Monkeybot

I was talking to a girl I know who hails from Hong Kong just the other day. Somehow, the conversation ended up on the topic of racial stereotypes, and having read the fascinating book Chrysanthemums and Thorns, I asked her about Jewish stereotypes.

"I've heard the Japanese view Jews as rich and incredibly smart," I said, half expecting her to completely disagree with me.

Instead, she just kind of looked at me, then said, "Well they ARE."

I blinked a few times, then said "Well, you know, I think they're about the same as everybody else. No dumber, no smarter."

This girl looked fairly surprised, then said, "But they ARE smarter than everyone else! They're God's Chosen People!"

Naturally, at that moment I decided it was best to just smile and nod; we were talking in Japanese and I just didn't know where to even begin disagreeing with her. <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> The funny thing is, she wasn't being malicious at all -- she was just stating this stuff as though it were common knowledge. I may as well have asked her "I've heard that people in Asian countries have a tendency to eat rice."

Now, after talking to this girl, I was really curious. I know that she, being something of a God freak, is fairly different from most Asians I've met, and therefore might not be the most representative person I could've talked to.

(I realize I'm probably overgeneralizing, but it's been my experience that in Japan at least, there is total apathy towards theism. Most Chinese whom I've met are similar. I do realize this is purely anecdotal, but that's what I'm going on for now.)

Anyway, I went home and asked my host parents what they thought of that conversation. They, too, looked at me as though I were stating that the sky was blue. "Well, Jews are smart," my host father said. "And they're rich. Look at Norman Rockefeller."

All of which has really piqued my curiosity. I'm not ready to make any hard and fast claims about Jews and Asia, but this stereotype seems to be fairly prevalent. Of course it's prevalent in most of the world, but what surprises me is how positively Asians seem to view it. WHat I mean to say is -- if I heard an American saying those kinds of things about Jews, I'd immediately expect to hear the old "Jews control the media" and "international Jewish banking conspiracy" canards as well. Instead the Hong Kong girl and my host parents both seemed to view these alleged qualities of the Jews very matter-of-factly, even admiringly.

Anyone out there willing or able to shed some light on this issue?

[ February 20, 2002: Message edited by: Monkeybot ]</p>

alek0

I have a friend who is doing research in social science on the topic of Jewish community in Hong Kong. I can ask her for opinion on this. My impression from few talks with her was that Jewish community in Hong Kong is very active in creating a good image. However, that may not be the point.

The thing people in Hong Kong care about most is money. Doesn't matter how you got it, if you got it they'll respect you and they'll respect you a lot. So I guess that is why. Not only that there is apathy about theism, there is apathy about anything except economy and economy related issues. The protests here on various issues usually have at most ten protesters, nobody except a handful of idealists gives a damn about democracy, environment, dying pink dolphins, etc.

Monkeybot

alek,

With regards to apathy, I have noticed much the same phenomena in Japan. I hate to lump all east Asian countries together, but what you're saying really rings a bell with me. In Japan it seems like not many people really care one way or the other about gods -- they pray if they want to do well on a test, and that's about it.

Nowadays politics here seems to get a bit more attention, but not by much. I've heard, but not read in any definitive sources, that some parents' groups here are protesting the controversial Japanese history textbooks -- the ones that refer to World War 2 "pleasure women" instead of "sex slaves." I'd have to do a bit more reserach to confirm that, but it sounds heartening.

At any rate, if you could ask your friend for her opinion, I would really appreciate that.

alek0

No problem, I'll ask as soon as I see her. She is now teaching at another Univ. so give me a couple of days

As for parents' groups protesting, that sure sounds promising, but don't expect those "groups" to be large

Apathy is really amazing for a number of issues. Here they have recently introduced "infotainment" in public transport, which means you have TV on buses which is set on high volume, with mostly commercials, silly shows with lots of screeching and chattering in cantonese etc. mostly items which will leave you with awful headache after 5 mins. ride. Considering how many people are unhappy with it, number of official complaints
has been surprisingly low. And most of people who complain are foreigners. We gweilo must be really crazy, complaining all the time

What I also find amazing is lack of desire to get a second opinion for medical problems. Here people go see a doctor and just do what doctor says, absolute obedience, no matter how silly or unreasonable or incompetent doctor's recommendation may be. Once I had a misfortune to end up in hospital and have greatly embarassed my chinese friend when to the question "do you have fever" I have answered "you should know, my temperature and blood pressure was taken 5 times in the last hour". By that time, I've really had more than enough of answering te same questions and submitting to same procedures, but according to my friend correct thing to do would be just to meekly submit. And I've never ever seen anyone so shocked as my friend was when I just demanded to sign "discharge against medical advice" form and walked out (after they just wanted to repeat same tests which were negative twice before, and administer same medication I've been on for previous two weeks which did not bring any improvement). Later I've went to another hospital, and got decent treatment there.