Yellow Peril? Really?

I'm dismayed by the way the Chinese are being portrayed in the media. This has been going on for a long time - remember the paragon of evil, Fu Manchu, and the wise and wily Charlie Chan? I was flipping channels yesterday when I saw this Chinese-looking fellow on Channel 2 portraying a Chinese stereotype: Ah Kong. He had on a red silk vest, matching skullcap and coke bottle lens eyeglasses; mangled Tagalog spills out of his mouth whose prominent features are buck teeth and wispy moustache.

Haven't we learned anything? That there are as many Chinese as there are Chinese, and that for every rotten Chinoy, one can find an equally rotten Pinoy? Even more disturbing is that the fellow who is perpetuating that ghastly stereotype seems to be a Chinoy himself!

I grew up attending Chinese Catholic schools and was therefore shielded from abuse. But as my world was not just confined to schools, I have occasionally encountered disturbing situations where my ethnicity was attacked openly.

Here's a litany of what has been said about me - and I suppose to other Chinese-Filipino guys, gay or straight. The seemingly good included good in maths, therefore good in business, therefore good husband material. The downright bad: money hungry, therefore focused on making money no matter what, therefore likely to engage in crimes. Seemingly good: like sex a lot. Downright bad: likes weird sex, fucks geese (I've seen cartoons relating this absurd story), uncircumcised and therefore smelly.

I'm sorry officer but this is
the only Chinese bomb we have here....



 Things have changed tremendously since kung fu and Canto-pop explosion (thanks, Bruce Lee! thanks, Heavenly Kings). Today it matters little whether one is Chinese, Korean, Japanese. We're all lumped together as 'singkit', slit-eyed. Fantasies are piled in the altars of Wang Lee Hom, Jay Chou, Li Min-ho, Takuya Kimura - the list shifts by the hour... As East Asians, we're regarded as hot - mostly, peculiarly anyway - by virtue of our narrow eyes, yellow skin. But we're never equals; we're reduced to stereotypes, as always, a distant curiosity.

Despite China's continued economic dominance, things haven't turned out well at all. Anywhere you go, the Chinese are suspect. In fairness, we've earned some of the bad reps. Several US senators openly doubt China's intentions as a crack at world dominance. Chinese corporations in shady deals from Africa to Australia become substitute images of the Chinese. And by extension, all the singkits. Images of the Chinese as Fu Manchu loom once again like re-purposed enemies, really to take the reins on the sly.