I had an interesting experience yesterday. I was at a Chinese restaurant and I accidentally called 2 friends Chinese. I knew neither of them were Chinese. One is Korean, one is American of ??? descent. What ??? is I’m not going to say at the risk of more offence.
What I said was or started to say was something like “because we have 2 Chinese people here they can help us order”. What I meant to say was “because we have 2 people here that speak Chinese they can help us order”. Both of them speak Chinese. That Korean friend speaks Mandarin, the other speaks something else, I’m guessing Taiwanese but since I don’t remember for sure I’m not going to say at the risk of more offence.
Anyway, when I said “2 Chinese” this friend corrected me, “I’m not Chinese”. I knew that, I knew that (1) he is an American an (2) he associates with Taiwan. But, as a semi joke I replied “Yes, you are”, “No, I’m not”, “Yes, you are” and I explained. For those that don’t know it, the official name of Taiwan or rather the country that runs Taiwan the island is “Republic of China”. The government of Taiwan claims they are the legitimate government of all of China and that the government in mainland China are impostors. In my mind it was a harmless joke based in fact. Well, HE BLEW UP! DON’T E*V*E*R CALL ME CHINESE!.
Of course I apologized. I know that whole topic can be at touchy issue and everyone has their buttons that you don’t want to press. Still, no insult was meant. I’m fully aware of the differences and basic history between the two countries.
Still, as much as it pissed him off and ruined the mood of dinner I as a little pissed off myself that he couldn’t calm down when no offence was meant and there was no misunderstanding as well. My joke was not in ignorance, it was in full knowledge of what I was saying. Taiwan is “the Republic of China”. vs the mainland which is “the People’s Republic of China”. Of course I also know there is some percent of the population of Taiwan that wants to change the official name to “Taiwan” but that has not happened yet as far as I know. The country is still the “Republic of China”.
But, even more, regardless of any history between the PRC and ROC….My ancestors are from various countries, Hawaii, Tahiti, China, Portugal, England, Ireland and Holland. I associate with those because they are where my ancestors are from. It’s likely, though not 100% for sure, that his ancestors (grandparents, great-grandparents) are also from mainland China. Of course it is fully his right to not want to be called Chinese and I will of course fully respect that.
Anyway, I’m sure there will be some heated responses to this post.
Taiwanese=Chinese=Koreans=Japanese=Americans=Martians Called Marvin.
Nationlism, Patriotism, Politics… there is no need to get worked up over any of those. I have had people called me American, Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean, Japanese, Phillipino, Vietamese, etc. I take no offense to any of that, why should I? We are all the same.
Just don’t any of you ever even think of calling me a Canadian…
Hi Gman, This prolly not your idea of a heated response, no?
At the Asia Round of the World Baseball Classic in Tokyo the other night, Taiwan was called “Chinese Taipei.” I’m guessing political pressure made the team take that name rather than “Taiwan.”
Anyway, I think we have to be respectful of what we use as identifiers. I haven’t met a European or Canadian or other non-USA westerner that wants to even jokenly be referred to as “American.” And while some people will be totally magnanimous, there’s such a long, and often bitter, history among countries here in Asia, we can’t expect most people to take it lightly when their nationality is mistaken.
Hopefully that will add a bit of heat to responses!
The current government of Taiwan would prefer to strike the words “Republic of China” everywhere it can. In fact, they have already started doing so on the passports they issued. The problem was that certain countries, following pressure from Commie China, refused to recognize this passport, so they had to withdraw the proposal. After the democratic elections in Taiwan in 1996, people started to be willing to say the “I” word. (Before that, if you dared to utter “Taiwan Independence” in public, you would be charged with sedition and sent off to a tiny island 100 miles from humanity to rot).
I think your friend has some legitimate beef with you:
1. Not enough alcohol was consumed so your joke wasn’t very funny
2. He wants Taiwan independent from the corrupt commie government in Beijing.
3. With the influx of people from Mainland China to the US within the past several years (starting with the semi-”boat people” following Tiananmen Square in 1989), the Mainlanders have given Chinese a bad rap. Due to the years of Darwinian struggles during and post-Cultural Revolution, they’ve discarded all the Confucian values and adopted Marxist-Leninist totalitarian selfish values. In other words, they cut in line, drive horribly, light up in no smoking zones, speak in loud voices in public (in places where nobody understand their tongue), etc. They brought over a lot of boorish behavior. So as a defense mechanism, your friend seeks to distinguish between himself and these folks.
You should note that even people who were originally from the Mainland (pre-1949) that moved to Taiwan before they left for the US now commonly identify themselves as “from Taiwan” instead of “from China” to avoid the aforementioned stigma.
Well, I think, that the situation is same with countries from Europe (and, basically, the whole world, not only Asia).
I am from Slovakia, and already got used to questions like “So you are from the Czechoslo-something-country, right ?” (Czechoslovakia was divided into Czech Republic and Slovak Republic some 13 years ago) or “So, how is the weather in Slovenia ?” (a completely different country, maybe 500km to the south from Slovakia…) etc…
I was somehow angry for first few times, but later, I began thinking like “Does it really matter ? There is written *Slovakia* in the nationality column in my ID, but still, I would be the same human if I would be Hungarian, Polish, Swedish or German…”
Of course, things like education or cultural background is a little bit different (which you can see if you are talking for example for the first time to a Japanese and so), but after a while (or few beers), after you get “closer” to the other one, you will understand that we all *are* still the same Homo Sapiens Sapiens… And no political garbage will ever change that.
>> In other words, they cut in line, drive horribly, light up in no smoking zones, speak in loud voices in public (in places where nobody understand their tongue), etc.
Actually this was normal behavior in Taiwan (among other places) long before 1989.
I’m American. There. I’ve said it. I’m American, but I’m not necessarily proud of it. It’s just what I am. I couldn’t stop being it even if I tried. But my friend from Spain told me that it is awfully arrogant of me to call myself that. He said I don’t own the whole continent, or both continents, North and South Ameirca. Here I am just saying what I am, and I’ve already offended someone. I couldn’t even apologize for having done something wrong to him. I did it to me, and offended him in the process. What can I do? Am I or am I not permitted to decide what I call myself?
No, you’re not allowed to call yourself an American, only an United Statesian :-)
Actually this situation happens internationally as well, with that geographic region called “Macedonia.” The Greeks object to this term, since they feel that it has always been a Greek territory. So they made the UN call that country FYR Macedonia, or Makedonia, “Former Yugoslavian Republic of…”
Yeah, it’s pretty bizarre, they are right next to each other but can’t get along…
I’m sure you can find boorish behavior in any country on the globe, but I would not say that was “normal” in Taiwan. Spitting in public has definitely been frowned upon there for many years. I think if you take the “median” etiquette of people from the PRC you will know what I’m talking about. At least that’s probably the perception of your friend.
It’s slowly improving in China but I feel it may take another decade or so to bring up the standards. With its totalitarian tendencies, maybe the Commies will take the Stalinist approach and execute anyone caught spitting in Beijing in 2008 to stamp out this behavior. Or maybe a rerun of SARS will teach them.
having my dad as a taiwanese, and my mom as a 2nd generation taiwanese, born and raised in japan, and me, born and raised in japan til i was ten, then lived in taiwan for the next ten years, then in the europe/australia for the next ten years… frankly dear, i don’t really give a ham.
There’s another weird bit to factor in here, since the question is not simply that of nationality, but race. I’m American by nationality, but racially, ethnically I’m Norwegian, Swedish, and to a lesser degree, German, Irish, and some French in there. However one trend I see in Japan is to point at me and say, “He’s American,” when what they mean is “He’s white.”
There is an inherent difficulty in translating the issues of race between the largely monoracial population of Japan and the hugely racially diverse population of the USA.
What is particularly difficult to deal with here is that your comment to your friend, about being “Chinese,” was about as correct as someone calling me Scandinavian. It’s true in a sense, but without qualifying ethnicity versus nationality it is vague, and leads to trouble and problems.
having actually been there to witness, I’ll tell you exactly what happened.
he hat a really big stick up his ass and was PMSing already.
he’s always been hyper opinionated and fairly stubborn. As a friend we understand that that’s just the way he is and we deal with it. that night, however, he was out of line. he was upset about more than one thing (which at least one other reason he was upset i knew about but didn’t understand) and he just wasn’t dealing with being upset in an adult manner.
race, gender, nationalism, humanity aside. the problem wasn’t you.
He, as our friend, also should be fairly aware of where we stand in those political issues and how we joke with our friends. He should have completely understood that you were being very not serious.
it was *extremely* obvious to me. even still, the way i saw it was: you said something based on something that you apparently misunderstood, figured out you made a mistake, attempted to appologize for it, and then decided to just let him have it cuz he was acting like an ass.
there. i said it.
crap… i hate when i find typos after submitting
in the previous post, “he hat…” should be “he had…”
Well, in his defense, there are things that push my buttons as well and once they are pushed it takes a while to calm down beyond all reason
I know it was probably meant has a joke but on the “United Statesian” thing it’s called “the United States of America” which is often shortened to “U.S.A.”, ”U.S.” and “America”. It’s not wrong to call myself an American. There is no other country on either continent with “America” in it’s name. (AFAIK)
Until Taiwan Chinese start looking like Martians and speak an entirely different language which is not hybrid or dialect of the Chinese speaking population. That friend of yours will forever remain Chinese in my eyes… that is unless he can somehow change his ancestry which no doubt still hails from China.
I think the argument against “American” is that it’s the name of a continent, or better yet, two continents. So it’s like going around calling yourself “African, Asian, or European,” in other words, claiming two whole continents for yourself.
Not that I advocate this view.
the people of taiwan need to calm down and grow up.
china sees them as (subpar) chinese; the world sees them as chinese.
china owns them. they are chinese.
without that suffocating palm of communism all taiwan would and will be is a poor emulation of the “trendy” elements of hk/japan/korea that speaks a horribly mangled/staccato/monotone version of mandarin.
…to a Taiwanese I’m sure. Finally a heated response. Too bad not enough Taiwanese frequents this place.
Responding to seneschal:
Marxist/Leninist SELFISH values? ahem? errr… dude, where did you learn about communism? american propaganda? did you even READ the communist manifesto?
Communism is MANY things, many many wrong things, but SELFISH is the FARTHEST POSSIBLE from reality! dude, commuuune. share everything. share love, land, vodka. Capitalism is the system built on greed.
Heck, if communism were built on greed, it might have had a fighting chance to work in the real world!
Get your facts straight.
the selfishness and boorishness of chinese people are a result of its 20 year ramp up speed drive to catch up economically to the capitalist world in wealth. Pre DengShouPeng 1980, china was may have been just in line with cambodia or vietnam in terms of “greed”. IE, not much in the common people, all centered in the communist party.
Umm, obviously you took the Communist Manifest too close literally. Did you ever go to China pre-1989? There’s a distinct difference between ideology and everyday behavior.
Selfishness, i.e. self-preservation, is the end result of the Cultural Revolution. In other words, you better save your own skin before worrying about others. The common goal was to hoard everything for yourself but not let others know you have it.
I am Australian, but am usually assumed to be American when I travel in Japan, Korea, HK, Philippines etc. I don’t mind it at all.
I say ‘Australian’, if they ask, but I don’t mind the assumption if they do not.
and how exactly is what you just described different from Capitalism? Except that we are more civil about it?
my point was, and still is: the characteristics you describe are nothing attributed to communism. They are attributed to the poor economic and social conditions in china after the cultural revolution. This has as little to do with communism as singapore’s properity has to do with its dictatorship. Its just a result of bad leadership and policies. There was nothing in communism that stated the requirement for a cultural revolution. It was Mao’s (bad) idea.
As you said, things in theory are different in reality. If communism really worked in theory, then the bad state of affairs would never have come to pass. Ergo, proving beyond all arguement that my point that the selfish conditions had nothing to do with communism itself.
hmmm
I would say your american ?? decent friend was out of line.
But once I heard that taiwanese ppl were persecuted for having democracy as their political idea when they were in main land china.
And as you know, China still pursue communism as their way of ruling the company.
Anyway the difference of the political ideology was the reason why they left china to taiwan by swimming across the sea.
I would rather make joke on how well he can swim…and all.
I’m a bastard..^^
For example : I am Uruguayan but often people ask me about Paraguay.
Attention : Paraguay and Uruguay are two different countries.
They are?
BTW, what does the stem “guay” mean? Is it something like cay or bay?
Paraguay and Uruguay are the names of the rivers,that’s it. This is the only thing they have in common,since Uruguay is much more related to Argentina.
Seriously man, your friends need to chill and take the stick out of thier asses lol…. Me and my friends joke around with each other all the time. If you can’t do a little harmless racial joking between friends, something is really wrong……
Real friends can joke around with the most personal stuff. Like say “hey I want to skullfuck your sister”… “Ok man 12 bucks”
Still the terror is coming, two parties are blaming each other for whatever they got on hand, and inevitably people love to join in , The island is somehow splitting. Taiwan goes for independence, or “Re-union”. I’m fine with both of that, however all this years I found there are plenty of people(count by million) just have to take a side, like “Mr/Ms. seneschal“. History says “Not a single ruling party is 100% perfect and transparent, but as long as it provides what people needs, it can live”, I guess somebody don’t expect China to change or mainland people getting better life after all this “Great Famine” “Cutural revolution” “1989 tiananmen square” happened, I heard guys asked “how could it be under Commies ruled?” Lots of analyst gave their answers, I would say if any ruling party want to live they got to work for the people. CCP or neo-CCP is no exception to this rule.
According to greg:
- You can insult someone, but as long as you think it’s a joke in your own mind you are not at fault.
- Even though the person informs you otherwize, and the joke has clearly ended, it’s ok to continue and mock them further.
- If you are retarded and can’t say something properly, but rather say something completely different than what you meant, it’s fine to not bother correcting yourself and let other people figure it out.
- If you think of a really bad joke, say it.
- If you have full knowledge of somebody’s background, this makes it OK to insult them as long as you apologize and inform them with shit they already know.
Greg, please get a clue. The reason you always get angry responses to your posts is because you are ignorant and stupid.
nowadays. many second generations and first do not care about their past which is wrong! like taiwan. okay i have respect for them because they are different from china, they are democratic but the thing is, they should admit indeed that they are chinese and not japanese or taiwanese. infact the nationality taiwanese is just weird. the people in taiwan estabulished their owe nationality. i do agreed with that fact that they are different from china but why do they distinct all connections with them? afterall, arent they not ashamed? those acestors, before 1945, they were all born and raised in china?..wouldn’t this mean something? and now, many “taiwanese” claim to be japanese? this is just getting way overboard. the only difference is that that they have differnt education and waas raised in a different society. afterall, they are chinese and should not say..they are not.
There are lots of things about politics or history between mainland China and Taiwan which causes the weird situation between the two countries right now. To response the article above, I agree with your opinion that the acestors of people in Taiwan are from China, and actually most Taiwan people can be called Chinese in the racial aspect, but, according to the history and politic situation, Taiwan, the Republic of China, which is a democratic country, is very and totally different from mainland China. However, the Government and people in mainland China can’t admit the truth, and even, they don’t understand how to respect Taiwan people’s rights.
Everybody has watched the recent news: we Taiwan people put on our natinal flag to accept the sport awards, but the contestant from the ” people’s republic of China” just rush to the stage and take off “our country’s national flag”! They always think that Taiwan belong to them, but why? Why Taiwan, a country, is belonged to your country? How ridiculous they are!!! Could you image if the situation is happened to your country? What they have done just prove that thay are crazy and we Taiwanese really don’t want to be connected with them in some ways, because we are different!
Heejin,
I actually don’t think that many Taiwanese people consider or “claim” to be Japanese. They just don’t have an extreme dislike for Japan like a large part of Koreans do. Also, you are wrong about all people before 1945 being born and raised in mainland China. Most of the descendants from the KMT (Chiang Kai Shek’s party) still do consider themselves Chinese and actually now are pushing for the eventual reunification with the mainland. The people that call themselves “Taiwanese” are the ancestors of those who lived in Taiwan since the 1700’s. If you are saying those people should be calling themselves “Chinese” than that is the same thing as saying American’s should be calling themselves British.
As i said before, i do not considered taiwanese and chinese as the same. i believed i also mentioned that taiwanese people have better education than china mainland. what i was trying to proof was that overall, the majority of taiwan is chinese. if u were to talk about back in the 1700s. those real taiwan people are natives. same as canada and america. nowadays when u stepped in taiwan, the majority of people there are no difference than an asian country. But yet if in canada or america, we actually still have raical natives living within north america. and no trust me, nowadays, many claimed “taiwanese” people refused to have any relation with chinese an said they are more japanese…. well im talkin about my generation. sorry for any misunderstandings. many taiwanese people do not give respect to mainland pupils because the tai believes they are different.
And i also rmb this one time when i was hung out with a girl from taiwan. we were out shopping. all of a sudden, this dude comes up to us and ask if we were japanese? well of course i said no, korean. then she kinda hesitated for a bit and said shes chinese. it is VERY obivious if she claime herself as a taiwanese then the white dude woulnt even understand whats she saying. this is jst a litle experience that i had..that i would like to share..haha.
…as an asian american whose ancestry is fairly close to 100% Vietnamese, I get highly offended when someone mistakenly, IGNORANTLY claims to call me Chinese. Not to say there is anything wrong with being Chinese–there isn’t–but usually ignorant people call all asians Chinese. Coming from a small town in Louisiana, there was not too much ethnic diversity..so whenever my ethnicity was brought up, they outrightly call me Chinese. It was if my and other asian cultures didn’t even count.
And there was even people who didn’t know that Vietnam WAS a country.
We all have different cultures that should be cherished. I don’t rightly know your situation..and gosh this post is pretty old..whahaha..but hey, still sticking in my two cents’ worth. I think that your friend shouldn’t have been that angry over it since he MUST know that you know his heritage..I mean..friends jest over everything else..but sometimes you just gotta sit back and laugh..and kick those in the nuts. ^.^
Well, I should say sth. that as Chinese, I don’t like CCP. And I understand that there are certain reasons why some people from Taiwan want to seperate from Mainland China. If people from Taiwan want to claim that they are Taiwanese, that is fine, but what they could deny is, after all, Taiwanese are part of Chinese. And whatever they do, wherever they go, whoever they think they are, the truth is the blood in their body are Chinese forever.
I’m tired of these comments on the apparent caveman behavior of the Chinese. Hell, us Chinese just spit, cuss and break every etiquette rule ever invented according to some people here.
Boorish behavior is present in any country, be it oh so sophisticated America where cussing is a natural part of the majority’s speech, or even Japan, where yes, there are pedophiles, etc. Sure some Chinese people do spit, but out of the millions of Chinese, it is not fair to just collectively call all Chinese “boorish”. Being Chinese is not something to be ashamed of, it is a chance to personally experience 2000 years worth of rich culture, history, and tradition. 我爱你中国！加油！