Posts by Charles Mabbett
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Kowhai, you are a deep thinker and I mean that sincerely. Ben, re: your anecdote about the Asian girl who rejected your invitation. It does raise a lot of questions - how long had you known her? which country was she from? how long had she been in NZ? how well did she speak English? how well did she know your friends? were there going to be other women there? was she going to be the only Asian person there? were you planning on drinking alcohol? As you can imagine there are a lot of possible cultural faultlines to this situation. I would want to know all of these things and more before I could possibly jump to the same conclusions that you have come to. Essentially it sounds as if she didn't trust you enough and that makes perfect sense given that both of you will obviously have very different cultural conditioning.
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And some of the feedback the item received:
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I think you guys need to actually talk to some Asian students and see just how much harassment is out there. Perhaps you could begin by watching this:
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And Ben, being hassled because you've got foreign currency in your wallet doesn't equate to racism. As for the old woman - it seems pretty good humoured to me. I wish I could say the same about having bottles thrown at you and being told to go home from the open window of a passing car.
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Actually most mainland Chinese I know are under no illusions about their country being 'developed'. They are quite sanguine about the label developing country. Which is one reason why they argue that the 'West' needs to cut their country slack in expecting it to meet 'Western' environmental, human rights and labour standards. I have some sympathy for their point of view without excusing the terrible abuses that are taking place. They argue that China will meet those standards in the medium to long term but that it is totally unrealistic that they be met in the present or short term. How it all turns out is of course one of the world's biggest unfolding stories. But I agree that confused is better than complicated.
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Angus writes that if you need to experience racism, you should go to New Delhi and Beijing. That may be so but I can assert that in both those cities, I've never once had a complete stranger come up to me and assault me or abuse me for being a foreigner. The thing that really bugs me about New Zealand is that some New Zealanders think they've got a licence to go up to anyone Asian, or Muslim, or African, in a public place and do just that. Just ask our Asian international students and new Asian migrants. The stories I've heard just make me deeply depressed for this country.
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I think the concept of the West, in a political and economic context, has been loosened considerably to include other developed and democratic countries such as Japan, Taiwan and South Korea. So as you can see, it's a little more complicated.
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It's funny you mention the dead chicken analogy because I've been drawing a parallel between rattling the skeleton of 'Asian crime' and the Monty Python Dead Parrot routine.
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From Wikipedia:
The raw, red coffee berries are part of its normal diet, along with insects, small mammals, and other fruit.
The inner bean of the berry is not digested, but it is believed that enzymes in the stomach of the civet add to the coffee's flavor by breaking down the proteins that give coffee its bitter taste. The beans are excreted still covered in some inner layers of the cherry, and locals then gather them and sell them to dealers.
The beans are washed, and given only a light roast so as to not destroy the complex flavors that develop through the process.
Russell: Can Karajoz get some for the next Great Blend?
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That's very stale news about coffee from civet cats. This from Wikipedia:
Kopi Luwak or Civet coffee is coffee made from coffee cherries which have been eaten by and passed through the digestive tract of the Asian Palm Civet. The animals gorge on the ripe berries, and excrete partially-digested beans in their feces, which are then harvested for sale. This process takes place on the islands of Sumatra, Java and Sulawesi in the Indonesian Archipelago, in Philippines, in Vietnam, and the coffee estates of south India.
Kopi Luwak is the most expensive coffee in the world, selling for up to $600 USD per pound, and is sold mainly in Japan and US but it is increasingly becoming available elsewhere, though supplies are obviously limited.