Topic #3: Stereotypes

[Christine Chai]

Answer the following questions completely:

What kinds of stereotypes are associated with your ethnic group? (Please also mention where you come from.) Do you feel these stereotypes are generally harmless or harmful? Explain.

[Nick]

Nick Perng

I am Chinese. Because I am Asian, people think that I am an expert in math and science but not English. They assume that I speak English with a strong accent and poor skills. Therefore, Americans sometimes avoid having conversations with me. In "Mother Tougne", Amy Tan describes the stereotype that Asians are good at math and science becomes the modern trend and the reality. I think the reasons why Asians in these days become engineers or mathmaticians is because they are expected by their parents and teachers or maybe they didnt stand out on comparing with Native American speaks.

[seesen]

Hi this is Noriko.
I come from Japan. I think the stereotypes of Japanese are "Strict about rules than one's own interest", "Quiet", "Show no expression or Smiling all the time" etc. I think that "Strict about rules" came from our history of SAMURAI period. Around that time, people were under strict legal obligation. As long as people obey the rules, they were fine otherwise people were punished. So I guess that we still have a kind of fear to be against rules. About quietness, there is a saying in Japan "Silence is gold, eloquence is silver." Maybe completely different from American culture. I can not think why Japanese has no expression. But I have heard this many times from foreigners in Japan.

Are they harmful? It depends. But showing no expression is not considered positively. Non-Japanese people often say that they do not understand what a Japanese thinks. Maybe I should express more at least agree or disagree. But I may feel awkward if I do it.
By the way, current young generation might be different from above stereotypes.

Thanks,
Noriko.

[tomoko]

Hello classmates,

When I think about the stereotypes of Japanese, I recall that Japanese people wear a dark suit and glasses, and hold a camera. These images were Japanese tourists from foreigners a long time ago, so nowadays they are old-fashioned ideas. But we can still see this images on commercial messages or movies. I don't feel happy when I saw that.

I suppose that some of stereotypes are harmful because they may become prejudice. I will feel to be sarcasm, even if it is a positive stereotype.

Tomoko

[Stacy Li]

I am Chinese . Stereotypes are harmful or harmless ? I think it really depands on your attitude , no matter what kind of stereotypes , if you don't take it too seriously , it won't be bothering you !!

[xiaoliang]

hey
i'm from China. i will tell a REAL story about "stereotypes".
once, i went to a bathroom in a american restaurant. after i finished and washed my hands, i saw some chinese words on the wall. it wrote "ÉÏÍêºó Çë³åÏ´" which means "plz, wash it after u done". i flet angry, because it only wrote in chinese. =='' i guess that in their mind, the most people who dont wash bathroom are chinese. their prejudice is harmful, because this isn't a fact, a rule that evey chinese dont wash it....


thanks..

xiaoliang

[maino]

I'm from Japan. I think the stereotypes of Japanese are polite and quiet. I don't think they are harmful; however, it can be harmful when it becomes pressure.

[CHARLES,CHANG]

Hi
This is Charles, I come from Twiwan. I don't really know about other people, but in my opinion, most of Taiwanese are kind of shy and we don't say any idea or opinion in front of many people. For example, in the Taiwanese class usually just the teachers speak during the class hour, students never talk. I think this is harmful actually, and after I came to the US, I felt American like say something about what they think, so they can discuss together and gather more different ideas.

have a great day, everyone!!
Charles

[sarah]

Hey This is sarah from China
I think in north of China most of us are friendly. when people need help we will try the best to help them, but we never praise ourselves.
I agree with stacy no matter how people make fun of our stereotypes. If we don't took seriously. no one can harmful us. opposite, no matter how people praise our stereotypes. we won't be care too much.

[leo]

when i was talking to a representative of my dsl provider, during the slow installation time, he asked me,,,hey, wut kind of kungfu have u learnt? i responsed "none" and he sounded surprised "how come? all the chinese know kungfu,,,dont lie to me

[ken]

i'm a Chinese. Asian students are intend to do much better on math compare with American is a stereotype for Chinese. Somehow i found this stereotype is so true. In this point, i think stereotype has some good that we can take advantage of like me. i feel more confidence in math class which i did not have when i was in taiwan. Therefore, everyone just enjoy the stereotype.

[claudia]

Hi all. I am romanian and i think the most common stereotypes within my culture would be generosity, hospitality as harmless ones as well as criticism or probably gossip as harmful ones. I guess people in my culture value their tradition and are kind of judgmental towards people that make mistakes, behaving in the oposite way, contrar the values promoted. I believe that sometimes people are affraid of anything that is out of the ordinary, outside of everything that is familiar to them, afraid of anything that is different, new having the tendency to reject it.

[KHANH]

Hi! I am Khanh!
Actually, I am not sure what exactly my stereotype is. But, I know obviously that most Vietnameses who live in the US are not only trying a new life in a new country, but also they want to make more money to send back to Vietnam for supporting families bacause my country is pretty poor. You guys could tell it`s Vietnamese`s stereotypes in the US. In my opinion, the stereotype has both harmless and harmful. First, its harmless is money that people send back would help Vietnam`economic develop a little bit, so the material lives would improve more. Lastly, its harmful would make Vietnamese`s families in the US broken since the couple would have argued about money. I believe money is the main reason in many squabbles in a family. I used to witness that my auntie`s family broke up because of it. Anyway, it`s not almost. I just give my idea, not real factor, so you guys can believe it or not. However, I have learned that any stereotypes usually have harmless and harmful, it depends on what we realize it.

[keikotsukamoto]

Hi,
I'm Japanese, and I think one of stereotypes for Japanese is, we are not good at saying "NO." We tend to avoid any conflicts, so our answer should be unclear for some people. It is like... "please guess what I really want to say." It's not so harmful, but we need to protect ourselves not to say too much "yes."
I learned I have to be more strong to say "no" after I came to the United States. ;D

Keiko

[aya]

Hello, this is Aya, Japanese.
When I heard the word of stereotype, I evoked my one of memory with my host mother. She said, “The stereotype of Japanese is quiet even though they laugh,” the first time we met. When I talked to her, she asked me several times whether I was Japanese or not. It’s because I laughed harder than her, and I clapped my hands during laughing. I wasn’t kind of stereotype that she thought.
I feel Japanese stereotypes are harmful because sometimes these stereotypes are created by films, and people think that Japanese stereotypes are blank. It is terrible things.