Yeah...but you're missing the point I'm trying to make here....doesn't matter if from the Chinese side it was justified...it's still aggression from the view point of the rest of the world. You have to look at the other perspectives, not just the pro-Chinese one.
Give it up dude....you're so wrong. You have no idea what my background is and you wouldn't get in 10 years. I'm very proud of my background, I just don't think it's material to an internet discussion forum.
Well, I never "hid" my position....I've only been calling out double standards. To be honest, I hadn't really formulated a position yet until fairly recently as I had to gather more info. I don't think Japan should remove all 14 Class-A war criminals - only those that were directly linked to the atrocities commited similar to what the Nazis did. And let's do keep things in perspective here....the Japanese are not anywhere near countries like Iran, which denies the Holocaust ever happened.
Actually you brought nationality into the conversation by claiming you were American...at which I was indeed a bit surprise because the way you construct your sentences was similar to the way a Chinese person who's english isn't that perfected speaks. I think your nationalism is more indicative then you being Chinese then anything else. As for me....my nationality is American. I was born here in America...and my allegiance is to one and only one country - and that is the United States of America. In my eyes, the greatest country in the world and the country I love dearly and the only country I would die for if it was threatned. Sure it's flawed, but even in it's flaws it's beautiful. There's a magic to this country that not even die-hard flag waving Americans can see..or the radical left...but I see it...and it's in the diversity and ideals that are set out. I truly believe this country is the most benevolent empire to have ever existed, and it is the only nation that is made up of people of all nations and there fore is the best hope for peace amongst all of humanity. Now, do you still need to know what my background is?
It's not really intended to be a reply to your . I've been lazy. If that's where confusion comes from, I sincerely apologize. Yes, you are not a mod, and I don't expect you to, but that doesn't prevent you from calling out rblh without paying too much attention on what has been said. Does it? Now you can certainly call out whoever you feel like to. And you did say you "don't blame him" after finding out more facts. But still, it's more than calling him out, it's "some of you". Well, "some of you" sounds innocent enough by itself. But you later speculate it's "cultural difference". And you asscociate by posting style - "Some post in a style that is similar to posts from openly Chinese speaking members." Well, I don't know what exactly is "Chinese posting style", but it's quite clear you do feel Chinese posters are most inclined to stereotype. To me, for the lack of better terms, that's "stereotyping the stereotyping". That coupled with your other "non-stop China defender" comment, I'm paraphrasing you here, from where I sit...it's offensive. Well, you may not feel this way, or you may still don't know what I'm talking about. In that case, forget what I said, including the above. It's immertial to what's at debate anyway. Oh, btw, I do like the sense of humor.
I think we all should give NewYorker a break and take his words for it. It takes 24th page for me to be sure he's really just trolling, and 29th page for him to state what he really thinks (or maybe not), but I will take his words for it.
Below are the exchanges we had. My US citizen reply was to refute your mis-statement that the Chinese foreign minister is my minister. I have never been a Chinese citizen in my life, so I was debunking your utter false statement. You still were the one that first ask the question regarding my ethnicity. Not really, but I will take a shot at getting you to pony up $25 in my name to the tip JAR.
michecon, regarding rblh, you may have noticed that this thread is now 30 pages. I post in a lot of different threads, and not only in this forum. Frankly, it amazes me that I can keep up with myself. When it was pointed out that I hadn't commented on that, I did so immediately. I'm not even sure if rblh acknowledged it. That's cool, either way. As for the second thing I bolded, you may not realize it, but I can certainly get a fairly decent read on what amounts to a written speech pattern that is common to Chinese speaking members here. It's not that difficult. I may get it wrong on occasion, but I'm usually close to the mark. And the more upset that poster is when doing his/her posting, the more obvious it is. So what? You find that offensive? It's not stereotyping at all. If I meet someone in person, I can get a good idea of if they are from Texas, Alabama, the Midwest, the West Coast, or the Northeast by their accent. In Texas, I can get a pretty good idea of if they're from East Texas, or Central Texas by their accent. I'm sure a New Yorker, a native, can tell which part of the city someone is from by their accent. A Londoner can do the same. Guess what... there is a certain amount of the same difference in how a person writes here that can give one, if they are paying attention, some idea of their background. If someone were paying attention to my own writing style, it wouldn't be hard to figure out that I was a hippie in the '60's by the slang I use. So I have nothing to apologize for. If I get someone wrong, and I usually don't mention it, so it doesn't matter, all I can say is that it's obviously a very inexact "science." You read way too much into some of the comments made on this board, certainly by me. In my opinion. As for the China Defender comment? I thought that was pretty clever. I deliberately did that to keep from doing what you seem to be complaining about regarding "stereotyping." By using that, I was able to put you, and some of the rest of you, in a group, based on where you were coming from in the thread, without getting into whether someone was of a Chinese background, but living outside of China, a Chinese decendent who, like many Latinos here who don't speak Spanish, but might get bent out of shape by criticism of Mexico, a Chinese speaking immigrant, an American-born person who's parents moved here and speak Chinese in the home... as you can see, the possibilities are endless, as they are with other people who are immigrants from a country whose language is not English, a student here from same, the son or daughter of native speakers of a different language... blah, blah, blah. Believe me, you are only one ethnic group, wherever you reside. This country is nothing but a nation of immigrants. My wife's mother immigrated here from a non-English speaking country. We all came, at one time or another, from somewhere else. No offense, but get over it. In that regard, you ain't special, and in my case, I'm not doing anything but going way out of my way to be polite. Why I bothered to write all this is a mystery to me. It's irritating that many of you are so freakin' sensitive about all this sort of stuff. Get over it. I just spent too much time addressing it, and I won't again. If you think I'm somehow stereotyping many you, that is your perception. It is not my reality. You're welcome. Keep D&D Civil.
You are not reading it right. I suppose it's due to my English. Whatever, like I said, forget about it. I'm looking forward to your next "here in the States" speech.
Thank you but I'm not sure I deserve the adulation. I can tell you I get as upset as Wnes and other Chinese posters over this issue what I'm trying to do though is to focus on the issue and not on the personalities of the debaters. What I'm also trying to do is to promote understanding and I think if you understood why the Chinese and other Asians are so touchy about this issue you might be more forgiving of the Chinese posters and there zealousness. Then again this might just be an Asian thing that doesn't translate. I knew this girl who's father survived Auschwitz. While in general she was really cool and easygoing when it came to Israel she became ridiculously extreme to the point of saying that she wanted to bomb a US city because the US really didn't support Israel. Crazy yes, but if you consider her family background and knowledge that Jews had at one point been systematically exterminated it was almost understandable that she would have such a defensive attitude regarding the Jewish state. In a way that is how many Asians feel about the Japanese. There are still people alive who will tell you how Japanese officers competited with each other to see which one could decapitate more prisoners. I've seen pictures of the most depraved violations committed to women, men and even children by the Japanese army for sport. I talked to elderly Singaporeans who can still tell you how the Japanese troops came down Bukit Timah and Dunearn Roads massacring everyone in sight. In the end maybe its only having that sort of background makes it understandable why glorification of such a past is so morally repugnant.
The Japanese have the right to do so but this is something they could do privately and at the sametime own up to their history in their textbooks. I don't deny that Japanese leaders have made public apologies but these apologies in many ways are akin to Yasser Arafat forswearing violence in English while still advocating for it in Arabic. In regard to this being a Chinese problem does that mean that its also a Korean problem, a Malay problem, a US Pacific Vets problem? The people arguing for the Japanese keep on trying to reduce it to the PRC vs Japan when its anything but. Let me give you an analogy. Lets say you live in a multi-ethnic neighborhood and you have a neighbor who routinely goes around calling blacks "n^ggers" and hispanics 'sp^cs'. Now this neighbor isn't, violent takes care of his house, and even helped look after your house while you were on vacation. He's not a bad neighbor but he's a racist and offending your black and hispanic neighbors. Now should the rest of the neighbors just get over it and let him be a racists afterall he has a right to free speech or should you and the rest of the neighbors let him know that his attitudes and language are incredibly offensive and causing bad feelings in the neighborhood. Is it his problem that he's a racists or is it the rest of the neighborhood's problem that they are sensitive when it comes to calling blacks 'n^ggers' and hispanics 'sp^cs'?
Yao Ming Kicks Ass, you are seriously kickin' some ass with this post. It's what a lot of folks don't get. It's like my wife's cousin in the Netherlands, who spent some years in a Nazi concentration camp in Holland, and got to not only see Jews and Gypsies shot every day, but buried them as well. He is the head of a very large, prestigious private school there today, a highly educated man, and he still can't stand seeing young Dutch people hanging out and having fun with young German people who are visiting his country. He never visits Germany, which is hard from his country if you travel a lot by train, and he travels a lot. He told us, after showing us the site of the camp, now mostly a forest, that intellectually it's wrong for him to feel that way... that he knows those young Germans had nothing to do with any of it, but he just can't help how he feels. And that he never says anything to anyone about it, but found us easy to talk to, and knew we would be returning to the States, and thought we should know how some people who were there at that terrible time felt about it, because most people had no idea. It was a great experience to visit with him. Very enlightening. Keep D&D Civil.
Well aren't you just Professor Henry Freakin Higgins.. You just like that I put "Yao Ming Kicks Ass" in my sig.
It's really simple. Substitute Japan with Germany; substitute China/chinese with Israel/Jews; imagine, somehow, there's a shrine in Germany with war criminals in it. Now sit back, and see how this board react. With that, this is my last post on this topic.
Yeah, there are many Japanese decedents who can claim themselves American. Nationality doesn't matter as much as your ethnical background.
I just did not have time to reply. I have been on this BBS board a long time and I have taken you for a level headed guy. Thus, it became an non issue when you said you did not know NewYorker ask the question first. I was never upset that NewYorker ask the question about my ethnicity. I personally do not consider such a question offensive. The only time I were upset was my perceiving of your double standard because I thought you have read the exchanges between us. I am not sure if there is such thing as a Chinese written speech pattern. I don’t think being upset can be considered a Chinese posting style. There are just way too many different personality within the Chinese ethnic group. Your are talking about Texas, right! I must have lived in the wrong neighborhood. Thems are Fightin' Words Sammy is allowed to fly I thought he would have been on the no-fly list given his track records on this board.
No I can understand...I've know what oppression is - i've experience numerous times in my life. What I try to do is challenge people to think differently. I think you are the type of person who tries to get people to think in new ways by subtle means - and I respect that....where as I am someone who goes head on and does it in a very blunt manner, which tends to provoke strong reactions. But that's ok...i know this and accept it, and it's why I have very thick skin. As for the reactions....well, I can understand your Jewish friend and her emotional reaction in wanting to defend a Jewish state....sure, it's painful...but still...at the end of the day - it's wrong. It's one thing to feel anger and be upset....it's another to translate that into hate. By translating it into hate (and let's be clear that's what is really happening)....then the cycle continues. We know there is much hate toward Israelis from Muslims...but what is often hidden is the hatred Israelis have for Muslims. I know for a fact that this is the case. And I know many Chinese hate the Japanese. Hatred. It's an awful thing, and I smell it strongly on this board. Not from you Sishir...but some other posters....I can feel it, and I counter because hatred is never justified. Never. Hate and anger are the basis for so much evil in the world. And if the Chinese posters don't understand that they are going down the same path as the ones they criticize so much....then I'm here to call it out.
