Rice-burner? Don’t be racist Cecil. I’m surprised at you.
Which column are you referring to? Can you provide us with a link?
I’ve heard “rice burner” used for ages to refer to a Japanese made car or motorcycle and don’t find it particularly racist.
This appears to reference **Did Harley-Davidson patent the sound of its motorcycles? Do plants get cancer?
**
Meh. Cecil didn’t say “rice burner.” It was the person who asked the motorcycle question in the first place. Or his acquaintance. Don’t blame Cecil for printing the question verbatim. It still isn’t a racist comment. And the OP is nitpicking an eleven year old column.
The quote above is from **Cecil **not the question. Both used the term.
The origin of the expression was intended as a pejorative against Koreans.
And the way Cecil used it was <motorcycle of foreign make> Lawyer lets call it off. He was not calling the damned lawyer a rice burner. The lawyer works for an oriental motorcycle company.
Reading comprehension is good, m’kay?
I have no difficulty with reading comprehension. I was simply correcting the mistaken post above mine. **Cecil **did use the term, and the term is a pejorative against a race. Make of it what you will. I was not offended by the column.
But your argument lacks a certain, what shall we call it, element of basic common sense. If a term is a pejorative against a group of people and you assign that term to a car, or a lawyer who represents the maker of that car, the original connotation is not in any way lost.
The only thing being insulted there is the Japanese-made motorcycle.
my husband got a basket-case Nipponese Harley. He called it Sake-Burner 
I think you must mean “The only thing *intended *to be insulted…” Whether or not someone takes insult is another thing and in this case, they may have some justification. I don’t take any offense, and it has been a common term in use since my childhood to describe nothing more than a Japanese motorcycle. There are many who do though.
Here is another perspective, from* Bike lust: Harleys, women, and American society* by Barbara Joans
My mistake. Still, meh.
Uh. I’m as politically correct as the next guy… I mean human… (no that contains man… Person (* no that contains son…*) sentient being.
However, rice burner, although a perforative, was never one against Koreans or any ethnic group. It was and almost always has been against forms of transportation, mainly from Japan. If you Google Rice Burner, you’ll find almost all definitions never refer to a particular ethnic group, but to foreign made vehicles.
In fact, like many ethnic slurs, it has become a badge of pride among the customizers of Japanese and Korean cars who prefer the small, light, and well handling cars like the Honda Civic over the lumbering American pony cars like the Mustang. Sure, the American cars have big V8s, but the Japanese cars aren’t hauling around an extra ton in sheet metal. Plus, their overhead cam engines deliver more punch than the older designed pushrods.
Is there jingoism involved. You bet. When the term rice burner was popular, the Japanese cars were built better, got better gas mileage, were more dependable, and sold more than the American cars. As the old saying goes If you can’t beat them, insult their patriotism!
I’m not particularly politically correct, nor offended, nor Japanese or Asian.
My only intention was to contribute a link to the column and a relevant quote but I see a lot of comments that are just plain incorrect so… one more cite. You are incorrect.
Verrry interesting! (Remember ‘Laugh In’?)
No, really. Seriously. That is interesting, I had no idea that the term predated the definition of ‘Jap bike’, Asian auto, etc. (Did I say that right?
) All I’ve ever heard it used in conjunction with was the foreign vehicle thing.
Thanks, Crazyhorse! 
Once again, ignorance successfully fought! 
While that may or may not be the first instance of the term being used (let’s assume for the sake of argument that Wikipedia and its citation are accurate), I doubt seriously that it has a direct connection to its usage as a term for motorcycle. It doesn’t take that much imagination to assign the term “rice burner” to an Asian-made motor vehicle, and someone surely would’ve done it even if these Canadian troops had not (allegedly) used it to describe Koreans.
Crazyhorse, are you of Native American descent?
I don’t know if the existing etymology was why car makers and Detroit loyalists decided to continue using the term for Asian cars or not, but wouldn’t it have been based on the same “racial” grounds? e.g. Asians eat a lot of rice.
Not that I am aware of. And if my username here offends anyone who is it is irrelevant to the reasons someone was offended by the term used in the column. I’m not going down that road because it is a stupid analogy. If we had cars like Matzo-burners, Kraut-burners, curry-burners, etc. I really don’t think we’d even need to have the discussion. And in fact, I still don’t think we need to. A person on the internet took offense, and I think I have done my share of trying to explain why on their behalf.
I was told once that in Chinese the terms ‘Rice-Eating’ and ‘Rice-Burning’ were often applied to devices power by engines and electricity. I don’t know if this was accurate, but it’s possible these terms emerged out of Asian languages.
I’ve never heard the term ‘Rice Burner’ used as anything except a perjorative towards Japanese motorcycles, mainly because they aren’t Harleys. I though it referred to the plethora of small Japanese bikes showing up in the 60s and 70s, that didn’t look or sound like Harleys, sometimes with a 2-stroke whine. It sounds kind of silly when applied to larger bikes like a Honda Goldwing. Bikes from other countries were often similarly derided.
The OED’s first cite for “rice burner” (person) is 1935. First cite for “rice burner” (motor vehicle) is 1973.
So, when somebody else uses a term that some people may find offensive, they have to answer for it? However when you use something that some people may find offensive it is okay?