8Asians.com - Latest Comments in Mister Wong, the Offensive Social Bookmarking Portal

Re: Mister Wong, the Offensive Social Bookmarking Portal

chrale — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 08:14:19 -0000

As a Chinese guy who has studied in Germany, I would have to agree that the Germans are far more friendly towards Asians than in America.

In Germany, the white Germans tend to have a very positive view of Chinese people. The Germans tend to have very positive stereotypes about Chinese people being very intelligent and hardworking.

It is a lot easier for Chinese men to be accepted as an equal in Germany than in America.

In Germany, Chinese people used to be highly respected and most of the Chinese men used to marry white German girls.

As a Chinese man, I take it as a positive compliment from the Germans that some German internet company has thought positively about Chinese people being smart, friendly and appealing to the German internet consumer market by choosing a Mr Wong logo.

I am very flattered. Thank you sincerely, Germany from the bottom of my heart.

Just like I took it as a positive compliment that many nice German girls thought positively of me and wanted to go out with me just because many German girls had positive stereotypes about Chinese guys being mysterious, exotic and highly attractive for white German girls.

Re: Mister Wong, the Offensive Social Bookmarking Portal

chrale — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 08:14:19 -0000

As a Chinese guy who has studied in Germany, I would have to agree that the Germans are far more friendly towards Asians than in America.

In Germany, the white Germans tend to have a very positive view of Chinese people. The Germans tend to have very positive stereotypes about Chinese people being very intelligent and hardworking.

It is a lot easier for Chinese men to be accepted as an equal in Germany than in America.

In Germany, Chinese people used to be highly respected and most of the Chinese men used to marry white German girls.

I am very flattered. Thank you sincerely, Germany from the bottom of my heart.

Re: Mister Wong, the Offensive Social Bookmarking Portal

omfg — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 19:15:20 -0000

stop crying and be serious.

Re: Mister Wong, the Offensive Social Bookmarking Portal

aknet — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 02:47:48 -0000

Hello boys and girls,
I came back to say: "I´m sorry!". I´m new to the internet-business and I am working a lot with social bookmark-sites... Sometimes I comment articles before thinking about it. Well, this happened yesterday. Fact is, I am not interested in politics but I was always (and will always be) against racism and I never get tired of fighting against racial prejudices. If you guys feel like you were treaded wrong and Mr. Wong reacted in the way to change it´s logo, this is a very respectable reaction. I hope, more companies would take this example as a good advice. Peace - atothek

Re: Mister Wong, the Offensive Social Bookmarking Portal

aknet — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 03:05:19 -0000

Ha Ha, isn´t it true that chinese people concentrate in one part of town? Didn´t the americans hunt down the indians? and what´s about the african-slaves? Green-cards? Building walls against Mecixo and what´s about the war in afganistan? You guys should take care of your own. - stupid america -rofl-

Re: Mister Wong, the Offensive Social Bookmarking Portal

erikb — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 15:48:51 -0000

I'm surprised after all the misplaced outrage, that nobody has referenced the old Icebox.com Mr. Wong cartoon (came out in the late 90's early 2K's). Or the full length movie of that character put out by National Lampoon in 2004. (You can find that at Amazon)

You can still watch the original flash episodes on icebox.com, and I'm sure they will be FAR more offensive to your gentle sensibilities.

Also, I'm surprised that this bookmark portal hasn't been sued by the owners of "Mr. Wong"

Re: Mister Wong, the Offensive Social Bookmarking Portal

Guest — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 21:03:39 -0000

@Thuan Phan:
>> "...They condemn america in every way that they can but they had forgotten that it was america who held on to west berlin..."

America did not "hold on to" West Berlin. West Berlin was – and still is – part of the Federal Republic of Germany. That status was not being challenged by anyone so I don't know what you're sucking out of your thumb there.

>> "... and later defeated the communists"

I'm sorry to disappoint you, but America did not "defeat the communists". There are millions of communists alive and well today, as we speak! But you're were probably trying to refer to the disintegration of the Soviet bloc. Well, *that* was the result of a long process in which internal changes had played a much more important role than America flexing its muscles.

>> "...and eventually saved east Berlin."

Yeah. After which they ventured to save Moscow. And then Mars.

@Zanzibar:
>> "Europe has never been known for being politically correct."

Thank (insert name of your supreme divine being/concept here) for that. In Europe we – at least those of us who aren't idiots – have intercultural competence. We use reason, common sense and plain old human respect. We don't make a big deal about it. Personally, I'm happy that here I'm not surrounded by your type of PC, which stinks of paranoia, lack of self-confidence and an utter disregard of diversity. If that last part seems confusing, meditate on it.

Unfortunately, and this will thrill you, no doubt, there *is* a slow trend here in Germany that some people are adopting American PC paranoia. They are usually a) timid business folks who think they have to conform to such nonsense in order to be regarded as "modern" or b) loser type personalities who, after having abandoned various other bogus fads, need something new.

@ Ms. Wong:
>> 'Eric - open a competing site: “Herr Schulz - Master of the Bookmark Concentration Camp” '

Wow, you're a marketing wiz: 'Concentrating', i.e. 'collecting into one space' bookmarks / 'camp' as a term for the users of this service. Not bad!

Okay, but seriously... anyone who actually thinks "German" --> "Concentration Camp" is a logical and appropriate analogy: Please do us all a favour and go fuck yourself.

Finally, I'd like to join others in asking Ernie to remove the word "Christ". You are using the name of Christ in vain. Millions of Christians are offended. How can you do this? North Americans obviously have no idea about the long hard way Christianity has come and has had to stand up against its opressors throughout the centuries. Do you know how many people were killed by the Romans just because of their religion?

Probably not as many as those people killed by the Mao regime (current estimates ca. 40.000.000), but hey. Speaking of which: As others have pointed out, now that the evil offending oh-so-stereotypical cartoon man has been removed, Mr. Wong currently sports a red pentagonal star (which, for those in North America who may not know, is a symbol of communism/socialism) next to its logotype. Anybody remember Tiananmen Aquare '89? The government of the People's Republic of China did certain things to its citizens that I won't spell out here, for the benefit of North American sensitive souls. But anyway, nobody seems to care about that star and to quote you, Ernie: This makes me INCREDIBLY FUCKING ANGRY.

Re: Mister Wong, the Offensive Social Bookmarking Portal

Matthi — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 19:37:29 -0000

This is just ridiculous.

The main reason a cartonn is a cartonn its cause its stereotyping...Your attitude reminds me to the story we had last year here against the danish cartoons about Allah..meanwhile these has been drawing with the idea to link allah with islamic terrorsim, what for sure can offend islamic ppl, I cant see any offense in a friendly somewhat stereotypike looking asian guy...less as he isnt used in any racist context against/about the "asian race"....

Have you ever seen a frenchman fooling around cause he did not like the way the french were drwan in the Asterix & Obelix comics or even better an italian fooling about how the romans were drawn ??

Someone beeing offended by a cartoon like that need some professionell help rather than asking to take a logo down...

The way you argue could work for everything..that way you could aks to take off nearly everything on earth...and I cant see how this logo might fit in any "political correctness" debate as this is about anything but politics and at any point this cartoon is used to claim : THIS is what the average asian dude is looking like....and just in north america it can be understand this way..this is just ill man !

If you wanna write some lines about "political correctness" you´d better spend some time on "your" iraq war.

Re: Mister Wong, the Offensive Social Bookmarking Portal

Thomas — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 10:12:38 -0000

Are you envy that in Europe an American Website isn’t the biggest social bookmarking website? So you try attack the website with a killer phrases: racism or you called political correctness. People like you make me sick. How dare you that you can speak for a billion Asian people? This typical American Chauvinism. If it will in USA wrong it has to be in the whole world wrong.
I had to laugh after I read that mainland Chinese doesn’t see any offence. For mainland Chinese and me is Mister Wong a friendly business man. There is nothing wrong. You can find thousand of pictures of this type of Salarymen (サラリーマン) in Mangas.

It’s like Helen Lovejoy from the Simpsons:” Will someone please think of the children?”

Re: Mister Wong, the Offensive Social Bookmarking Portal

Akrypti — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 00:20:28 -0000

Actually, Don Dreizehn, I want to commend you for your very well written comment. I'm glad I had the opportunity to hear your perspective on this issue, even though it is more or less an issue that is (thank goodness!) out of our minds now. Your English is fantastic! It's much, MUCH better than my German.

Re: Mister Wong, the Offensive Social Bookmarking Portal

Don Dreizehn — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 21:52:10 -0000

Sorry for this not very up-to-date comment. I'm from Germany and just want to give a statement:

Nobody cares about this logo in Germany! Why? Because we are racists? Hell no! I think our history made our nation to a very non-racist one. I mean, to let never happen things like the WWs again, our kids get teached about history, cultural differences and to respect other nationalities their whole school life. And most of them understand it.

Which makes us a culture, in which often isnt thought about "differences" anymore. Meaning: If I see a black, asian, whatever guy, I dont think: "Hey, a black/ asian/ whatevver guy!". I just think: "Hey, a guy!"

Americans are more "racist" in that case. Not in the meaning of hating the other race, but in recognising that there is a difference.

A result of our thinking is, that we dont care about funny pictures of germans with bierbauch and lederhosen or fat, smiling chinese guys. Its just a funny picture. Nothing bad. Thats what we think.

Now I realized, that other countries are not thinking like this. I really think its because the racial differences in them, so they cannot relax and dont care about jokes from an other race about their own. It is not an attack! Really not. We just make fun of every race, because we dont the differences. Why only make jokes about our own? We are all the same!

So please dont be too angry with us. Of course its right to tell us what you think, we dont want to hurt anybodys feelings. But Im just afraid, that our image may get even worse than it already is. I mean: We have a few racist here. There are attacks on foreigners just because of their skin color. But really not many. And we fight those as hard as we can. Its not even a half percent of us, thinking bad like these guys. But they are always the ones, who are shown in foreign media.

Confused text? Sorry. Just got up a few minutes ago, and english is, of course, not my mother tongue... :D

Re: Mister Wong, the Offensive Social Bookmarking Portal

Falco — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 11:27:42 -0000

As a german guy who has lived in Asia for a long time let me just tell you what I think - there's no point in convincing anyone here: This is absolutely riddiculous.

I came to China to visit my girlfriend who was in Beijing for an internship. At first I didn't want to. I wasn't interested in Asia. I fell in love with China.
I came back three years later to study the Chinese language. Another year later, last year, I went back to work in Hong Kong and Shanghai.

There hasn't been a single stay in Asia where I was not sitting together with people in the streets. We went to the cheap food places, dirty, shabby, but delicious. We called the owners Mom and Dad and they loved it. I smoked my first - and my last - cigarette because a chinese restaurant owner offered it to me to show respect for his gift. We have been sitting together for the first time, trying to make conversation, barely able to understand each other because I just started learning Chinese - he brought us delicious food.

God damn, there hasn't been a single visit where we haven't sit down, laughing about each other's stereotypes and having fun together. At the end of the day, no one really cares. No one needs to care. The comparison with concentration camps is lame, it's not valid. The world has changed. People have changed. I like looking at this Mr. Wong cartoon guy, he reminds me of real people I have met and of people I really like. There is no offense. You know what? Each and every time some chinese guy called me long nose or lao wai, my chinese reply was "Bu shi lao wai. Wo shi beijing ren" They laughed and in case we've seen each other again because we were hanging around in the same places, it was good for a laugh. They called me chinese long nose in the end. I loved it.

Seriously, there's no point this fuzz get's any kind of understanding from my side. What makes me sad is that the mr. wong guys don't have the balls to bring this discussion to an end. Hiding your head in the sand and removing the cartoon is simply not the right decision how to handle this.

Re: Mister Wong, the Offensive Social Bookmarking Portal

Barry — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 21:31:45 -0000

Pfff this pc bs is even more laughable and boring than Karate Kid IV..

Re: Mister Wong, the Offensive Social Bookmarking Portal

leonard — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 06:52:35 -0000

Let me say that I, as a German living in Germany, do have as many stereotypes in my head as you have - that is because it´s simply how the human brain works. And I find the "mr. wong"-illustration and the claim you quoted dumb and lame. That far I would agree with you.

But:

I entertain the suspect of you being a bit overaxious in terms of your cultural roots. In my opinion the so called "political correctness" practiced in the U.S. is based on fear, lack of self-esteem and misunderstood sensitivity of other peoples feelings.

I really hope your view of the world is not that narrowminded as it appears to be. You´re obviously of younger age (as I am too), so perhaps your sense of proportion will develop into a good direction.

P.S.: Do you know the episode "The Chinese Woman" of the series "Seinfeld"? Look at it and let me know if you find that funny. I think it is hilarious.

Re: Mister Wong, the Offensive Social Bookmarking Portal

austrianbornchinese — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 01:34:34 -0000

As someone of chinese decent who grew up in an all austrian environment i can tell you why the cartoon and the slogan bother me. It reminds me of kindergarden when the other kids used to sing "ching chang chung chinesen sind nicht dumm, chinesen in die ecke scheissen...." the song was most of the time finished with a knock on my head, it also reminds me of middle school and high school where people who disliked (had a grunt against me temporarilly) greeted me with "schlitzi" (slantyeyed). It reminds me of the time when i served in the military (mandatory civil service time) when unteroffiziere and offiziere and fellow recruits greeted me with ching chang chung instead of hallo or servus which by the way i understand. It reminds me of people i dont know in the streets, at university, at bars, in "public libraries!" calling me schlitzi.
Maybe it isnt a slur maybe i just dont have any balls and am too oversensitive with this whole issue.
Maybe one day the world will have changed so drastically that germany is poor and famillies will emigrate to china to open brauhaeuser offering german beer. their kids grow up in an all chinese environment and the other kids taunt them because of his nose calling him long nose and pushing him around while saying that. I think the kid is ddoomed to dislike "long nose"
I have pride and thats why i wont look the other way when people insult me! Yes there are other racial issues, but this one shows how inattentive people in germany and austria are concerning the feelings of austrian born chinese.

Re: Mister Wong, the Offensive Social Bookmarking Portal

Jot — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 13:28:27 -0000

bullshit.

Re: Mister Wong, the Offensive Social Bookmarking Portal

Zanzibar — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 07:09:16 -0000

I agree that it's pretty uncalled for, that image of Mister Wong. Europe has never been known for being politically correct. It'll take time for them to come up to speed, but with the influx of immigrants, I'm sure that lesson will soon be learned.

As for the ask jeeves, I really don't see why that's offensive. When English writer P G Wodehouse wrote his novels and the valet's name was Jeeves, I don't think anyone in England was offended. The name became synonymous with being a knowledgeable figure (and the character was a classic English butler).

At least my English friends aren't offended.

Anyway, they're going to change the logo.

Re: Mister Wong, the Offensive Social Bookmarking Portal

TeaJunkie — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 22:17:18 -0000

Well, first of all, congratulations, you made Mister Wong even more popular in the whole world, no one I know did hear about that site before the "8angryasians" scandal.
If you have a problem with the old and now not used logo, ok, it is your right to be offended by anything you want, or at least I think your constitiution gives you the right.
If you ask why a german company would ever consider to assosiate with a chinese man as their only logo, well it IS because of the chinese stereotype, which is most common in Germany, chinese people are considerd extremly DILIGENT in Germany. Yes, it is a stereotype, stone the Germans to death for it.
Considering the U.S.A. vs. Germany discussion here, it is always the same, you guys do not have any thing to say about the aspect of the discussion, so you fall back to racism, every time the same thing. Both countries have their problems, but what does that have anything to do with a cartoon of a chinese man?

Re: Mister Wong, the Offensive Social Bookmarking Portal

Thuan Phan — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 01:45:18 -0000

What gives the people who are responsible for this depiction (who are caucasians by the way) the rights to represent a typical Mr. Wong of the world. I too, wont mind a little ethnical parody from time to time, but the rule of thumb is: the author of such parody has to be of the same race of the content of the joke. As for the hypothetical "Mr. Honkey and fat, beer drinking bavarian" logos, they're reasonably acceptable because they're derived from those who had personally gone through these sterotypical experiences on first hand, and it's not up to the people from outside of the ethnicity to decide how to create stereotypes they've never experienced. In other words, how would you feel if the creators behind the boston celtic and minnisota viking logos is in fact Asian? Im an Asian American and here in America, we respect each others boundaries, which is how this melting pot of cultural diveristy of a country is brought together with the understand for our needs to respect one another. You speak of racial equality in your country, but tolerate such racial degradation, which explains how divided you are. You would judge a person based on preconceived notions, and are willing assassinate your own ethnical image in exchange. Why can't people be just people instead of these "mythical geneouses, kung fu masters, skillful fry cooks, and addictive gamblers" like you portrayed them to be. Because the truth is: They dont give a shit how much you like to drink or what kind of pants you like to wear. And what does Mr. Bush and his foreign policy has to do with this? Germany is known to be an advanced society in technology, but it's obivious that they are falling behind in history. They condemn america in every way that they can but they had forgotten that it was america who held on to west berlin and later defeated the communists and eventually saved east Berlin. America is home of the brave where men have the balls to stand against all that is evil and tyranical in this world. The next time you want to scrutinize American policy, I want you to remember this: In a soccer game, there are two teams involved. The winners will go home with victory, the opposition will go down in history as losers, and spectators on the sidelines will never be heard of, know of, or seen from.

Re: Mister Wong, the Offensive Social Bookmarking Portal

Ms. Wong — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 05:16:02 -0000

Eric - open a competing site: "Herr Schulz - Master of the Bookmark Concentration Camp"

Re: Mister Wong, the Offensive Social Bookmarking Portal

Vox — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 18:18:28 -0000

First, I'd like to note that it's entirely possible to write about "trivial" racism like the Mr. Wong logo and still care about "real problems" like Iraq and Afghanistan, to those of you who think that people can't multitask. And whoever talked about stereotypes of Germans in the U.S. might be interested to know that most white U.S. citizens and plenty of POC are of German descent or have German ancestry. Those Oktoberfests are people celebrating their heritage, not some mockery of Germany.

That aside, I think that the dissenters here ought to take a look at How to Suppress Discussions of Racism.

Media images can be powerful. A media image that portrays Chinese people as slant-eyed mystical "masters" instead of actual people (especially when it seems like so many images of Asians in non-Asian media are of mystical martial arts masters, supersmart nerds with no social skills or FOB stereotypes with broken English) can be really damaging when there aren't any positive depictions as well.

Re: Mister Wong, the Offensive Social Bookmarking Portal

King of Cyberia — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 06:24:25 -0000

I am American Born Chinese, and though I wonder what inspired the Germans to name their site after Chinese I'm not very offended like the Politically Correct Police. If the users of Mister Wong dot com are okay with it, what's the harm?

Jeez, who are the real Nazis here? It sure aint the Germans.

Re: Mister Wong, the Offensive Social Bookmarking Portal

Franz Patzig — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 06:09:58 -0000

One more thing: Here is a photo of the opening ceremony of the Soccer Worldcup 2006 in Germany, one the biggest sports events worldwide. The organizers were playing with what you call stereotypes. Dancers in traditional clothing - not German but Bavarian. It was wonderful and that's maybee the better way to do it.

http://www.flickr.com/photo...

Re: Mister Wong, the Offensive Social Bookmarking Portal

Bert — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 04:35:40 -0000

Ernie, Du machst Deinem Namen alle Ehre...

In diesem Fall hättest du dich lieber nochmal von Bert, Samson oder Tiffy beraten lassen sollen.

Re: Mister Wong, the Offensive Social Bookmarking Portal

alles — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 23:41:59 -0000

Get a life, Earnie, rip the grim mask from your face and smile for a change ... just like Mister Wong!