What is Racism?

[SatanicSheep]

These days "ignorant farmers" is just what he calls all mainland chinese, whether they are actual farmers or not.

Ahhh I see. I thought it may have been a case of your friend calling a spade a spade and just using less than polite terms.

I should have grasped that earlier because here in Korea there is a similar sentiment amongst the foreign population to refer to Koreans as "peasants in suits."

I really feel where you coming from because I try and defend Koreans from this idea but they can make it extremley difficult when they can be seen dressed to the nines, drunk off their ass and urinating/blowing snot rockets in the middle of the street.

I think the difference is that your friend is engaging in bigotry and making much more of a blanket statement about people while people like you and I and foolmeonez are pointing out incidences of uncouth behavior.

Yes apologists will call you a racist for pointing out unseemly things other people do. I'm fine with it. Some things are just universally repellant and no amount of dressing it up as "culture" will change that.

 

[Foolmewunz]

Robo,
My comment on Blake was in reference to the syndrome many expats go through over here. Blake had his Songs of Innocence (Little Lamb, Little Lamb....) and then their counterpart in Songs of Experience (Tiger, Tiger Burning Bright...) But he later said that he saw a third state-that of Enlightened Innocence.
We liken the expat experience here to that. It's not original - I think I stole it from my first Lonely Planet guide - Taiwan. When you first arrive you want to suck up everything Chinese, avoid westerners and everything is just wonderful and unique and exotic. If you make it through whatever your threshold is for that viewpoint, many get completely jaded and bitter, without actually changing their love of China/Chinese. They just become critical of everything.
The third state - enlightened innocence - comes after a bit of a hangover from the jaded/critical state, when you really do feel at home and feel that you can criticize on an equal footing, just as you could've (in my case) back in New York or Montreal. And you'll identify the bad parts as bad parts and good parts as good parts (and a whole lot of in-between).

I'm in Shanghai tonight through Friday morning. Unfortunately don't have much time as I'm chairing a meeting, but something might free up around Thursday PM - but only a slight chance. Drop me a PM if you're around. (I'm at the Sheraton Four Points because it's close to my office.)