[posted to The Age (letters) 8/1/2010 - note: I’m not really looking for employment]
I recently walked into a Chinese massage shop in the CBD and advised them that I knew how to perform massage and asked if they had any jobs available. I received a flat “no”. I proceeded to take down their sign in Chinese advertising for workers and repeated that I was able to perform the most soothing of massages with the greatest therapeutic effect. They resorted to their next reason for refusal: “But you cannot speak Mandarin.” I told them in Mandarin that I certainly could speak Chinese… but this didn’t really seem very important. Westerners who can speak Mandarin aren’t thought of as equals in the same way as Chinese who can speak English.
Consistency please - either display both job advertising and other types of signage in the shop in English or have both Chinese. I wonder how many customers would actually use these shops if they were aware of their employment criteria.
Today I saw a young Asian person with a Tshirt saying 白人看不懂, which means “White people can’t understand” (i.e. what is written). This is a disgusting example of racism taking place against Westerners in Melbourne itself.
Would it be either possible or OK for Westerners to wear tshirts poking fun at any perceived inabilities of Asians? NO!
It’s not “reverse racism”, it’s simply “racism”.
Any Westerner who disagrees with me and wants to justify such a tshirt though some PC madness on their part is a spineless turd.
This appears to be the website (cached version) from which these tshirts originate. On which they say:
Due to high level of racial slurs and obscenities appeared on the wall/discussions, zero-tolerance policy is now enforced. Any racial slurs or obscenities will be deleted Immediately and you will be reported and/or facing indefinite group membership suspension.
NOTE: it is now illegal to post or send messages/emails containing those information on the internet anonymously in the US. Doing so could result in fine, imprisonment, or both.
Total hypocrisy!
And:
The name of this group is a cultural reference taken from Phil Wang’s T-shirt in “Yellow Fever” (see pic), a video made by Wong Fu Productions. It roughly translates to “White people can’t read this.”
The purpose of this group is to acknowledge the fact that Chinese people rock life. This group’s goal is to provide a community within Facebook for Chinese people (or those interested in Chinese culture).
Well, hopefully Chinese people will one day realise that they don’t need to belittle other races to “rock life”.
“Gift voucher” is very useful vocabulary for Christmas. On Wikipedia I noted they are also known as gift certificates or gift cards. Gift coupon is also possible. The Chinese word for these things is 礼券.
Getting one of these is a very nice gesture for any English teacher. It is also a sure way of supporting a shop in which you have received good service, but don’t know what in the shop you should purchase. Also, it reduces the risk of unwanted gifts considerably, which will probably end up on Ebay sometime.
I have faint memories of the one Tangara train that used to run in Melbourne. What a shame it’s still not running. I’d love to take Asher to go for a joyride on it just for fun.
Wikipedia (i.e. anyone on the planet) provides a definition of metrosexual:
a portmanteau of metropolitan and heterosexual, is a neologism of the 2000s that refers to a heterosexual man (especially one living in a post-industrial, capitalist culture) that has a strong concern for his appearance or a lifestyle that displays attributes stereotypically associated with homosexual men.
I live in Melbourne, Australia, which is maybe post-industrial and capitalist.
My concern for my own appearance is moderate to low. I shave daily, but some of my tshirts are over a decade old.
I don’t have a lifestyle that is in any way stereotypical of homosexual men.
That basically rules me out of this trendy-sounding group.
I’d be curious to know whether 型男 is translatable as metrosexual.
Here we are in Taiwan! We flew into Taipei just the other day and we’re staying in a fairly central hotel in the city.
Yesterday we caught the 高铁 train to Taizhong, without any actual plans of anything to do there. Our real objective was to catch the 高铁 itself.
Today we’ll probably go to the 诚品 bookshop. It’s a chain of bookstores, some of which stay open 24 hours!
Last night we jumped in a taxi, and the driver said he’d been to Wuhan, China. That’s where we were a few years ago, for 6 months. He asked us whether we’d ever been to the Yellow Crane Tower which, regrettably, we haven’t. It’s one of the most famous attractions in Wuhan, if you exclude the Three Gorges, which is a little way out of Wuhan itself.
