Dalaran1991 said:
I'm pretty fond of my family and other Viet friends, but I have a general disgust toward the Vietnamese people, and Asians as a whole. Savages (some may called alphas?), uneducated, loud, unrefined and generally very short-sighted. There are more people dying by traffic accidents every week than all the terror attacks combined. That truck who killed 70+ people in France? Been there, seen it every month going to school. I still remember the guts and bloods spilled all over the road, and the screaming victims with their legs chewed up under the wreckage. And nobody would help because they are afraid of being implicated. I was 13.
Many restaurants and food shops are polluted and used ingredients from places you would have to cover your nose if you walk there. People would happily sell cancer to others to make a living.
You think we dont have our own refugees crisis? Its just in a different form.
Haven't been able to jump onto RVF, so Dalaran beat me to it.
I hate to say that my thoughts echo his by and large. Those that were brought up in the West are much more bearable, but that's exactly proves my point.
We have a massive FOB community from all over Asia here in my city, in Australia, they are mostly split between here and Sydney.
They embody basically everything I'm ashamed about my race (Chinese specifically, Indo-Chinese to a lesser extent — sorry Dalaran) — rude, tacky dress sense, pathetic posture/bearing, unhygienic, loud, uncouth, misogynistic. :rant: :nuts:
Now, as a general rule of thumb, I'd say there isn't generally any racism in this country — with exceptions of course. Australians by and large don't have strong opinions about Asians, maybe mixed feelings. However, the appearance of these Asians, bringing their behaviour from the mother country, give a terrible impression for the 5% or so of us.
I recently read a novel about the Vietnam War wherein the corruption of the ARVN generals and their government led to an unnecessary squandering of their troops in the field, which indirectly led to their downfall. The result was the prejudice that American soldiers had of the South Vietnamese men being cowards and their women, whores. I know that such decadence and corruption can be found around the world, but this sort of behaviour that leads to the little people being run roughshod over seems to be more endemic in a lot of Asian cultures.
It's not just the FOBs, though. Even for those raised in the West (and my family was pretty Western already) have largely been brought up with traits that simply aren't seen as desired here — introversion, lacking confidence and assertion are but a few things that come to mind. Ones that definitely affected me, and which I later had to overcome on my own volition.
There's definitely a strain of clannishness among my people. Yes, there's a lot of talk, both here and the wider media, that East and South-East Asians assimilate into their adopted countries better than Middle Easterners and those of Muslim societies. For the most part, that is true. Even so, there is tendency for them to be rather tight-knit in the way they keep society. So much so that if they're seen as an "other", they have no-one else to blame. Really, I think my people have an onus to do their bit in terms of complaints about a "
bamboo ceiling"
I have read how a few of our resident China experts have voiced exactly such opinions about her people, to the extent that I'd feel uneasy making contact with them for fear of being seen as a lesser form of life. :-/
I hate to bring up the elephant in the room, but there has been enough of a strain of, dare I say it, white apologia, running through this forum, that sentiments expressed in this thread, especially from non-white members, may be welcomed with glee.
On the other hand — lest I be taken as some sort of yellow Uncle Tom — I acknowledge that some members
here do advocate owning your identity. Your background is part of who you are.
Beyond being aware of my heritage and language, I should ask: take pride in what? Your ethnicity is mostly periphery to your identity; it gives it a physical definition, but not much more. Yes, in spite of everything that I've said, I know that my race is known for many great things. But to subsume them as part of
your own identity is disingenuous, an assumption of undue credit. I find it silly to take that sort of due credit for merits that you weren't responsible for; insofar as it's just as silly to be compelled to take responsibility for misdeeds of your race's forebears that you personally weren't responsible for.
It's true that I find it easier to be driven to such beliefs because I was pretty whitewashed to begin with. Or it could be a streak of childishness within me, maybe ingratitude. The OP definitely hit an idea that I'd been nursing, though.
