Hong Kong/ Da Music Issue
I just came home from the Pretenders concert and I still can’t believe that this one fat gweilo guy heckled her to the point she confronted him. Luckily Chrissie Hynde being who she is went back at him with all the force of personality. She finished the first song, and she was saying how great it was to play Hong Kong and she suddenly stops and said, “What did you say? Take my pants off?” She was unimpressed.
Then she went after the second song, “Look if you want a body like this, you’re going to have to be younger than you are.” The audience laughs. He did it for five songs straight.
He screamed stuff at her all through the songs and inbetween. I couldn’t hear what he was saying but she was PISSED off. In the end he WALKED UP TO THE RAILINGS just heckle, leaning over shouting insults at Chrissie Hynde??!!
The security manager went up to ask him to stop and he obviously went, “This is a free world” (Oh, I so heard that excuse for behaving like an ass) So she went right up to the front, leaned over and shouted back, “This is not a free world. Who said this is a free world? Tell me?” and then, “I know you’re in the front seats.” Referring to him being one of those rich wankers who always gets to sit up front when people who really like the band is relegated to the back due to financial reasons. She really clocked him as one of those rich obnoxious expats straight away because she was referring to how some people have to work, and how this is a money town and “we all know what it’s like to go down on our knees and have to suck.” She even told a joke about men who cheat on their wives. If she knew what this city is like, she would have said something about Wan Chai.
I mean, Hong Kong is obviously so full of people like that. I thought it was just blogging but no REAL LIFE in front of like 7000 people. In the end she called him a LOSER, actually she said, “This song is about gambling. Gambling is not about winning it’s about losing, otherwise we would keep going. There are a lot of Big Losers out there, and here we have a great representative.” and nodded at him. He shut up after that.
I have never seen anything like that. I don’t expect men in the forties (maybe even fifties) to behave that way. Big Fat White Balding Guy Shouting Insults at a Rock Goddess at Her concert. At least I am in good company in that respect. She is after all ranked seventh on VH1’s 100 Greatest Women of Rock and Roll, coming just under Joni Mitchell and Billie Holliday and ranking above Madonna. If she can get angry at these people saying shit about her, I sure can hate them for saying shit about me.
Mad.
Here is a 30 second sound bite in .wav format of Back in the Chain Gang
PS. I found the best quote from Ms. Chrissie Hynde. Advice to Chick Rockers: Don’t think sticking your boobs out and trying to look fuckable will help. Remember you are in a rock and roll band. It’s not fuck me, it’s fuck YOU!”
God, I love this woman.
Yan Sham-Shackleton Online 
Right on. Chryssie Hynde is the best. Anyone who had an affair with Ray Davies is OK in my book.
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Maybe there are a lot of local assholes here in this city, but there should be much more of their counterparts donning pathetic white skins pro rata. Greg is a newcomer to HK and he posted a message on the asiaxpat.com:
QUOTE
Hello everyone,
Just wanted to introduce myself and say ‘hello’. I’m in the process of relocating to HK. My Company is about to secure me a flat in the middle of Causeway Bay, facing Time Square. I’ll be weekending in Hong Kong, and staying over / working in Shekou during the week.
My stats:
Male,28 yrs old,American,Single
Any advice for a newcomer is welcomed. Looking forward to meeting you all!
– Greg
UNQUOTE
What the hell he wants for an advice by hinting that he is single I don’t know. But he gets some very typical advices from some very typical assholes:
Asshole #1-
Dick Therepy
(Feb. 20, 04)
Stay away from Expat chicks !
BIG Asshole #2-
hoyo
(Feb. 20, 04)
bring a Shekou’s girl to HKG for your week-end, it would save you time and money
BIGGER Asshole #3-
Beck
(Feb. 20, 04)
Welcome Greg.. get ready for the easiest and most sex you have ever had. Just get yerself down to LKF or Wanchai on a night and take yer pick m8.. but as others have said.. dont let this all goto yer head as nobody likes a w*nker. 😉
Another BIG Asshole #4-
Vandalay
(Feb. 20, 04)
Becks is right Greg, even Quasimodo could pull a root (“get lucky” in Yank speak) in Wanchai. A stone’s throw from CWB, get yourself down there tonight
There are some good advices in between, but these four are like the fatso great representatives of expat assholes fancying themselves being Tom Cruise in this part of the world and working hard for getting laid. Pathetic rotten white meat!
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Ya Ray Davis is cool. Did you hear him go after that guy who snatched his friend’s bag in New Orleans? He got stabbed in the leg. Stupid but gallant. You gotta love him.
He of course also wrote a song about drag queens. The man is very cool.
yan
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Does the fact that he was a white wanker add to the post? You get rich assholes in all colours.
I went to a stand up comedy thing. Now if ever there is a place you shouldn’t heckle, unless you are lightening witted yourself, it’s at a stand up comedy thing. A Chinese guy heckled this comedian in English from the front row. The heckler wasn’t funny, in fact a bit rude, so the comedian laid into him and when he finished the guy could only say “I don’t speak English” …. right … shot yourself in the foot there mate!
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He sounds like a wanker too Shakey. Do you plan in anyway to go to Bowie and Heckle him? Probably not. Me neither.
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Do you ever go into other people’s site and point out there are hos and whores and sluts of all colors too? Or do you just do that to mine? Not that you are not correct in what you say here.
Yan
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Don’t spot any sluts on your site! I don’t usually comment, but in this case, I don’t know, something just made me comment. Probably being defensive, being a balding, expanding white expat. Not rich though.
I comment if I have something to say, I’m not picking on you!
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Damn. I need to up my slut quota to get more click throughs I knew I was doing it all wrong.
I am sorry babes. I don’t see you as balding or fat although I can’t deny that you have potential. I am not picking on you either!!! You wouldn’t heckle Chrissie would you?? She’s PUNK ROCK (as my friend said when I recounted story.)
Yan
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No I wouldn’t. Didn’t know she was playing, otherwise I would have gone.
Just wondering … who was that ass sat with? All his mates who thought it was hilarious too? Didn’t anyone try to stop him? I would have been mortified.
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What’s ‘gweilo’? Sounds a bit like ‘geil’, meaning horny. Any connection?
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“Geil” means horny in German. But in Cantonese, it’s what Chinese people used to call white people – “white ghosts/devils”. I think it used to have the same connotations as using “nigger” for black people but nowadays it’s sort of depends on the context. You can usually guess from the context of when someone uses it whether they mean it as a neutral form of description, a positive term of affection or a negative insult.
Although I’m sure Yan would be amused with your reference to the German word “geil” and it’s relation to gweilo. Incidently, gweilo is pronounced more like “Gwai” than the German “geil”.
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Gweilo means white ghost, it’s kind of like the Chinese way of saying cracker or honky.
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Woah, jinx. Eshin owes me a Coke!!!
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How come it’s alright/acceptable for HK-ers to say “Gweilo” and Mainlanders to use “Laowai” but god forbid any white person caught saying Chink, Nigger, etc. etc.
This has always seemed to be a double standard to me. As if only white people can be racist.
After living in Mainland China for several years, I must say that the Chinese here are the most racist people I’ve ever come across.
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Erika, where do I send the Coke?
Major Imbiber – I agree with you. It is a dual standard and I myself refrain from using the term myself when I can. But I don’t think in most cases it’s meant maliciously, or in some cases meant in any way whatsoever. I’m surprised at the number of people in HK that I have to explain to them the difference between something like “oriental” and “Asian”. Some words just are, and have no real power behind them unless you give them that power.
That fact that not only white people can be racists is an awakening for many people who come from predominantly white countries and cultures. Racism exists in all societies and cultures; and it’s part of the toolbox of defining “us and them’. A dirty tool maybe, but a tool nonetheless.
Why should white people be held to a different standard? They shouldn’t be, I agree. But perhaps, much that people are loathe to admit it, conquering the whole world with their civilization is reason enough that white people should be more thoughtful about how they treat other people.
Mainland Chinese people are probably no more racist than people in Europe or the States. I suspect you are white and would have had no perception of that in “white” civilization. It’s probably that you are more attune to it because you are now the minority.
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Good points Eshin. I would, upon reflection, agree with the last sentance of your last paragraph.
I would however strongly disagree that Mainlanders are no more racist than Europeans. In the West, racism isn’t at all acceptable and making rcist remarks will just as likely land you in trouble with white people as with others.
Blacks here are often called gorillas on the street, just one example of the ignorance and racism of Mainlanders.
I also disagree that we must patronise “poor” and “backward” Chinese people by making excuses for them.
In ultra-modern HK for example, Indians have always had difficulties renting houses and securing jobs from local Chinese.
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Major imbiber, you have a point, and as a white person myself I’m always more partial to people calling me by my name or ‘Miss’ rather than ‘honky’ or ‘cracker’… However, while I do agree that all racial slurs are malicious and hurtful, I think in a historical context it’s simply not as weighted to say ‘gweilo’ or ‘honky’ as it is to say ‘nigger’ or ‘chink’.
The latter are examples of racist slurs that are made all the more hurtful because they were created to refer to people who are already being brutalized, downtrodden, colonized, enslaved, and criminalized. If the UK had been colonized by China, instead of vice versa, if all the best neighborhoods, clubs, and shops were off-limit to the native English, if women came from all over Europe to be sex workers in London for Asian businessmen in the hopes they could marry one, if the local population had been made complacent by opium addiction, then yes, perhaps ‘gweilo’ might be as offensive as ‘chink’. But the fact of the matter is that it happened the other way around. I really think that to colonize someone, brutalize them, steal from them, and commit acts of violence against them, and then call them a racist name, is a little more serious.
In my experience, ‘gweilo’ is used more to refer to a specific breed of white expat. Gweilos, to me, are people who may live in a foreign country for twenty years and never learn the language, who live in isolated little sects with other gweilos, who essentially have nothing to do with the culture in which they live. These are the kind of people who live in Dubai and buy hummus from Marks and Spencer.
I agree that racism is not just limited to white people. I was astonished at the blatant racism I saw in India. But I really get a little cautious when people start talking about “the white man’s blues”. I don’t know. I guess my personal solution is to not act like a gweilo (as I’ve described above). And if someone still wants to call me a gweilo, that’s their problem!
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Okay, I’m not making excuses for Chinese people to be racist. I’m on the receiving end of being slightly darker than a lot of Chinese people here (it’s a close call but I do someimes get people thinking I’m Chinese), but invariably it means I get even worse treatment than I would do in the UK.
All I am explaining is perhaps the historical context of it and to say that racism isn’t exclusively a white monopoly. I spend time with both Chinese and Western people. And while being racist is less acceptable than it used to be, it’s a fairly recent innovation to be mindful of these things.
But I’ve always remembered that racism works differently for those two different cultures, although it is still a matter of inclusion/exclusion. You probably figured I’m not white but grew up in the UK. British people would always ask me,
“Where are you from?”
“North London”
“No, where are you originally from?”
While not racist, it is a predominantly racial thing of exclusion/inclusion which operates on the same level. If it was asked to a white person, it would have been several questions or conversations down the line, maybe never even being brought up at all.
On the other hand, Chinese people love to exclude/include more directly. At least I’ve found it the case although not always being directly on the receiving end all the time. But I often here in it’s varying forms the line,
“You wouldn’t understand. You’re not Chinese.”
It’s still the inclusion/exclusion thing going on. Actually, now that I think about it, I’ve seen times when inclusion happens also more directly with Chinese people. “You speak Cantonese very well.” “You could almost be Chinese.” “You must be Chinese.”
Don’t think I’ve ever heard, without it being offensive, “You’re okay, you could be white.” Not that it’s not okay to be white, it’s just that for non-white people, it might not be such a high honour.
As to Erika’s comments, I actually feel personally “expat” evokes those images that you described for “gweilo”. But as you say, it’s how much power you give to the word. Of course, I suspect that its easier for white people to take a dismissing approach to it since they have enjoyed other types of power for so long.
Interesting, my friend coined the term “old school gweilo” and “new school gweilo”. Old school still think the colony still exists and fits pretty much into Erika’s description while the new school are those that are more empathic with local culture and traditions.
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I actually made some comments towards the alcholic. However they have been deleted because I just rememebered that I am not here to engage or debate with middle aged, middle conservatives, middle minded bores.
Yan
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Some good discussion and ideas in here…
I just wanted to point out that yelling out “Chinese people are so racist!!!” is, in itself, a generalizaton based on a few experiences with a certain ethnicity. I think what we can all agree on is that there are racists in every culture, just as there are cool people who aren’t racist in every culture. Certain views or prejudices might vary by culture or country, but to lump everyone of that culture/country into a ‘racist’ classification is in itself a little discriminatory.
Eshin, I have had very similar experiences to what you described. Once in High School I brought a friend of mine as a date to a dance, and a classmate of mine kept pestering me as to where he was from. I said “right here in town”. And she said, “no, but what nationality is he?” I said “He’s American.” She said, “Is he Chinese….?” I said “He’s Japanese-American, but I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”
I also experienced that in India. As a Westerner and a non-Hindu, people had to do a lot of probing into my life and background to comfortably place me in a position or class. I assume this is because of the strong caste system there, and the fact that if you are a Hindu you can be placed in a social category by your surname alone. I was invariably asked by everyone I met what I studied in college, what my parents’ professions were, and what religion we were. I actually got into a half-hour discussion with one man who couldn’t accept the fact that I had not grown up with any religion. I finally had to concede that my grandparents were Lutheran, and he was immediately satisfied that I was a Christian through and through.
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Major imbiber:
For your information, “Laowai” simply means “foreigner”. There’s nothing racist about it.
I don’t see how someone who has no knowledge of the Chinese language (based on the above), let alone the culture, would come to the conclusion that “Chinese here are the most racist people I’ve ever come across.” With no mentioning of any encounters, I would question whether your feeling towards Chinese was due to misunderstanding of the culture and the language, inferiority complex of being racially different, xenophobia, or even, your discrimination towards Chinese.
I’m not denying that racism does not exist, but in most of the cases, it exists only because people think it exists.
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Sid Smith said something like “To call a race racist is self-defeating.” Don’t remember exact words though (thanks to Pranjal for the quote).
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