Epic Racism

[rapana1]

I never had anything even closely resembling the type of Chinese food that people in China eat untill I moved to the suburb where I live now, where there is a decent Chinese population.
All I knew before was takeaway/foodcourt "three toppings on fried rice or noodles".
OMG talk about a revelation!
LOL they mostly still have sweet n sour on the menu, but why go for the Big Mac of "Chinese" food when you can eat the real deal! XD

[iPanda]

My boyfriend also says this...as serious. (He's also Korean. Made in Bucheon )

Lol, I'd say my parents are pretty racist. My grandma would drop lines like, "I met this black girl! She was really nice for a black girl!"
and I'd be all

and there is an older korean saying of "don't trust american/white people!"

and my mom is quite serious about it.

But from what I gather, both my mom and grandma say things based on personal experience. My grandma even went "Don't marry korean guys! Marry chinese men! All koreans are bastards!"
me:

[RealUnimportant]

Firstly, on-topic - surely a swimming baths would have near-constant hot water, rather than having each group of patrons wait for a new kettle to boil?

And secondly, a language lesson:

Another example, a "faggot" is a bundle of sticks. Guess what a lot of Americans think "fag/faggot" means?

The reason that faggots became a derogatory term for gays is because when the punishment for homosexuality was death, the condemned were not considered worth their own stake and so they were trussed & thrown into the bonfires & used as fuel - they were essentially turned into faggots.

[AccountingDrone]

I never had anything even closely resembling the type of Chinese food that people in China eat untill I moved to the suburb where I live now, where there is a decent Chinese population.
All I knew before was takeaway/foodcourt "three toppings on fried rice or noodles".
OMG talk about a revelation!
LOL they mostly still have sweet n sour on the menu, but why go for the Big Mac of "Chinese" food when you can eat the real deal! XD

I am spoiled as "Auntie Grace" went to college with my Grandmother and remained a friend all their lives, so I grew up around real chinese cooking. I can remember going to dinner in a Japanese place in NYC at the age of 5 and amazing the ladies there by being able to use chopsticks. I can't actually remember not being able to use them. I can remember being taken into little Chinese only eateries that were up third floor walkups where there was no menu other than stuff written in chinese on the walls and I can pretty much guarantee that it wasn't General Tso type american chinese food

[I believe I bitched here a while back about an ex roomie scrubbing a wok clean and shiny that belonged to my Grandmother and had been seasoned from the 20s ... ]

[PepperElf]

I'm with you - I love me some delicious, bastardized cuisine. Though not Chinese,

Also, I always have to laugh when I see orange chicken at a "Japanese" place at a food court or something. We have a culture here where most people can't be bothered to distinguish between Asian PEOPLE let alone cuisine, and I just want to shout "YOU'RE NOT HELPING!" That is, after I order an eggroll to go with my sushi... /joke

Then again, sushi is also as Americanized as it gets nowadays, too. And according to wikipedia, fortune cookies had their origin in Japan - though I'd agree that they are about as American as the KFC double down now. Go figure.

This makes me giggle...

mainly cos my bf & I ... one of our favorite chinese restaurants was just a few blocks down from his apt in Japan.

And around here, we have some authentic Japanese food, but it's mingled with Chinese & Korean. O yeah we have lots of Korean food here.

And KFC. ... especially that cos, is insanely big in Japan. They once ran a "Kentucky Fried Christmas" advert and it took off like wildfire. My BF still has a cell phone charm from KFC from Christmas still in the wrapper. Kinda makes me wish I'd tried it then. (plus it's less greasy there too - so I don't know if they'd ever sell the "double-down")

[Seshat]

It gets better, because what she classifies as "Chinese food" isn't really. It's super Americanized Chinese-inspired food!

Around here it's now called 'Asian fusion', and can be Australianised Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese (etc) food - sometimes all of the above available at the same place.
Genuine Chinese/Japanese/Korean/whatever Asian food is available - either at small 'Mom and Pop' places, or the superexclusive ultrahighpriced places. The Mom-and-Pop places might or might not state which locale their recipes are from (eg, Mom and Pop's Sri Lankan restaurant): the fancy ones always do (Swanky Cantonese restaurant).

So while words - in their meaning - may be harmless, people's intent on using it as an insult or implying it is a negative thing turns the word into an offensive/derogatory word. Then society smartens up and realizes that they should stop calling people by this word because it now has a stigma attached to it, and so the word is dropped except by some of the older generations (who just have it ingrained), biggots, and racists.

Like I have 'Oriental' ingrained in its non-derogatory meaning. Gotcha. Well, like I said, I know now and have to make an effort to switch to 'Asian'.

In Spanish, "cockroach" (cucaracha) is used as a term for the vagina.

'La Cucaracha' (the song) is never going to be the same again!

[wolfie]

For example, in New England we call sprinkles "jimmies" apparently, in other parts "jimmies" is a derogatory word for black people. I learned that later, and wondered the same thing.

Another example, a "faggot" is a bundle of sticks. Guess what a lot of Americans think "fag/faggot" means?

My guess is the use of "Jimmies" as a derogatory term for black people is that it's a derivation of "Jim Crow", as in "Jim Crow Laws" meant to get around that pesky constitutional amendment that required allowing people to vote regardless of their ethnic background.

Tho whenever I go out for Chinese or Japanese food, I somewhat gauge how authentic they are by whether or not they sell "pot stickers" or "gyoza".

Why would self-adhesive pictures of a marijuana leaf have any indication as to whether or not a restaurant serves authentic Chinese or Japanese food?

And in Brit slang it's a cigarette.

Which makes Maura O'Connell's Irish Blues safe for work, I guess...

...He stands at the corner
A fag in his mouth
Two hands in his pockets
He whistles me out...

Or the line from "Pack Up Your Troubles" (WWI vintage song):
While you've a Lucifer to light your fag

Or the Disney cartoon about Goofy quitting smoking (probably '50s or '60s)
"That cool fag in the morning"

[AnaKhouri]

When we run into an intelligent race from another planet. Then that attitude will be directed toward 'them' and all people from our planet will become 'us'.

Side note: There is a Frederik Pohl story that addresses this. In the story, men hanging out in a bar are watching TV coverage of an alien being brought to Earth by a NASA mission. They are making jokes about how silly it looks, how it's probably stupid- but all the jokes are the same jokes I have heard my grandparents and other older people make, only in their jokes instead of 'alien' it was 'black person'. (the story was written in the 60s or 70s).

At the end, the bar owner asks his employee, a black man who has witnessed everything, if he thinks the aliens coming will make a difference to humans. The black man says something like, "It's going to make a big difference to me."

[Andara Bledin]

The reason that faggots became a derogatory term for gays is because when the punishment for homosexuality was death, the condemned were not considered worth their own stake and so they were trussed & thrown into the bonfires & used as fuel - they were essentially turned into faggots.

Completely untrue. It's yet another folk etymology; faggot didn't become used to describe gay males until the early 1900's in the US, specifically. Plus, the punishment for buggery was hanging, not burning.

The proper etymology for that usage of "faggot" is actually derived from a derogatory usage against women that likened them to baggage. The shortened form, "fag" is actually directly derived from the word for cigarette as a cigarette was considered less manly than a pipe or cigar, and so, too, an effete homosexual was quite literally less manly.

The more colorful an etymology is, the more likely it is to be completely fabricated.

^-.-^

[RealUnimportant]

I happily stand corrected.