No, this is not some sort of rant. I was discussing stereotypes with a friend of mine the other day (actually we were trading insults in a light-hearted manner, and i ran out faster than he did) and it occured to me that there’s a lot of asian stereotypes. I’ll try to compose a list.
-Quiet, studious asian student.
-Grinning short asian businessman.
-Whore-loving asian businessman.
-Engrish speaking schoolgirl with flashing lights.
-Asian vegetable shop owner.
-The venerable old martial arts master.
-The ninja.
-Dog eater.
-Whore (me love you long time)
-Obedient mail order bride.
Maybe this is because i’m an asian myself and are more aware of these, but I was hard-pressed to find another minority group with as many stereotypes.
Care to add to the list or theorize why this is?
The british have more stereotypes for themselves than almost anyone, I reckon. Hundreds. It’s what Monty Python and Terry Pratchett use that make them so brilliant.
You also forgot several. There seems to be more ways Asians have entered America and the American conciousness than other ethnic minorities. We also have watched some Asian movies and learned some stereotypes from there. There have been many immigration paths for Asian, not to mention so many different parts of Asia for Asians to come from, while in contrast most African-Americans took one of just a few paths to America, the main one being slavery. Also Asians could appear in movies to generate these stereotypes you see and the movie could still be shown in all of America. Back in the bad old days, if you showed a black in a role outside of certain sterotypes, the movie would have to be altered to be shown to southern audiences. There seems to have been fewer restrictions in depicting Asians.
If you totaled all the European steretypes then you would get as many as the stereoptypes of Asians, the difference being that not as many American confuse Germans and French as they do Japanese and Chinese or worse yet, Koreans and Vietmanese. Many Americans think of Asians as one group and Europeans as a bunch of groups.
How many stereotypes can you come up with for, say, white males?
Ozzie from the Outback
So. Cal. surfer dude
London banker
Minnesota farmer
Little Italy homeboy
San Francisco hippie
Texas oilman
Afrikaaner
Railroad bum
Espanola lowrider
Big Hair metal guitar player
Catholic priest (in the Rectory basement)
Infomercial real estate tycoon
French chef
German policeman
Dutch Moderator
blah, blah, blah…
I’d actually take the opposite view from lee and surmise that most Americans don’t think of “Asians,” but rather do percieve them as Vietnamese, Japanese, Indonesian, etc.
But those are white american stereotypes of whites, the majority. But i was thinking more in terms of the majority’s stereotype of a minority group in america. I’m quite sure where i’m going with this. Maybe i’ll just shut up before i embarrass myself a little bit more.
Don’t, okay? You aren’t embarrassing yourself. You posed an interesting–and coherent–question. It’s the nature of the place to wander way around, chasing ideas back and forth.
Moderator’s note::
And happyheathen? Knock off the bullying. The post was fine. Your cheap shot wasn’t. Consider yourself warned.
Maybe I didn’t. It’s hard to know, with print.
(And don’t anybody take that, for one second, as an endorsement of smilies, the fleas of written communication.)
I went with the overall tone of the OP, and tried to interpret in context; how the response fit into the question. The OP seemed sincere, and intimidated by the response. FWIW, I read the post the same way.
It’s borderline, but on re-reading, maybe hh’s pointed irony does fall on the other side; only fair to void the warning.
That’s brilliant. Of course, spoken communication has its own parasites: verbal ticks.
Zoe, good call on the bad-driver stereotype. I’ve heard people go so far as to claim that the epicanthic fold gives asians a smaller FOV, so they can’t tell what’s happening in traffic. Riiiight.
Another one that goes way back–
–Smuggler. Especially drug smuggler. (Early in the last century, anything remotely connected to China was code for heroin. Few people remember the original reason it was called “Junk”)
:wally