OMG, Stereotypes!

This is really bad.  I was on the subway the other day and sat next to a girl who had not one, but TWO designer bags (she was *THIS CLOSE* to being a label whore).  I didn’t get a look at her face at first, so I assumed she was one of those Asian girls who highlight their hair and shop at high end stores.  Turned out she was white.  In Toronto and Vancouver, one can find some Asian women (or more specifically, Hong Kong women) who shop at these stores, and sometimes, they’re head-to-toe label.  And these brands have to be big names to them.  For many, Tory Burch isn’t a big enough name.  It has to be Prada, Gucci, LV, Hermes, etc…

Readers, have you mistaken someone for another race/culture/ethnicity based on what he/she was wearing, or what accessories he/she had?

Gentrification - why does it always have to be about race?

Lots of “ethnic” neighbourhoods are now being gentrified, and many blogs, including a post on Racialicious today, seem to argue that it’s driving the old residents, mostly non-whites, out.  But is it always white people who are moving in?  Or is it a class issue?  Say they gentrify Toronto’s “old” (i.e. not Scarborough or Markham) Chinatowns by opening a T&T Supermarket.  This drives out the smaller grocery stores (who IMHO, are often on the brink of breaking health codes, if they haven’t already.  I won’t buy meat there.)  While T&T does have non-Asian (or rather, non-Chinese) clientele, the majority of those who shop there are of Chinese descent (or married to someone who is of Chinese descent).  It’s unlikely that Chinatown will be completely “white-washed.”  It’ll just be yuppified.  And one doesn’t need to be white to be a yuppie.

Canada’s GG and Minorities and an Ivy Education

Another interesting post from Racialicious.

First Comment (originally from Womanist Musings):

Canada’s current Governor-General, Michaëlle Jean is black.  A well-known Quebecois writer, Victor-Lévy Beaulieu, recent called her La Reine-Nègre (The Negro Queen), which sparked controversy.  He claims that he didn’t mean anything racist, just her attitude.
What’s interesting is that the last Governor-General, Adrienne Clarkson, is of Chinese descent.  She was also criticized about the way she did things, but I don’t recall anyone calling her the Empress Dowager. People DID say something about her being female, and that no one would have said anything about the spending if she had been a guy.

Second Comment (Originally from Blackline):

“If you are a minority, chances are you will run into a teacher who seems to like you a lot, and at this point they will make it their life mission to save you (kind of like Dangerous Minds). These teachers are extremely condescending and take it personally when you disagree with them in any way (you’re seen as fighting them, preventing them from helping you).  In their minds, you grew up in a single parent shack, your mother works three jobs, and you have 10 brothers and sisters, rather than being a son of a physician and a lawyer. It’s one thing to be admired by your teacher, it’s another being their charity, because in the end all your other classmates will win the awards, and you will get a pat on the back.”

I’d say that CERTAIN minority groups are thought of as living in a shack, with a single mom who works several jobs.  In my case, I’m more likely to be thought of as a foreigner than some poor kid from the wrong side of town.

Designer Manbag carrying Metros

I’ve see a few Asian guys (mostly foreign) with designer bags. These bugs aren’t their girlfriends’ or wives’ purses, but men’s styles, and usually Gucci or LV (often LOGOED to death). These guys are usually between 16 and 35 and fairly good looking…but they also look like they spend more time in front of the mirror than their female SOs.  What’s the deal? I never really noticed guys with bags like that when I was over in Hong Kong a few years ago. Is it a recent thing? Perhaps from Japan or Europe? Are they trying to be more metro than metro (I’ve found that in Toronto, anyway, there are more Hong Kong Canadian metro guys per capita than white or CBC metros)?

Race and Music - Is it “normal” for an Asian girl to like Sarah McLachlan?

Racialicious has an interesting post about ethnicity/race and music today.  Kelvin, a guest contributor, spent his childhood years in Nigeria listening to a diverse group of artists, including Phil Collins, Dolly Parton and Michael Jackson.  He is now in his 20s and living in the US.  His tastes are apparently being challenged.  Kelvin likes rock.  His undergrad was at a historically black school according to his post, a fellow student asked him not to play his favourite tunes while on campus.  A totally WTF situation, IMHO, but not unusual.  I have had similar experiences.  Apparently, Asians aren’t supposed to like country (which I did for a couple of years in high school).  Asians aren’t supposed to like Sarah McLachlan or Jewel (I stopped listening to Jewel after 1998.  Her Spirit album was the last good one) either.  Instead, we’re supposed to listen to pop music from our ancestral homeland or hip hop, especially if you are under 35.  Apparently if you were a teen before major-major immigration from Hong Kong (mid 80s or later), you can listen to “white” music without much criticism.  I have a friend in her mid 30s who grew up listening to George Michael, early Madonna and Culture Club.  It was normal for a Chinese kid to listen to “white” music back then.  Not really the case for Cuspers (people born between 1977 and 1981 - we’re the ones who aren’t sure if we’re Gen X or not) or Millennials (1982 or later).  Cuspers and Millennials, at least those who grew up in certain parts of Canada grew up smack in the middle of mass immigration from Hong Kong.  It’s now all about Cantopop, “English” pop, hip hop, Emo, etc…Cantopop is just like American/British pop (but in Cantonese…you know….the music basically all sound the same) and the others?  Not really my thing.  Seriously.  A few years ago, my parents’ friends were in Vegas and were really disappointed to find out that Celine was taking a break.  Geez.

I recently bought the new Sarah McLachlan compilation album, Rarities, B-Sides and Other Stuff II (mostly songs from soundtracks, “special” releases or concerts - you guys should check out the first Rarities album…it has an extended version of “I Will Remember You”) and some people looked at me as if I had purple and green skin.  “You like Sarah McLachlan?” a girl ( who was around my age…late 20s) asked.  “Yeah, I do.  In fact, I have all her CDs, including her bad ones.  You know, the stuff she recorded after becoming more mainstream.”  The other woman had an “oh” look, as if I had done something really wrong.  I knew immediately what that meant.  It meant “why are you listening to that stuff?”  I always thought that music transcended race, that it didn’t really matter what you listened to.  I guess I’m just wrong.

What I really want to know is why.  Why can’t I enjoy Sarah McLachlan’s music?  Is there something about her that turns Asians (or rather, Hong Kong Chinese) off, especially Cuspers and Millennials?  I don’t know if it makes any sense to me.  Does it to you?

Hong Kong Mallrat voice vs. “White” Valley Girl/Uptalk

The HK Mallrat voice is that “young” or “baby” voice that many Chinese (or perhaps more accurately, Cantonese) girls/women speak with. I don’t really know the origins of HK Mallrat, but I think it came around the same time as the Valley Girl…some time in the 1980s. I’ve seen old HK movies (pre mid-1980s) and none of the women spoke that way, not even teens, so you can’t say that Cantonese speaking women “naturally” have younger-sounding voices. This is usually paired with what some people I know call “puppy dog eyes.” Usually, these women are middle class or wealthy.

Most of us know what White Valley Girl/Uptalk is. For those of you who don’t, it’s when, like, a girl, talks kinda like this?? And she’s, like, not exactly too confident in herself?? Total exaggeration, but whatevs. The pattern/dialect/whatever you want to call it has been made fun of in movies like Clueless and the TV show, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (Hilary is totallllly an Uptalker!). So yes, demographically (from a socio-economic POV), the Uptalker and HK Mallrat are the same.

The sad part is that both styles are common in women over university age. And some girls just don’t know how or when to turn it off. I think it’s kind of okay if you talk like that with friends, but at work? I don’t think so. Sure, most Uptalkers turn off their “likes” but the Uptalk continues. Don’t these women worry that they sound like they’re in their early 20s or even younger? Especially if they look young? How on earth can they be taken seriously? Many people already assume that a young looking person is the intern, not the full time, fully paid employee. I thought most young looking people in their twenties and thirties didn’t want to be treated like a kid?

I honestly don’t know which one is more annoying. A 30 year old (or older) talking like she’s a child is just as dumb as a 30 year old saying “like” and “whatever.” In both cases, she can attract the wrong type of partner.  In both cases, it’s difficult for her to move up, career-wise.

1980s Heritage Language Programs Sucked

Like many CBC kids, I was forced to go to Chinese school on Saturdays when I was in elementary school.  The classes I went to were held at local elementary schools (offered by the school boards…it is celebrating its 30 anniversary in Toronto in a few weeks).  The teachers were often board-employed teachers as well, but they didn’t know how to teach us.  Perhaps they just didn’t care.  We weren’t, after all, their “real” day kids!  From what I recalled, they taught us as if we were Hong Kong kids, not Canadian children.  The teacher wrote words on the board, we copied them down.  We didn’t always get a definition.  We didn’t usually get definitions during dictations either.  I recall most of us were kind of WTF about it, since our “regular” teachers would always define words for spelling tests.

Chinese school was NOT FUN.  At recess, we were often yelled at by other faculty for speaking English, the default language for most of us.  I’ve never done French Immersion, but teachers at immersion schools generally aren’t strict, are they?  I mean, they aren’t going to yell at you if you don’t parle français (maybe someone who has gone through immersion can tell me) outside of class.  The supplementary texts they used were often straight out of Hong Kong, and therefore we couldn’t relate well to them.  Most of us didn’t live in small apartments.  We lived in suburban homes with a big back yard.  We didn’t wear school uniforms.  Oh, and we didn’t stand up when faculty entered the classroom. Most of us weren’t really able to retain much, either.  After all, class was only once a week for about three and a half hours.  I dropped out (or rather, my parents pulled me out) after Grade 2 or 3.  For those who actually stayed until the end of the program (I think it was Grade 8), many still can’t read well.  Not at a Grade 4 or 5 level…good enough to read a Chinese version of the Toronto Sun, anyway.  Most forget.

I guess what I’m saying is that these programs are (or at least were in the 80s) a waste of money.  No one really learned anything, and it made many kids hate their heritage even more.  But maybe it was just the Cantonese programs.  Honestly, it would have been more interesting if the teachers played games, told stories and used better text books.  Perhaps it would have been better if the teachers treated us like they treat their day/regular students.

Learned Another Language as a Tot, English at School - ESL or Not?

I didn’t speak English until I started school.  English is technically not my first language.  Cantonese is.  According to the Statistics Canada definition, Cantonese is my mother tongue, as it is defined as “the first language learned at home in childhood and still understood by the individual at the time of the census.”  I certainly still understand Cantonese.  My parents and grandparents speak Canto to me every day.  I usually reply in English to my parents, but in Cantonese to my grandparents. Gung Gung and Poh Poh do not speak much English.  Neither does my paternal grandmother.  English is my most comfortable language.  It’s the language I use before anything else.  I think in English.  However, Statscan does not have a category for people like me.  And there are plenty of people like me.  Many second generation Canadians, regardless of culture are like me.  We may not have said anything yet, but I’m pretty sure we don’t want to be grouped in the same  category as people who learned English much later in life.  We don’t sound like English is our second (or third, fourth, etc) language.  Our accents are indistinguishable from people whose families have been in English Canada for generations.  And at the same time, we’d be lying if we said that English was our first language.  It’s tough when we have to check off a box!

I think it’s time that they actually have a box for people in this situation.  I think it’s a great way to find out how many Canadians UNDERSTAND their ancestral language, but do not speak it or default to it.

High School Electives and University Majors

By the time you reach the upper grades at my alma mater, you’d find plenty of non-white students, many of them boarders from East Asia or the middle east.  At least that’s what you see when you go to school-wide assemblies.  Not so when it comes to the classroom.  At least in the 1990s when I was in school. 

When I was in school, the non-white students tend to gravitate towards sciences while the white students leaned towards the liberal arts.  Senior level physics classes tended to be majority Asian while drama, senior level history or an elective English course (such as creative writing) would be almost all white.  Business classes and biology would be somewhere in the middle.  It may be a language issue, but the students who went to my school tended to be phased out of ESL by the middle of the year they enter.  And that’s if they take ESL at all - many of the kids either had intensive tutoring or attended an English immersion school prior to coming over here.  This also doesn’t explain the number of Canadian born Asians who also preferred sciences to history.  Maybe it’s parents? 

This continued on in university.  While my university wasn’t exactly super-diverse from a Toronto or Vancouver standpoint, it wasn’t “really, really white” either.  I’d say the school was around 25% non-white when I was there, give or take.  I was a drama and history major.  The drama department probably had about 100-120 students and probably had one Asian student (sometimes two) per year.  So approximately 6 Asian students in the entire department.  All Canadian born (or at least Canadian-raised…no Asian accents in the entire department). History was a little more diverse, but that’s only because some history courses were open to non-history majors, while most drama courses beyond the 100s were restrcited.  My history seminars, open only to history majors was predominantly white.  Even courses that focused on Asian history.  Where were all the Asian students?  Where else?  Engineering, other sciences and business.  I understand that many take these majors because it’s easier to get a job after graduation, but if you really look at it, it isn’t the case at all.  Take Life Sciences for example.  Life Sciences (aka Life Sci) is what you major in if you want to be a doctor.  That’s another four years of school.  More money.  Why is it any different from majoring in, say, politics and history, then going on to law school?  Lawyers can make decet money.  And it’s one year less of school.  And if you’ve been educated in English your entire life, you shouldn’t have a problem with law school, unless you are LSAT-phobic.  In any case, you can be MCAT-phobic too.

So why do you think this is?  Parental influence?  I have a cousin who was basically “forced” into majoring a specific subject.  She’s now working in that field, but I’m not sure if she’s 100% happy or just pretending to.  So her parents can be happy.  My parents didn’t try to force me into anything, although I think they would have liked it had I majored in business.  I did get a certificate in public relations at a community college later on, but that’s not the same thing as FINANCE, which is probably what my parents would have preferred.

 

***NOTE: I don’t think a more “diverse” school (such as the University of Toronto) would have changed much.  English and Classical Studies majors would likely still be predominantly white.***  

Class and the Hong Kong Canuck - Affected by British Colonialism?

Many Hong Kong Canadians don’t really think about race unless something happens within their own communities, like the SARS issue in 2003. Perhaps it has to do with their comfy, middle class lifestyle. So today’s Racialicious post on Class and Race had me wondering. Would Chinese Canadians from Hong Kong feel the same had the British never arrived? Would they be as successful? So in other words, are they living off the “benefits” of colonialsim? Without the Opium Wars in the 1840s and eventual takeover of Hong Kong proper, Kowloon and the “new territories”, would Hong Kong just be another hick town (as it was back in the day)? I mean, one of the reasons why Hong Kong eventually became so successful was because of communism in China. It was the port between China and the west. In order to get to China, you had to go through Hong Kong. Until recently, if you wanted to get things done cheaply, you had it made in Hong Kong. Had Hong Kong not been a British colony, it would have been absorbed in by the communist government. This means that there’d be no middle man. Hong Kong also received lots of refugees from Shanghai after WWII and many of them were businesspeople. In addition, people in Hong Kong would probably not be all that educated as the educated would likely be from Beijing and Shanghai.

Then there’s immigration. Without the British, Hong Kongers (in general, anyway) who come to Canada, if they can afford to at all, would not be moving into a cushy suburban house so soon after landing. Markham, Ontario and Richmond, British Columbia would probably be very white. This means no Pacific Mall. No yummy Chinese food. Double :-(. Upper middle class Hong Kong Canadians sending their kids to old line prep schools like Upper Canada College or Havergal? Highly unlikely that many would. They wouldn’t be able to afford it, and these schools’ traditions, which are linked to the great old schools of Britain would be completely foreign to them. Most minorities at these schools, at least when I went, were from colonies or former colonies. This is probably why most Hong Kong Canadians are perfectly open to joining and/or participating in organizations and events that would have excluded them years ago. Hong Kong Canadians are, for some reason, more likely to forgive and forget (which is why I’ve had some issues with my boyfriend, who is Jewish).  Hong Kong Canadians also seem to prefer “higher class” things that are seen as “white” by other non-white communities, such as western classical music.  Most Hong Kongers and Hong Kong Canadians take piano and/or violin.  And tennis (so they can play at that country club).  Even guys.  Doing this doesn’t make you white-washed.  Playing electric guitar in a garage band and playing hockey, however, does.  To many HK Canadians, in order to be successful, one must be “accomplished” in that Jane Austeneque (albiet slightly updated) kind of way.

Of course, hindsight is 20/20, and you never know. What’s done is done, and who knows what could have happened without the Opium Wars? Maybe China would be like Japan rather than a communist country and Hong Kong would still be successful as a “snowbird” destination for seniors in Beijing and Shanghai…flying there to escape the colder winters.