By Harriet Ho

China is UBC’s largest source of international students and one third of our student population is of Chinese descent. How do student organizations reflect the diversity and divisions within the Chinese-Canadian community?

The Chinese Varsity Club. Photo taken by Geoff Lister, Ubyssey

Banana. Honger. Fob. Chink.

These are among the many stereotypes that people of Chinese descent face in the world and at UBC. Even when these slurs are not actually verbalized, the underlying stereotypes are undeniably still present at our university.

In 2008, a promotional video by a club on campus ignited these tensions. The Chinese Varsity Club (CVC), which often markets itself as the largest student club at UBC, created a video in the style of the Apple “Mac vs PC” commercials. A fluent English speaker from the CVC played one role and a heavily-accented Chinese student played the other.

The heavily-accented student was described as being from a “typical Honger Club”; “Honger” is a term often used for people from Hong Kong who largely maintain their home culture.

Many students were outraged at what they saw as an attempt to segregate the Chinese community into different cultural categories. The AMS was inundated with complaints, including official complaints from four other Chinese student clubs.

In the end, the AMS forced the CVC to write apology letters to the other clubs and go through equity training.

While this is perhaps the best-known example of the conflict that can arise out of the diverse forms of Chinese cultural identity among students on campus, there are many others simmering under the surface.

Yet at the same time, there are also strong feelings among Chinese UBC students that what they have in common is more important than their differences. Whatever divisions exist in language and cultural background—and there are many such divisions—there is also an opportunity to forge social bonds and explore new ways of identifying as Chinese-Canadian. (more…)

Philip Oreopoulos, an economics professor at UBC, says more research is needed to determine whether employers deliberately withheld interviews from candidates with non-English-sounding names. (CBC)

“A recent UBC study showed that job applicants with English-sounding names have a greater chance of getting interviews than those with Chinese, Pakistani or Indian names.

The study found Canadians and landed immigrants with names such as “Jill Wilson” or “John Martin” are 40 per cent more likely to be offered an interview than someone with a name like “Sana Khan” or “Lei Li,” given an identical resumé.

Applicants with mixed names like “Vivian Zhang” had a 20 per cent better chance to land an interview than job-seekers with non-English names, but still less than the English-only names.

“The findings suggest that a distinct foreign-sounding name may be a significant disadvantage on the job market even if you are a second- or third-generation citizen,” said Philip Oreopoulos, a professor of economics at UBC who led the research…” for the rest of the article, go to: Job applicants with foreign names have lesser chance for interviews: UBC study

It’s not entirely surprising that people with English-sounding names seem to be preferred considering that there is a perception in society that someone with an English-sounding name must automatically speak English perfectly whereas there is always a chance that English is the second language for those who do not have English-sounding names. I wonder whether this trend will continue especially since the ethnic minorities of Vancouver are growing rapidly to become the city’s majority.

The Initiative for Student Teaching and Research in Chinese Canadian Studies (INSTRCC) will soon be bringing generations together to tell the oft-untold stories of Chinese-Canadians who endured some of this country’s darker days. The federal government’s Community Historical Recognition Program (CHRP) is giving $50,000 to support a UBC project that involves students interviewing elders from B.C. communities. The idea is to preserve and archive Chinese-Canadian experiences from 1885 to 1947, during the times of the restrictive Chinese Head Tax and Chinese Immigration Act. Henry Yu, professor of History at UBC, will be conducting this research as part of a ten-year initiative to build a physical and digital museum, which will study the Asian Canadian contributions to the building of a Pacific Canada.

“People whose faces turn red when they drink alcohol may be facing more than embarrassment. The flushing may indicate an increased risk for a deadly throat cancer, researchers report.”

More at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/21/health/research/21alcohol.html?_r=1

Kinda scary! One less reason to be consuming vast quantities of alcohol. Besides worshipping the porcelain god and waking up with a nasty hangover, of course.

AOMORI, JAPAN—At first glance, 17-year-old Misaki Nakajima seems like any other shy and submissive Japanese schoolgirl. She loves shopping, text messaging, and the color pink. But beneath her wholesome exterior lies a wicked secret: Misaki Nakajima is consumed by sexual fantasies involving sweaty, middle-aged American men.

Read the whole thing at http://www.theonion.com/content/news/asian_teen_has_sweaty_middle_aged.

*Note that this is a satirical article. However, it manages to disgust the reader in many of the ways personal that ads of non-Asian men looking for Asian women are deemed disgusting.

Western Eyes (2000) by Ann Shin, 39min 30s
This documentary presents two Canadian women of Asian descent who are contemplating eyelid surgery. Maria and Sharon, of Philippino and Korean heritage respectively, believe their looks–specifically their eyes–get in the way of how people see them. Layering their stories with pop culture references to beauty icons and supermodels, filmmaker Ann Shin looks at the pain that lies deep behind the desire for plastic surgery.

The National Film Board of Canada recently made available a large number of films for free streaming off their website. Check out this and many other great films at http://nfb.ca/explore-by/title.

Check out family favourites like The Cat Came Back, films on historical injustices like Minoru: Memory of Exile and Unwanted Soldiers, or heartwarming tales of triumph over adversity like Sleeping Tigers: The Asahi Baseball Story.

If you have any other great films to suggest, leave them in the comments!

While making a delivery in the early hours on Wednesday, January 21, Phil Khan was approached, beaten and robbed by three men. The three assailants turned out to be police officers. The incident began when one police officer had asked Khan for directions to Broadway and Cambie. Smelling alcohol on him, Khan attempted to be calm and cooperative, yet, the cop grabbed Khan and proceeded to beat him. Around 5-7 minutes later, two other men had joined in on the beating of the 47-year old delivery man.

Besides suffering a heinous beating, he was also robbed of $200. When Khan asked for help, the police officers said, “We are the police, you don’t need help. If you don’t behave, if you don’t do anything, we have a Taser.” Perhaps the most shocking thing about this incident is that the attack may have been racially motivated as Khan recalled one of his attackers saying, “we don’t like brown people.”

So far, no charges have been laid on the three police officers but they have been either suspended or re-assigned to administrative duties. Last year, ACCO got a few comments from people that racism no longer exists in Vancouver because Asians are so well-integrated. This story however sheds light on the fact that racism is still prevalent in our multiethnic society especially since the crime was committed by people who were supposed to serve and protect us all regardless of our skin colour. For the full story, please go to: Surrey man says off-duty cops robbed, racially abused him.