‘YLTN @ Work’ at vancouvercondo.info 18 July 2011 12:37pm -
“I was at a birthday party on the weekend and had the bad luck of getting stuck sitting next to a realtor for most of the evening. This one has been in the biz for 3 years after leaving a career in the film industry and actually agreed with me that she thinks it is time to sell and rent and is actively trying to sell her burnaby condo. What really shocked me though was her description of some of the West side homes she has been to and what she has seen:
The first one was a 3.8M place for sale and when she went to look at it, the guy that came to the door barely spoke a word of english, had food stains on his clothes, slippers and pajamas (in the middle of the day). She said the guy looked like a backwoods asian peasant and was living in the place with almost no furnishings. She went on to say that she has been to a number of places where they have furnished the multi-million dollar places with a few scant pieces of garden furniture.
Her belief is that the owners are offshore and have hired poor peasants to essentially squat in the place to make sure it is lived in to prevent burglaries and to forward mail that comes there to claim it as a primary residence. They have given the “squatter” a minimal amount of cash to buy furniture which is why garden furniture is the usual choice – cheap and easy to carry with no car! Any one else heard of this?”
No, we hadn’t quite heard of this exactly, although we know of new build westside homes which sell and then essentially sit empty (or with what appears to be a single person living in one room). We wouldn’t quite describe the occupants as ‘squatters’ or ‘backwoods peasants’, but the main idea may be essentially the same. – vreaa
This is what I’ve come to expect from a people which is essentially one generation removed from eating dirt.
lol, easy there big fella.
I dont our society selling out to corrupt lawless party members either but tone it down.
You are one generation off from eating dirt.
If she shares your assessment of the current market and is otherwise simpatico, why was it “bad luck” to be sitting next to this realtor? And why all the hate just because some guy may be a peasant or a farmer? Some of the hardest working and nicest people I know are relatively uneducated farmers from the prairie provinces. These guys are up at the crack of dawn around the same time I’m thinking about going to sleep. Or do you just hate them because they’re not white?
this is the racist bullshit I’ve come to expect from users of this site.
Hmmm. I am pretty sure Matt is Asian or at least non-white, based on his past commentary. His comment is therefore absurd if it comes from racist sentiment. Let’s all examine what the definition of racism is. Roughly, off the top of my head, RACE-ism is a term used to describe an irrational hatred or fear of persons of another RACE, or a conscious or unconscious behavioral habit/pattern of treating all persons of this race as inferiors, with undeserved mis-treatment or abuse.
Now let’s look at CULTURE. Culture is “a way of doing things that a group’s members share.” Any group can have a culture. Of course, every member follows the behavioural trends of this culture to a greater or lesser extent, but in general, the behaviour is homogeneous. Examples: Japanese people will point to their noses when referring to themselves, Americans will point to the chest. The RCMP has a culture. The CRA has a culture. The Hell’s Angels have a culture. Gordon Campbell’s wealthy cronies have a culture their very own. The naughty boys who sat at the Red corner in my elementary school had a culture that was uniqure to that group. Guess what: I don’t have to like the culture of any of those groups. I can complain about the way they do things, and people will either agree or disagree with my complaints. Now, if I make a simil;ar complaint about Mainland Chinese nouveau riche circa 2011, I am labeled RACIST! RACIST!! by some kind of PR police. Well, you have got it wrong. Race does not equal culture. There are tens of thousands of Chinese origin people here in Vancouver who do not deserve nor receive criticism for the way they do things. Only one small sub-culture of the various sub-cultures of Chinese origins here merits and gets that criticism, mostly, unless it comes from idiots who assume that if one Chinese-appearing person does something they all do that thing.
Culture clashes occur for a good reason. We have to live under a shared set of rules and expectations in order to be in peace and harmony. When someone breaks those rules and expectations, the others get fucking pissed off. Laws are an example , but simple things not written in formal law also form a part of the code of rules and expectations. If one group of newcomers ostensibly breaks those cultural norms, the residents are going to get annoyed. While I don’t agree with Matt’s attribution of causation for this behaviour, I know that he is not being RACEist. He is criticising another group’s culture, and implying it is not as refined as the one he shares with his group.
A lot of people have, shockingly, lived in many countries of the world, among many different cultures. While in an absolute sense, no culture is superior to another, when you are in one group and used to doing things your way, another group’s way of doing things can seem alien and even reprehensible. It is a normal human response to exhibit disgust at people that do not adhere to the norms of one’s group. It takes discipline to see that your way is not the only way, and it is quite easily done by people who travel a lot. However, it is not necessary to accommodate other cultures who join a nation if their culture clashes significantly with the majority’s. If that were the case, we would have to allow sharia law murders and turn a blind eye to human rights abuses and to allow corruption and bribery to penetrate the legal systems.
Commenters who label anyone making disparageing comments about Mainland chinese nouveau riche culture as a RACIST, are doing the thousands of other Chinese heritage people here and everywhere a disservice. You think you are helping, when in fact you are forcing the lumping together of all chinese into one group, that is immune to critcism. you are sheltering and protecting the monied interlopers who can hide behind the “don’t racist me, I’m chinese” human shield. Stop it. you are being idiots and handing these pricks carte blanche to do whatever they like. Let people criticise this culture of corruption and dishonesty and material covetousness.
Anyway, I have to stop now. My Chinese in appearance Canadian wife says, if you are so annoyed by their behaviour (as she is), quit dithering around on the hinternet and write to your provincial government to get them to stop foreign and convenience-resident ownership of properties in BC. And she is right.
afterthought: of course people do not take criticisms of their culture, which is a part of what makes them, them, without getting deeply offended. Culture clashes are a sad but unavoidable part of human existence just as personality clashes are. But in the era where North america is full of mixed-race people from Obama down, and the world is full of people born in one place and raised in another or several, the simple rule of thumb that race= culture has to be re-examined and thrown out. Americans are not one race, yet Canadians and Mexicans can sriticise “Americans”. It’s all to do with culture. Realise that there is no such thing as one homogeneous entity known as “The Chinese” any more. Nor was there ever, though this is not the time for a history of the Dynasties from Qin to Qing. Just realise the world is more nuanced than you think, simple black-and-white PC thinkers.
unfortunately, it doesn’t matter how rational you put it – the idiots always trot out the (are you ready for this?)
“THOUGHT TERMINATING CLICHE”
google that, it is a real concept – it happens allllll the time.
“it’s different here” for example..
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Thought_Reform_and_the_Psychology_of_Totalism
this was a fantastic book, btw – a bit long but really fascinating
but i suppose the VPL is a racist library for stocking this?
and i suppose one of the world’s foremost psychological researchers is also a racist, and so are Harvard and Yale and Cornell and the NYMC.
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Robert_Jay_Lifton
yah thought terminating cliche – didn’t orwell come up with that one in “politics and the english language”? or was it neil postman? sorry having to type over keyboard jealous kids…. seriously, i have to get over this internet real estate forum crack…
and my personal opinions on this issue? Most of my friends here are “Bananas”. I like them. I like their culture. My boss and co-workers are 90% first gen Chinese immigrants. I like them too. My students are 90% wealthy mainlanders’ offspring. I like very few of them. What made me realise how much at variance our cultures were, was when one day one told me about a though experiment they had carried out in psychology class: if you could get 1 million dollars for pushing a button, and a homeless guy you had never seen, dies, would you do it? They were all like “hell, yeah!”. then if you had to shoot the guy yourself, would you still do it? Some still would. One went further to tell me that if he had to kill 3 million africans for 100,000 he would do it. He said when he hears of millions dying in africa, he dosn’t give a fuck. I couldn’t tutor him without wanting to vomit after that. Then, I went with one wealthy mainlander to China with the plan of opening a businesds there jointly. He mocked and laughed and imitated a beggar who came to ask us for some change. I still remember his sneering and whooping and his utter lack of empathy and… his utter lack of humanity. He told me about how he also believed that peasants’ lives were not worth a fraction of the value of his car.
These are the people we welcome here with open arms. I DO NOT HAVE TO SHARE THEIR FUCKING VALUES. I am not a racist for asying that I don’t accept their values as equal to my own. I have lived in many countries, and none has seemed to be as full of people whose valuse go so completely against my own. Shit, I am no saint, and I have done bad things, but I cannot share the same attitude towards other human lives as many of these hypercapitalists do. I know that thease people are not the only ones to have such values – I have read Michale Moore and Joel Bakan. I know about corporate america and their dead peasants insurance and their calcualtions on liability payouts – if the cost of a motor vehicle recall exceeds the payout x number of dead, do not recall, and so on. Funny how those guys are not immune from criticism because they are white. Don’t let people hide behind the “you’re a racist for saying that” umbrella. And don’t equate these mofos with the Chinese people, who are decent, honest, and empathetic members of the human race.
rant over.
Good points, TPFKAA.
BTW, I’m sitting here in my slippers and sweatpants, having taken the day off, and I may just have dropped milk and cereal on the front of my old T-shirt. I hope no one knocks on the door.
@tpfkaa
i am pretty sure lifton coined the term, though i am sure orwell identified it
my point is that these people you are describing are the result of living a life of privilege (or striving to) within a totalitarian system.
on the other side of the coin, ours is merely inversely totalitarian, so we get to act all hoighty toighty.
@ froogle: haha. I don’t think I have a single t-shirt without stains. and I often wander around our house in my boxers and unshaven with fresh stains. No one has a monopoly on that!
@Keeperofthederp: Thanks for the clarification. What do you mean by “inversely totalitarian”? I have a rough idea but may not be correct.
http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9175.html
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Sheldon_Wolin
ok will read later. shit, really have to go!! afterthought@Froogle – I don’t think matt’s comment was aimed at the “peasant,” rather at his presumed employers in this scenario whose wealth has risen in the space of a generation.
one more:
http://www.thenation.com/article/inverted-totalitarianism
if you don’t have time, read that.
“While the Nazi totalitarianism strove to give the masses a sense of collective power and strength, Kraft durch Freude (“Strength through joy”), inverted totalitarianism promotes a sense of weakness, of collective futility. While the Nazis wanted a continuously mobilized society that would not only support the regime without complaint and enthusiastically vote “yes” at the periodic plebiscites, inverted totalitarianism wants a politically demobilized society that hardly votes at all. Recall the President’s words immediately after the horrendous events of September 11: “Unite, consume and fly,” he told the anxious citizenry. Having assimilated terrorism to a “war,” he avoided doing what democratic leaders customarily do during wartime: mobilize the citizenry, warn it of impending sacrifices and exhort all citizens to join the “war effort.”
Ever travelled, lived, worked in Asia? Go there and see how the Chinese culture stacks up against, say, that of the Japanese or Koreans or Thai. Sure it’s a complicated issue, but in some cultures, for instance, people don’t believe they should stand in line – they will do anything to advance their family’s fortunes with little consideration about walking over others even if their shopping at Canadian Tire – a very unfortunate situation for non-wealthy Vancouverites with any intelligence.
i piped up on the skytrain platform that “we should all wait for them to get off first”
and some hand wringer got angry at me and said “why are you moving towards the door??”
(so our new friends can hear me!)
irony is that the people getting off the train took so long to unload because of the two standing slack jawed in front of the door, that by the time everyone was off, the warning bell started, so i hopped on, leaving mr hand wringer-bleeding heart standing on the platform with his wife and 3 kids. maybe he should have just shut the fuck up and let me do my thing? oh no, can’t do that. gotta be ‘tolerant’, passive, etc.