User Comments - Grambers

Posted on: National Stereotypes

I sleep in a bowler hat and fly to work with my umbrella, so what?:!)

Posted on: National Stereotypes

Thanks xio8. Interesting stuff. I've long had a theory that the US and China have far, far more in common than either like to admit. I think I first considered this this during my final years in China when the number of tank-sized cars on the road boomed, along with the number of gut-wrenching televised beauty pageants (yes, these are, on one level, two stereotypes of the US but both are, surely, rooted in fact. No, not everyone drives a tank-sized car and attends beauty pageants, but they are real and observable social phenomena).

I spent several years in Guangdong and was called 'Guilo' - a ghost man - on an almost hourly basis. Never once did this disturb me. Like you, I rather enjoyed it. But that is to miss the point, I think. If a child is shouting 'waiguoren' at you while you nervously scuttle off down the street (it's a lovely image!), it will be because she has been taught that there are these people called 'foreigners' and there are strategies to recognise them (ie. they talk in a certain way, dress in a certain way, behave in a certain way). This is problematic, as that conditioning will have been based on some wild stereotypes and mammoth simplifications. My main point throughout my various comments on this thread is that, in China, this generalising and simplification is not the preserve of rednecks. It's a national standard, and no-one has ever given me the least indication that they see a problem in it.

I can assure you from experiences very personal and close to my heart, that young children just do not see difference in race, skin colour or language. They are totally blind to it, and it's a wonderful thing to behold. You might argue this is the result of living in a cuddly, PC, multicultural country. I'd argue that it is not. At the risk of sounding like late-era Michael Jackson, children are pure. The tendency to label 'foreigners' with such relish is a result of specific social circumstances - not just a natural thing.

Posted on: National Stereotypes

Take Google, add the words 'French' and 'stereotype', limit to 'images only' and, voila, I give you this: http://www.balls.ie/2011/10/08/marc-lievremont-keeping-french-stereotypes-alive/

Posted on: National Stereotypes

You've taken that juicy slab of red meat out of the fridge and have lobbed in perfectly in my direction. However, though salivating profusely, I will try to resist biting down too aggressively. Two points still....

1) You appear to be conflating Chinese 'culture' and Chinese 'politics'. I am a huge admirer to Chinese culture. Yes, there are many aspects to it that are difficult to get one's head around, but I love trying to do so. The reservoir of wisdom is indeed very deep and I try to go swimming on a daily basis. However, I reserve the right to distinguish culture from politics. Beijing, as you'll know if you've been following recent pronouncements from Mr Wang Chen, has made a concerted effort to present politics and culture as one of the same, or at least imply that cultural legitimacy comes from political patronage. I do not buy that and I'd suggest you shouldn't either.

2) I was wondering whether if we get more than 100 comments, your five mao payments might get boosted? You're not angling for a Christmas bonus, are you?:)

Sorry, it turns out that meat was too red to resist.

Posted on: National Stereotypes

But, in a nod to the basic truthfulness of your claim that we are PC-obsessed lunatics here in the UK, here's a story from this morning's Telegraph which explains why 'sexist' Hamley's (famous toy shop) has stopped implying there are such things as 'girls toys' and 'boys toys' (for, as well all know, there are girls who like boys who like boys to be girls who do girls like their boys, who do boys like their girls) - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/8952627/Toy-signs-changed-after-Hamleys-accused-of-sexism.html

Posted on: National Stereotypes

C'mon, man. I appreciate your attempt to deflect the main point through humour (I have been known to adopt a similar strategy) but I gotta drag you back on track. You don't hear 'foreigner' in England not because of political correctness. You hear LOTS and LOTS of sweeping generalisations about 'Indians', 'Pakistanis', 'Polish', 'Aussies', 'Chavs' etc.etc. but lumping everyone who is non-English into one catch-all category is just not done, and nor is it in Australia, as you well know (and have implied with your generous description of us 'Poms', pointing to a specific people who live on a specific island in the mid-to-north Atlantic). Brits avoid the word 'foreigner' not out of PC zealotry. It's because most people here do not conceive the world beyond our shores as one amorphous blob of foreigness. Perhaps there was a time in the past when we did - I'd take a stab at Victorian England, perhaps - but not now. The Chinese - for reasons that are very deep, and very interesting - still, largely, do.

Posted on: National Stereotypes

OK, there may not be many poddies from Indonesia, Niger and Honduras, but how about, um...Brazil, Russia, India, Eastern Europe, etc.etc.?

Posted on: National Stereotypes

At the risk of further developing my 'hater' image, do any poddies know of any other country where there is such a casual use of the word 'foreigner' in day-to-day conversations? And, before you say it Bodawei, no, I completely refute the idea that 'we all do it'. Yes, everyone has some degree or prejudice and, yes, everyone will deploy stereotypes, for one reason or another, at various times. But it's a rare, rare day in Olde England where I hear somebody use the word 'foreigner'. The word clearly has a very powerful 'exclusion' function (this is who I am, and this is what you are NOT), but in terms of its ability to point to anything meaningful, it surely is one of the most useless words that exists, right (I could do with John's high-level linguistic vocabulary here, but hopefully you get the point)?

This is a genuine question. I would love to know whether such a tendency exists in, say, Indonesia, or Niger, or Honduras etc.etc. (ie. countries I know very little about and which do not get much media play in the UK).

Posted on: National Stereotypes

And let's not forget we need a sour-looking rustic type with a greased moustache, beret and paunch, riding a bicycle while wearing a blue and white striped top with a string of onions around his neck.

Posted on: National Stereotypes

That's one perspective, and no doubt has some truth. But there are other, arguably deeper, factors at play too. For example, you can't ignore the deep historic conception that China has of itself as the centre of the world (though, yes, yes, certain, ahem, other countries and individuals have suffered the same delusion) and the effect this has had on the collective psyche. There is also the manufactured 'us-against-the-world' rhetoric that the Chinese leadership occasionally needs to resort to when faced with criticism, a defensive mindset which results from having to delude itself (and an increasingly small number of Chinese people) that it is the last bastion of 'socialism' in a hostile capitalist world. Never underestimate the unseen damage that is caused when a person, or a government, has to endlessly put on a face and pretend that it is something it is not.