“We never had homosexuals in Malaysia before the British came.” How they’d know that, both being born well after the Portuguese, then Dutch, then British invaded, is beyond me.

“Before Asia started reporting Western news, there was no such thing as child abuse.“The same lack of coherent reasoning also seems to be coming into play with NO accusations in Asia of child sex abuse by Catholic priests. Yeah, right!

“Now, everybody accepts swearing, nudity and crime. It’s God’s punishment against the Western world.” Which is ironic, because I’m sure the majority of white Australians thought that the Asian immigration trickle (of which we were a part) was God’s punishment against them. LOL

In addition to these pearls of wisdom was one bandied about at every Asian gathering you could think of. Asian associations, Asian business organisations, Asian social gatherings, it didn’t matter which. And the pearl of pearls was this: We Have Asian Values. No other culture or nation can storm our pure white shiny citadel because it is constructed from Asian Values and not those sloppy, undisciplined, depraved mores that pass for free thought in the (mostly Western) world. I’m sure that if you translate the speeches of the Chinese politburo, or read pronouncements from the Indian parliament on foreign affairs, you’ll come across a variation of this steaming pile of crap.

Which is why it delights me no end to present to you the Durex Sexual Well-being Global Survey 2011.

Oh Malaysia. Wonderful Malaysia. The country that states quite categorically that one of the pillars of its constitution is a belief in God. It doesn’t matter which god, as long as it’s someone, you know, deity-like. Needless to say, a non-belief in God is feckless, immoral and leads to the kind of depravity that used to be known in the world as Western democracy. (Missing it yet?) And it’s this pillar of nationhood that’s used to make your average citizen appear pious. So damn pious, in fact, that Malaysians (you know, those god-fearing folk) are ranked THIRD IN THE WORLD for infidelity.

Isn’t that a hoot? But that’s not the end for Asian Values because The. Most. Unfaithful. Nation. On. The. Planet. is…Thailand. Followed by South Korea. And Malaysian women are more unfaithful (39%) than Malaysian men (33%). Yes folks, those “Asian Values” appear to be at the global vanguard of sexual dishonesty. Give yourselves a pat on the back.

You can’t believe the absolute storm of laughter that echoed through our house when I read the article in an edition of Malaysia’s The Star newspaper. But Malaysians don’t disappoint, with claims that infidelity “is in the genes” (and thus does not interfere with one’s duty to God) and — my favourite — infidelity is due to “more opportunities [in modern society] for men and women to socialise”. That’s right. Just send women to the kitchen, make sure they never come out of the back of the house, and your infidelity problem is solved!

This brings up a very interesting Jordan-based Islamic organisation that has been banned in Malaysia but is around (and, purportedly, growing) in Singapore. I’m referring to OWC, or the Obedient Wives’ Club. (The reason it’s banned in Malaysia is not due to its gender-oriented teachings but to the fact that the founder of this branch of Islam — of which the OWC is a part — is considered a heretic.) To be completely dispassionate, these people are utter lunatics. What else can you say about a group that believes that a man can manifest in several geographic locations simultaneously in order to sexually satisfy multiple wives? Or that wives should serve their husbands “better than…first-class prostitute[s]” in order to stem male infidelity. No no, I can’t do justice to the words of OWC’s Vice-President Dr. Rohaya Mohamed, who said, in clarification of that comment, that

“I believe we have been misunderstood and misinterpreted. When we said that husbands should treat their wives like first-class prostitutes, we were not putting wives on the same level with prostitutes. We are talking about first-class elite types, not street hooker types. [Does that clarify things sufficiently for you? -Kaz. All bolded words are my emphasis] Our wives provide men with top-level service.“

Bwahahahahaha! There’s nothing I can say that can ridicule the organisation better than their own words. The OWC also blames wives for domestic violence (“When a husband comes home and receives good treatment from the wife, they become better and more loving husbands. Why would they treat their spouse badly if they are treated well?”), and wants everyone to know that: “The modern wife seems to forget that it is her responsibility to keep the husband satisfied.”

And if you’re thinking it can’t get any worse than holding (theoretical) sex lessons for OWC members (pictures, illustrations or even workshops on the topic are haram (forbidden)), may I add that they also believe:

If the reason [a woman got married in the first place] is love, then the woman is more likely to cheat on her husband. The first and foremost reason for getting married should be the fear of God.

Which reminds me of a joke. What comes between fear and sex? Funf! LOL

I read recently on Twitter (from a woman, of course) that it is bad form if someone who is a strong feminist criticises women with dissenting views. Well, I’m a strong feminist. And, believe me, if there is a group of dissenting women who deserve to be criticised more than the OWC, I’ve yet to hear of it. Their kind of simplistic reading of complex human relationships, proselytized by future victims of domestic abuse themselves, sets the whole area of gender relations back a few centuries rather than contributing anything of value, and I shall be criticising like hell whenever and wherever they, and their ilk, are mentioned in my presence.

ADDITIONAL: The OWC has published its own Sex Guide (unfortunately only available for sale to OWC members).

For an extra 50 points, its title is: “Islamic Sex, Fighting Against Jews To Return Islamic Sex To The World“(Seks Islam; Perangi Yahudi Untuk Kembalikan Seks Islam Kepada Dunia), with a 1000 point bonus for (a) allegedly not pointing out how “Islamic sex” is different from “Jewish sex” AND, (b) not outlining how “Islamic sex” shall be returned “to the world” when only OWC stalwarts are allowed to buy the tract in the first place. But no, by all means, let’s not criticise them.

This year is a Big Deal for us. It was in 1511 that Alfonso de Albuquerque invaded Melaka/Malacca and took the port by force. This was not the first time that the Portuguese tried to take Malacca, but they got thrown out in 1509 when the resident Sultan got wind of their plans. In 1511, a more prepared de Albuquerque and his armada returned to complete the conquest.

Up to the point of Portuguese conquest, Malacca was an important trading port already centuries old. Over one hundred languages were spoken there and goods from as far away as Arabia and China were bought, sold and bartered. The avaricious Portuguese, stumbling across this financial jewel, of course had to have it and, in the process, destroyed it through a time of constant war, atrocities and strife.

So the Portuguese were the first Western colonial power in the region. That lasted for less than 150 years until the Dutch invaded. Whatever else you say about the Portuguese, at least they believed in trying to assimilate with the native populations. (Hence, moi.) Not so the Dutch and, if you’re in any doubt about it, I suggest you talk to a knowledgeable Indonesian about their history under Dutch colonisation. (So much so that Indonesian patriots initially saw the Japanese invaders of WWII as liberators, until reality sadly showed them otherwise.)

Then, after the Dutch, came the British and they managed to screw things up royally, as any impartial political observer of a young Malaysia’s founding precepts will tell you, before retreating almost sixty years ago.

But the Portuguese Eurasians were there, through four colonial conquests (three Western and one Eastern), fleeing north, then south, as oncoming waves of invaders attempted to eradicate “half-breeds” from their patch of taken territory.

While not wanting to actually (yuk!) marry us, it was the British who gave the Eurasians a start on the ladder of middle-class prosperity. Our European blood made us more palatable choices for posts as administrators, lawyers and public servants, a positive discrimination policy that the other races (rightly) resented. By the end of the nineteenth century, we were still Catholic (the Portuguese influence), but now owned our own landed properties and could afford servants of our own.

So where are we now? From my estimates, the Portuguese Eurasian population numbers no more than twenty thousand throughout Malaysia and Singapore. Early this month, there was a giant parade and celebration in Malacca “celebrating” the 500th anniversary of the entry of de Albuquerque and his army of 1,200 men into the port. To my mind, that’s like the offspring of a rape celebrating the day her mother got violated.

But we do that, don’t we? If the natives of Burkina Faso (and I’m using an hypothetical example here) had invaded and committed atrocities on the population of San Francisco back in the 1800s, I doubt that sequence of events would be celebrated with bands and fireworks a few centuries on. All I can do is look on, completely bemused, as it appears that we are prepared to excuse massacre after massacre because a Westerner did it.

It goes further. Everybody tries to claim the “Eurasian” tag now. From the time when, as a teenager, I was described as a “slut” due to my race (all these half-breeds must fornicate at the drop of a hat, doncha know?), now it appears that every would-be model claims to be Eurasian and are lauded over in the press for their “Western features”, “blue eyes”, or whatever. All this, for a race that used to make other parents (Malay, Chinese, Indian) threaten to disown their children if even the whiff of a liaison with an Eurasian came up. Which is why, until very very recently, you get Eurasians only marrying Eurasians or Westerners. To be honest, nobody else wanted us.

So believe me when I say, as a Portuguese Eurasian, looking back on half a millennia of personal history, that I don’t think it’s such a bad thing if we get diluted, genration by generation, and completely die out. The Portuguese themselves have never cared to establish any strong links with their communities scattered around the globe and the only value we seem to have in Asia is our connexion to some Western superiority trope that the continent still hasn’t managed to overthrow.

In a so-called postcolonial world, we are still in thrall to Western fashion and while there are some Western concepts that should be taken up locally (fostering of innovation and creativity, participatory democracy, basic human rights, environmental awareness), that’s not what’s grabbing people by the long and straights. (Fyi, Asians don’t have short and curlies.) The people here seem to be more interested in the skin than the substance, the features rather than the ideas, Caucasianism rather than the categorical imperative.

I call it Caucasianism but there should be a better term for this, the Asian equivalent of Orientalism, where the shallow features of a prevailing culture are used to infer deep (and, therefore, false) truth about that particular culture. In Caucasianism, we somehow conflate such trivia as the lack of epicanthic folds, the unhealthy pale skin, the height, the blue eyes, with sophistication and greater intelligence. This is a colonialist mentality far more pernicious and insidious than any Asia has suffered and we seem to have taken on its mantle eagerly. Asia really needs to grow up.

* I’ll be out of action for the next two weeks. By the time I’m back, QUINTEN’S STORY should be out. Here’s hoping. Have a happy and safe holiday, if you are, and I’ll catch you mid-January.

The main problem with telling you that it’ll be released on the first of August, however, is that it takes time for the uploads to propagate to various etailer sites, so I wouldn’t go looking for the book on the Monday, if I were you. Best to leave it a couple of days.

By now, stalwart reader, you would know the history of this novel. It’s been more than two years in the making. The book has gone through increases and decreases and now seems to be settled happily at almost the 90,000 word mark. I’ve taken out scenes and fleshed out others and I’m pleased with the result.

WAR GAMES is also important because it’s my first self-published title and the first release for my own micro-press, so I had to dot many more “i”s and cross many more “t”s to ensure that things fitted together well. But we’re not done. There are still other plans in the works, other books, other offers, other enhancements. I am the ultimate tinkerer.

For now, though, looking towards the end of the month, it all appears doable. And, for that, I’m very happy.

***

I don’t always do this. In fact, I can’t remember ever putting a section break in my blog posts, but I had to share something with you. I was taking The Wast through English and he had to pick the appropriate verb in order to satisfy subject-verb agreement. (That is, single subject, singular form of verb; multiple subjects, plural form of verb, that kind of thing.) I won’t go through the exercise with you but I do want to share the output. A case of English-pass but Society-fail, if you will.

Darren told Alan, “Walking is a good form of exercise. We have to exercise to stay healthy.”
“You have been telling me that for a long time,” replied Alan, who is used to other activities like playing football. “Jenny and Liza were out walking yesterday when they were robbed. It’s really not safe to walk on your own.”
Darren said, “They were foolish. They chose to walk at night. Plus, they were not paying attention to what was going on round them. And it’s not like they don’t know about safety measures. Whatever it is, everyone is responsible for his and her own safety. They should have been more careful.” *

Of course Malaysia can’t be described as libertarian-leaning by any stretch of the imagination. But I’m sure the average Malaysian knows just how, um, hard-working the local police are. They are paid for with public money but, as you can see from the above passage, they are absolutely NOT responsible for public safety.

I’m not sure what revolts me more about this passage:

(A) The fact that women’s safety is so easily glossed over
(B) The “blame the victim” mentality inherent in the piece
(C) The absolution of police from any kind of behaviour to protect the public
(D) The fact that two out of three authors of this Guide are women (see below)
(E) The inculcation of contempt for women being woven into education from a tender age
(F) The complete incomprehension of locals to the heinous nature of this drivel
(G) All of the above

With this in mind, I hope you have a  better weekend than me and I’ll catch you next week.

* Taken from “Longman Essential English Form 2 Revision Guide” (2011) by Sheela Prabhakaran, Doreen Da Costa, K. N. Vasanthy

(Satan was in someone, sweetheart, but I’m not sure it was the children.)

This is hot on the heels of B-16 being forced to finally face the child sex abuse scandals within the Catholic Church because latest news broke that they happened in Germany which, as we all know, is his Fatherland.

But that got me thinking. What about Asia? People have told me of Catholic brothers in boarding schools coming to the dormitory a few nights a week and calling for boys. Later, those boys would return to their beds crying and refusing to talk to anyone. What do you think went on? A midnight prayer ritual?

Or nuns who would severely beat children at Catholic boarding schools for holding hands, calling the small girls “filthy”. No projection going on there, eh Sister?

We already know that the venerable Ratzinger, when he was only the power behind the Throne (rather than the Ray Ban-sporting, Ferrari-blessing Throne itself) used to move paedophile priests from one parish to another to avoid lynching from outraged parents. And yet Asia has been deathly quiet on this. It makes no sense. Although, once you spend some cycles on it, you’d realise that Asia is actually the perfect place to send paedophile priests.

One. You have a huge population of people used to living under strictly hierarchical, totalitarian systems. (Democracy wasn’t invented in Japan, know what I’m saying?)

Two. You have a huge emphasis on belief. Belief in the Emperor/King/Sultan, as well as all the religions running around. The wrapper on my Gardenia brand loaf of bread, for Chrissakes, says that the first National Principle of Malaysia is:

Kepercayaan Kepada Tuhan (aka “Belief in God”)

That’s even before the principle of law or loyalty to the country. And that’s on my damn bread wrapper!

Three. You have populations of different religions all over the place. What are you going to do if you find that your priest has been playing touchy-feely with your child? Go to another church? How can you when there are not so many around? (I’m excluding the Philippines here.) There are Buddhist temples closer to you than the church you normally attend. You can change religions but who’s to say one is going to treat you/your child better than another, and what will your friends and family say about you jumping ship like that? You can’t be a non-believer. See Point Two above. You are, essentially, trapped.

Four. You won’t be believed. Oh man, you think some populations in Europe are compliant? (Germans, for example.) They’re nothing compared to Asia. When you can be thrown into jail for doing nothing more than commenting on the hypocrisy of a ruler publicly doing something against his religion, you know you’re on shaky ground the minute you try to tell someone that the Emperor’s aide isn’t sporting much in the way of underwear either. The cult of personality is strong in this part of the world, whether we’re talking about God or the latest rich Hindu holy man. You swim against the tide at your peril.

Five. We’re brown, so who cares? Consider this. You’re some white, superior jerk sitting in Vatican City somewhere, and you get told about a paedophile priest. You belong to one of the largest, richest, most private corporations in the world. Money is no object to you. What are you going to do to the priest, especially if one of your trusted bishops doesn’t like him very much? Shift him from County A in England to County B in Ireland? Or, just so he gets the message, send him to the Philippines? The little brown natives are going to be so happy they have a White Man to minister to them (oh, the status!) that they’ll poke their own eyes out with a red-hot poker rather than admit their Pale-skinned Shepherd is ministering to things other than their souls.

The silence around child sex abuse from priests is so deafening in Asia that it’s unnatural. They do it in Europe? In the Americas? But not Asia? Something’s going on and, unfortunately, it’s my personal bet that when the first story breaks of abuse in Asia — as it must — the parishioners will end up looking as culpable as the priest.

I’m very happy to announce that Malaysia is looking at a comprehensive review of the loathsome ISA (Internal Security Act). This piece of legislation allowed for summary detention without trial for anyone deemed to be a threat to the State. The current argument is that the ISA, along with five other associated Acts, will be overhauled in a consistent manner. What that actually means in execution is another matter, although quite a number of prominent jurists have been asking for a wholesale repeal of the ISA, citing it as an outmoded piece of legislation that deserves no consideration in a civilised country. Hear hear!

The people who want to retain the ISA commonly bring up the objection that what the ISA contains is now also contained in the terrorism legislation of all those bastions of Western civilisation, such as the UK and the USA (and Australia). Who is Malaysia, they ask, to throw out the ISA when the countries who accuse the country of heinous human rights abuses have instituted similar laws themselves?

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard variations of this argument. “Why should we do this when morally superior X isn’t?” or, “You think there isn’t A-B-C in America? That we’re the only country that has it? America can’t do anything about their problem!”, thus implying that we shouldn’t do anything about ours either. For a continent that has supposedly shaken off the shackles of colonialism and is fast becoming The Economic SuperRegion Of The World, you’d think that Asians would have moved past the point of constantly comparing themselves to the so-called West. Alas, it isn’t so.

Why should we do “this thing”? How about, because it’s the decent thing to do? How about a bit of independent thinking on how we should be treating our own citizens within the scope of our own country? How about applying laws of decency because they’re fair and decent and not because a Western country has, or hasn’t, instituted them?

I think I’m in danger of having a concave head with all the headpalm-ing I’ve been doing in recent months. Who. The. Hell. Cares. Whether Thailand or South Korea or Pakistan has similar legislation? Do it because it safeguards your citizens. Do it because it increases people’s quality of life. Do it because it’s the fair and humane thing to do. If you say you’re a religious country and thus live to a higher moral code, prove it! But don’t make up excuses that constantly betray a childish comparison to countries that, quite frankly, don’t give a damn about your own citizens. That just tells me you’re trying to have your cake and eat it too. And nobody’s fooled.

J and I have had the occasional domestic dispute over the past 12 years (ahem). And in the post-dust up analysis, we’ve both come to the conclusion that we’re both “highly strung”, though me more than him. And I’ll cop to that. The thing is, after speaking with a few other friends, it appears that an awful lot of Asian women are “highly strung”. Let’s have a look at that a little bit more closely.

What do we mean by the term? I’m just throwing out stuff that I’ve heard, and think about myself:

• a bit on the defensive side
• can get too focused on one thing
• exhibits insensitivity to others when they are perceived to be in her way
• easy to anger when perceived to be insulted/put down
• very ambitious
• tendency to jump to conclusions, usually to the detriment of her partner
• high expectations (sometimes too high) of her partner
• can be very money/status-focused
• very analytical

I hope you’re starting to get the picture. (And, just to repeat the implication in plainer text, men can be highly-strung too, but we’re not talking about them in this post.) Now, let me wander off a bit to an anecdote.

J was recently at a workshop where an engineer was giving a highly technical presentation. Because the workshop was quasi-public, there were a lot of people standing around watching. An acquaintance of J’s, being short, asked him to take a photo of the engineer because she (the photographer) couldn’t see over the crowd and she (the engineer) wanted to send some photos of her presenting her workshop to her parents.

Just as J finished relating the story to me, a piece of the puzzle clicked into place.

“I bet she’s single,” I said.

He nodded. “Yes. We got into a conversation afterwards, and she told she she was. But how did you know?”

You know how you get an insight that takes many hops but coalesces in your mind in a heartbeat? That’s what happened here. I’ll try to explain it to you in fewer words than I used with J. Tell me what you think.

What is of absolutely no doubt in Asia — at the risk of descending into stereotype — is that education is important. You may find a parent who’s inordinately happy with their son for everything he buys for them because he’s a successful, let’s say, landscaper. But no matter how proud his parents are of him, there is always some niggle that they’d be prouder of him if he had a degree. And perhaps worked in an office instead. Or had workers who toiled on his behalf. In an office. Or school of some type.

Here’s the problem with the Asian female. One, they’re told that Education is Critical. “Nobody will love you if you’re stupid.” She gets lots of pats on the head when she tops the class in school, becomes prefect, snags a spot at a good university, and graduates, beaming out of the photo frame that sits proudly in her parents’ living room. So far, so good.

The next obvious thing is to get a job. And that’s where the problems start. You see, the young Asian female thinks that she worked so hard, studied so hard, to get somewhere in life. The young Asian female’s parents, however, have inexplicably changed their tune. From, “So why aren’t you getting first-class honours?” it becomes, “Isn’t it time you got married?”

Now, this will throw any reasonable human being for a loop. What?! Why did you ride me so hard if all you’re going to say when I’m 23 is, “When can I expect the grandchildren? I’m not getting any younger, you know.”

At this point, our young lady is caught in an unfortunate case of cognitive dissonance. Of course she doesn’t want to throw it all away just to play mother, especially not if she’s smart and knows she can climb the corporate ladder. So, instead of marrying, she says to herself: “I just have to make my parents proud of me. And once they realise how important it is that I make something of myself — as a person in my own right, rather than just as a wife or mother to someone else — they’ll understand and approve of me and then we can put this marriage nonsense to the side for the time being.”

I hope you can begin to get an inkling of where the young engineer is in this timeline? Caught in the throes of this mis-thinking, she’s well on the way to seeking approval by sending her parents tangible proof that people hang on her every word. That she is doing Something Meaningful. And it doesn’t involve a wedding ring. Pity it won’t work.

The fact is, it never works, and the nagging grows in scope and frequency. “You’re getting so old, lah. No man will want you soon.” “Why are you so smart? Men don’t like smart women.” “You’re too big for your boots, thinking you can get this promotion/start your own business. No wonder you can’t get married.”

And the young woman keeps on thinking that if only everything looked a bit more sparkly, a bit more meaningful, then things would come good. After all, her parents were serious when they said her education was important. She has more examples than she can poke a stick at to prove that point. So if she can’t sway them from their one-track marriage mind now, it must mean she hasn’t proven the worth of her education — of herself — to them hard enough.

And that’s how it begins. She must be perfect. Her boyfriend must be perfect. Her apartment/house must be perfect. Her car must be perfect. Her wardrobe must be perfect. And, as I’ve said before, because the parents have completely and utterly changed their tune, it never is. The problem is not with her, it’s with them. And, because she’s Asian, that’s a verboten thought because, from Turkey to Taiwan, the authority figure in the family is Always Right.

I am of the firm opinion that one of the biggest obstacles to female empowerment in Asia are the parents. I have seen too many worthwhile lives descend into some kind of obsessive-compulsive tail-chasing because the parents have now summarily decided that they want grandchildren and bugger what it means for their daughters. Marriages have been destroyed through the kind of desperate, serial approval seeking that starts with a conceded ceremony and continues from there till the day somebody drops. For the sake of sanity, it’s got to stop but, short of just waiting for all the ignorant old farts to die out, I’m not sure how.

Ah, South Korea. They of the full-contact democracy, stratospheric education ratings, unimaginable broadband penetration, one of the largest concentrations of land mines in the world (the meat from animals that go grazing in the DMZ along the North/South border, and are blown to shrapnel as a result, are then sold to Indian Muslim restaurants in Malaysia for turning into mutton curry … just fyi), and wonderful wonderful barbeque and kimchi. My favourite movie of the year (The Good, The Bad, The Weird) comes from Korea. As a result of all this, I’ve often wanted to visit Korea. But then I read something like this:

On the evening of July 10, Bonogit Hussain, a 29-year-old Indian man, and Hahn Ji-seon, a female Korean friend, were riding a bus near Seoul when a man in the back began hurling racial and sexist slurs at them. The situation would be a familiar one to many Korean women who have dated or even — as in Ms. Hahn’s case — simply traveled in the company of a foreign man.

South Korea is a case (yes, another one) of wanting to have its cake and eat it too. It likes the part of globalisation that means people enter the country to do work that nobody else wants to do, or pay the government to study there, but it doesn’t like the bit about having to actually deal with those people as fellow human beings. But, as with most things, some are more equal than others:

Ms. Hahn said that after the incident in the bus last July, her family was “turned upside down.” Her father and other relatives grilled her as to whether she was dating Mr. Hussain. But when a cousin recently married a German, “all my relatives envied her, as if her marriage was a boon to our family,” she said.

I think it goes without saying that we’re talking about a white German here rather than, say, a naturalised German of Turkish origin, nyuk nyuk. ‘Cos if you’re brown, here’s what you can expect from fellow Asians:

For Mr. Hussain, subtle discrimination has been part of daily life for the two and half years he has lived here as a student and then research professor at Sungkonghoe University in Seoul. He says that, even in crowded subways, people tend not sit next to him. In June, he said, he fell asleep on a bus and when it reached the terminal, the driver woke him up by poking him in the thigh with his foot, an extremely offensive gesture in South Korea.

I have to admit, the idea of always having a train seat to myself is tempting, but I wonder if it’s worth the surrounding angst? Let’s be blunt. The East Asians are obsessed with skin colour — Chinese, Korean, Japanese. Even the most bigoted Westerner envies a nice tan, but not so for millions of Pacific Rim residents … and Chinese Singaporeans. And it doesn’t stop there. The Koreans hate the Japanese. The Japanese hate the Chinese. The Chinese hate the Koreans. Good Gods, most people from the rest of the world can hardly tell the groups apart and, with the way the winds of history — and population drift — have been going for the past few millennia, I doubt there are many utterly pure-blood Chinese, Koreans or Japanese around anyway!

In 2007, the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination … urged public education to overcome the notion that South Korea was “ethnically homogenous,” which, it said, “no longer corresponds to the actual situation.”

If it ever did.

My current hypothesis is this. The discrimination of skin colour in Asia can, I believe, be traced back to manual labour. That is, if you were a peasant then, by definition, you spent more time out in the sun, working your skinny arse off. Spend more time out in the sun and your skin becomes darker. Ergo, darker skin == cultureless, brainless peasant. On the other hand, don’t spend any time out in the sun, concern yourself with scholarly duties — or nothing at all — under a roof all day, and your skin remains lily-white. That, of course, has to mean that you don’t have to slog outside, either because of your education or wealth. Ergo, whiter skin == educated, rich, aristo type.

It sounds too moronic, too simplistic, to be true, but nothing I’ve come across in decades of pondering this question leads to any other conclusion robust enough to encompass almost an entire continent. I’m open to alternate suggestions, if anyone has one, honest.

I’d segue into other racial groups here, but I wanted to concentrate on the Koreans in this post. So, holiday there? I don’t think so. I know what you’ll say: “But, Kaz, you can’t just refuse to visit a country because of some incidents of stupidity!” And I’d just tell you how utterly sick and tired I am of having to pay to put up with even the probability of this kind of behaviour, year in and year out, and having to subject my children to it, and how about a frickin’ break, OKAY??!!

(Oh, am I out of valerian already? That bottle went quick.)

You’re after a happy ending, aren’t you? How about this?

What was different this time, however, was that, once … [the incident with Hahn and Hussain] … was reported in the South Korean media, prosecutors sprang into action, charging the man they have identified only as a 31-year-old Mr. Park with contempt, the first time such charges had been applied to an alleged racist offense. Spurred by the case, which is pending in court, rival political parties in Parliament have begun drafting legislation that for the first time would provide a detailed definition of discrimination by race and ethnicity and impose criminal penalties.

Will it work? I say no. There is too much embedded racism already at play in Asian society. Literally millennia of it. So, you see, it’s not just a Western problem. It’s a problem for all of us.

ADDITIONAL: And, when I say it’s a problem for all of us, I include myself as well. My taking offence at the assumption that I was the servant of the house, for example (ref. last post). Upon reflection, one reason I felt such anger was because I consider myself superior to the average servant. There, I said it. So, being lumped in the same category with a domestic worker was deeply insulting to me. This is despite the fact that I know that many, for example, Filipino women who are tertiary qualified are driven to domestic servitude overseas due solely to their country’s woeful economic, short-sighted and rapacious policies. And, in any case, there but for an accident of birth, goes I. This is a demon I’m going to have to wrestle with myself. I just hope I win.

ADDITIONAL THE SECOND: How about I lighten things up next week? I actually have * shock * horror * writing news and I’ll see about putting up an update on mini bull terrier and general vandal, Sausage.

Singapore is aghast. An experienced scientist in a hot field (and a Stanford graduate, no less), working as a…a…taxi driver??!! The thud you may have heard was the sound of every Asian parent in the city-state fainting where they stood.

Then, no sooner do we get over this when I read about the millions (yes, you read that right) of University graduates in China that are not only unemployed but, where they can scrape a position somewhere, earning less money than the (mostly unskilled) migrant workers that move from province to province.

My first thought, upon reading that article was, I wonder if the Chinese are going to give the Indians a run for their money? According to the Asia Times, 6.1 million graduates (most of them postgrads) entered the mainland Chinese job market over the northern summer, with most of them holding majors in computer science, law and accounting. Will we see an Oriental Infosys? Satyam? Wipro? Price Waterhouse?

My second thought was sympathy with the parents of these children, who’ve spent (often) their life savings to pay for their child’s education. Throughout Asia, education trumps all (in China, education has been the shining beacon throughout several millennia of history), so to find that your daughter/son cannot get a job even as a nanny because “employers are said to prefer peasant girls with experience instead of English-speaking graduates in business administration” is a heavy and bitter blow indeed.

I blame the Chinese government myself. It’s wanted to have its cake and eat it too. That is, have a tightly-controlled, totalitarian government, ostensibly under communist rule, but still reap the heady delights of neoliberal capitalist economics. Don’t these guys even listen to their own propaganda? I can’t believe, for example, that some individuals — using only publicly available information — were able to insulate themselves from the current economic crisis, but the most populous nation on Earth, with literally millions of geniuses floating about, was happy enough to make hay while the sun shone, and thus completely disregard the rumbling portents regarding their own citizens. (But really, since when did any Asian country care about its own citizens?)

And, really, it’s not as though the Chinese government didn’t see it coming. From Asia Times again:

The oversupply of college graduates started in 1999 when Chinese leaders decided to counter some of the effects of the Asian financial crisis by boosting university enrollments. They had hoped that a generation of well-heeled educated urbanites would boost domestic consumption and help reduce China’s dependence on exports.

Enrollment rose quickly, from 3% of college-age students in the 1980s to 20% today. The trend coincided with a very public effort by Beijing to begin a process of retooling its manufacture-driven economy into a high-knowledge economy.

But even when the economy was booming and creating more jobs, Beijing was struggling to find employment for its growing number of diploma holders [my emphasis --ksa]….

The global financial crisis, with its hiring freezes and credit crunch that choked enterprises’ expansion, made a bad situation only worse.

It may have made a bad situation worse, but it isn’t as though China is a company with shareholders. It’s an entire country that doesn’t need to answer to whiny little investors, can bravely follow long-term strategies and can afford to take the kind of losses that a public company can’t (unless you’re a Wall Street bank, of course, in which case, please continue with business as usual). Still, this flagrant blindness to ten years of increasing reality is unsettling. We’re used to the United States thinking in such a fashion. But China as well? The mind boggles.

Just to add lemon juice and salt to the paper cut, Smug Bastard Yi Weimin, China’s Human Resources & Social Security Minister, allegedly said:

It is high time that young diploma holders lowered their expectations and began to see the potential of many once neglected but well-paid jobs, he told the media. “As a result of the crisis, there will be a change in values for our graduates,” Yi said.

A “change in values”, do you like that? Like the way he shifted the blame from cock-eyed government policy to the individual? For China, in particular, it’s a downright arrogant way of telling the entire population to throw five thousand years of culture out the window. Just like that! :: clicks fingers :: And thus another Asian government screws over its own people.

Taking a personal and meta view of this strange turn of events, this has dire implications for parents such as J and I, trying to chart a future for our children. If an education isn’t good enough to land a solid job any more, what’s left? As the world ages, an obvious employment niche is in elderly care. (When was the last time you met an unemployed nurse?) But that means sheer pragmatism, at a time when our children are thinking of becoming — not nurses or doctors, but — astronauts, robotics engineers, archeologists or research chemists. That’s a whole different kettle of pink slips. I’m happy to support their fantasies but wonder if we’re ever going to get back to a time of clever invention, unbridled optimism and boundless energy. Or if we’ll be doomed, as parents, to see their dreams dashed on the sharp rocks of reality. I know which I think is more likely. Let’s hope I’m wrong.

POSTSCRIPT: Did you see that large syndication button off to the side? Feel free to subscribe. Thank you and have a great weekend!

I’ve spoken before about the economic might (and rising ascendancy) of the continent, and that is something of which there is no doubt. However, when it comes to creativity and innovation (a “culture of iconoclasm”, if you will) then I suffer nothing but abject depression over Asia’s trenchant rejection of the one thing that can actually propel itself into the kind of envy-producing prominence that has been the hallmark of Western civilisations for centuries. Absolute, sheer-to-goodness, original, satirical, self-reflective creativity.

I’ve started this series of blogs because this is something that I feel has to be confronted and discussed by Asians. I’m not saying that everything is going to be well thought out because I’m only groping for understanding myself. And, who knows, I may even end up reversing my own position on some things down the track. What I think will remain inviolate, though, is the central premise that the Culture of Iconoclasm is stifled throughout Asia and that, more than foreign investment, more than manufacturing figures, such repression will lead to Asia being a second-rate continent for as long as it clings to its outdated concepts of not rocking the boat.

I’m trying to get permission from someone to include some of their work into a future blog on this line of thinking, so stay tuned.