out this kind of Chinese accent in an effort to accurately represent Chinese people; at best, they do it for cheap laughs at the expense of the Chinese, at worst, it's a product of real xenophobia.
As people have said, this is far from the most offensive app in the world, but I wouldn't bother trying to defend it.
As for the song, I think that's fallen out of favor more for the company it keeps. You could make an argument that it marginalizes thousands of years of Chinese musical tradition, but like I said, why bother?
09/23/09
The argument that things like this are symptomatic of systemic racism is not entirely lost on me but, like you said, why bother? Pick your battles. I would further argue hyper political correctness is the other side of the close-minded coin: a quickness to judge the moral character of somebody based on this garbage app or anything else can be just as detrimental to a productive discussion about racism.
At bottom, it seems to me that, while the criticism of this thing is justifiable at some level, it's mostly the object of misplaced scorn for real racism -- the thing becomes racism incarnate for some people: "I really hate racism, this thing seems like it has racial overtones, this thing is really racist and I hate it." It's understandable to me, I just think it's a somewhat misplaced. If we were talking about, say, a Congressman making a deplorable racist comment, or the "Obama's a muslim" nonsense, I'd be right there with you.
09/22/09
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09/22/09
I believe those must wait behind (!) the "Greek" app, as it were.
09/22/09
09/22/09
Now, maybe this app just isn't all that funny, whether it's racist or not. And that would make it even harder to distract from the elements that make us uncomfortable. But over the years I've gotten the sense that maybe we actually are a little over-sensitive towards this kind of thing sometimes.
09/22/09
09/23/09
Also, the fortune cookie is a Japanese invention.
09/22/09
Stanza? Kindle? Oh well, you steal old stale or even sample code, you get what you pay for.
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09/22/09
Personally, I'd rather be surprised by finding the six bucks in my pocket.