Students Too Asian article on Macleans

http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/11/10/too-asian/ (note they took the article down and edited it since it was first posted)

Initially I wasn't going to post about this because I didn't think it was worth spending time on because the article jumps around a lot. It makes some valid points, but it's clouded in statements that are designed to insight a reaction from general public, so much so that it becomes the main premise of the article. An example of this is the failure to make a distinction between international students, immigrant students and Canadian born students. I am a proponent of using generalizations, where appropriate, even to the extent that I'm called a racist, but the use of blanket terms in the article is ignorant. What really ticks me off is the way that the Macleans tries to support the notion that Asians study all the time with obviously biased and misleading anecdotal comments and statistics.

The quoted portion isn't even true at UBC.

Frankly, the whole thing seems like a non-issue to me. There will always be individuals (from all ethnic backgrounds) that will dedicate all their time to studying and homework. It can even be argued that Asian students are disproportionately more inclined toward this behaviour, but so what? Personally speaking, the people I know that are like that are in the minority, at least among Canadian born Asians. What's more common is the fact that some people mistakenly assume that all Asians do is study. I'm sure that there are a plethora of people out there that are tired of being labeled antisocial just because they don't like to party or drink their asses off. There is more than one way to be social.

I'll even go as far as arguing that most of these flawed perceptions are just a form of ethnocentrism. People from different cultures and ethnic backgrounds have diverse ideas of what it means to socialize, have fun, and have a productive meaningful life. This is often forgotten and people end up making judgement using their own background as a baseline which, of course, results in labeling others as not "normal" when they are.

Let others do what they want. If they want to party, let them party. If they want to study, let them study. Stop thinking that any behaviour other than your own is abnormal. I don't think I need to point out how stupid it would be to have affirmative action for non-Asian students. Just because someone is not Asian doesn't meant that they have some kind of inherent disadvantage at school. Being "white" doesn't mean you're forced to allocate your time away from studying toward booze and parties. In contrast, being poor does mean you have to allocate your time away from school.

I guess I'll end this rant by saying how I never understood why people think that to have a multicultural society, everyone needs to mingle and mix with each other. It doesn't take a genius to realize that people with similar ethnic and cultural backgrounds are more likely to share similar views on life. Like minded individuals will socialize with each other, there's nothing unusual about this phenomenon as long as racism isn't involved.

If every culture mingled with each other, Canada would turn into a huge melting pot with less cultural distinction. Forcing cultures to mix is akin to pureeing our metaphorical salad bowl. That wouldn't be very multicultural, would it?

By the way - http://asiansnotstudying.tumblr.com/

 

I wrote this as a reply to somebody on another forum, but it's basically a cliff notes of why I think the article blows.

In regards to whether or not this article is racist and fair:​

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If someone writes an article that's clearly biased and uses racist comments to further a racist point of view, why shouldn't it be considered racist? It's nothing better than quoting a bunch of hate messages and then saying "I agree", the difference in this case is that it's done under a veil of "journalism" and fancy words.​

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I don't see how anyone would find the article balanced. In fact, a lot of the counter point of views are prefaced with this comment: "Indeed, discussions with Canada’s top university presidents reveal for the most part that they are in a state of denial."​

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The article is a joke IMO, their credibility went out the door with the title (even after they added the stupid question mark). The description of the article doesn't even match its content well. It bugs me that it gets so much attention, because it's a shitty article written to provoke people. That's Maclean's for you .​

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BTW, who knows if we've all even read the same article? They've edited it so many times that there's no point in discussing it.​

 

It's not evident that it's balanced. But they do try to balance it out. Some of us focus on the negativity too much to not even see the other side.
If they're not trying to be balanced then why on earth would they use that Asian guy's quote of, "Fuck, I work hard for that."

If it makes you happy, UBC has written a response to the article...about how what the article said is not true at UBC.

 

To me, the way it's written makes it seem like they threw in the counter quotes just to seem credible and balanced.

Apparently the article was co-written by a former Ubyssey editor. The Ubyssey also had an editorial on it recently (“Too asian” critics ignoring reality) that generated some good discussion.

Disturbingly common? Based on what? Macleans provided no data to support their notion, instead they provided statistics on the ethnic makeup of the student body and presented it misleadingly. It's one thing to bring up a potential topic for discussion, it's another to misuse numbers when you don't have them.

I would agree with the lack of conversation and attention on race in the media but among people, there's no taboo against discussing racial topics. My experience has been that people seem perfectly comfortable talking about it online (read the Vancouver Sun comments sections), in opinion pieces and amongst friends and family.

What the article has done is push some lingering racial tension into the open, but to call it a step in the right direction is ridiculous. While the Macleans article forces people to talk about race, the viewpoint it pushes forward is step backwards.

By the way, Hongcouver and University of a Billion Chinese are not inherently racist terms. It wholly depends on context. Sometimes I feel if people were to relax and stop worrying about being so politically correct, there'd be a lot less tension in society. As cognitive beings, we learn to recognize patterns and generalize based on shared characteristics. What people need to be able to do is to realize the limitations of such generalizations, not reject them outright.

 

Actually, the article does fail in not having support. They're all anecdotes so we can't argue that they're being bias.
Maybe Maclean's could have chosen better anecdotes but after all. The article is selling, and I don't see anything wrong with sparking light in people. I'm glad that people are annoyed at the article. But I won't say that I am upset at Macleans completely because they are just quoting what dumbasses are saying.

On top of that, my friend does not want to stereotype but why are there so many homeless Euro Caucasians? In comparison to Asians? OF course factors like history etc. of the Nation is involved.
Chances are if you're immigrating here you're here to work hard.

 

Yeah we can, they don't have to state their opinion explicitly for them to hold a bias. They're biased in selecting quotes to use in their article.

Fair enough.

Well, that has to do with a number of things. The two big ones that come to my mind are Canada's immigration process and Vancouver's moderate climate. The Canadian immigration system is known to favour highly educated and middle-upper class folks, that alone is enough to explain the disparity.

Then you have the fact that homeless people all over Canada move to Vancouver because the Pacific Ocean's temperature moderation effect. Since Vancouver is more ethnically diverse than other regions of Canada, the % of non-asians homeless people coming to Vancouver is greater than the % of non-asians in the resident population.

Besides, if you go through DTES you can see that a large portion of the population there are First Nations. Closer to Chinatown you can see plenty of homeless and panhandling Asians, mostly elderly. These Asians are from an older wave of immigration.

 

For those who are interested, UBC did a panel discussion I think and they haven't posted anything -.-" but these people recorded it
http://www.tooasian.ca/too-asian-article-ubc-panel-discussion-audio-4-parts
Kinda annoying with all the clicky sound.
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Interesting tone from the people talking...

 

A high quality video of the panel is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-kTwVkty70

Some outright lies were spoken by panelists. For example, Henry Yu said "Everyone at UBC speaks a high level of English."

That's a blatant lie. There are lots of students, mostly Asian immigrants, who can barely speak English.

Also, you said that it's untrue that there is little Asian representation at UBC for student government, student newspaper, and the radio.

Actually, it is true. I was an editor at the Ubyssey, there are very few Asians. About 20% or less, despite the fact that Asians are over 40% of the student body. Likewise, for student council out of 47 people, less than 10 are Asian.

Please don't spread false information, thanks.

 

I believe that when he said he meant that, ASIANS ARE NOT STUPID. We can comprehend English. They fulfilled the TOEFL requirement and got in, just because they're not as fluent does not mean they do not know English.

No, that's a lie too coming from you. You "were" an editor, ever heard of Perspective Newspaper at UBC. I'm assuming not, but there is involvement from Asian students. Asian representation can come in any form, just because most do not choose being on the student council does not mean there isn't representation of them and they don't exisst.

I think you shouldn't spread false information.

 

When someone says "everyone at UBC speaks a high level of English" what they mean is that everyone at UBC speaks a high level of English. It's a pretty straightforward statement that has nothing do with intelligence or stupidity.

And Henry Yu was wrong in saying that, there are many UBC students who do not speak English at a high level (native level or near-native) and most of those are Asian. That's a fact.

I've heard of Perspectives but I don't really consider it a newspaper, more like a magazine. However, even if you do consider it a newspaper, it's still true that for student government and the campus radio station Asian involvement is low. Those are facts, yet Cheeseshredder said that was false.

Here's some proof, these are the names of the student council: http://www.ams.ubc.ca/student-government/ams-student-council/council-members/

As you can see, few Asians compared to the percentage of the student body. (over 40%)

I never said Asians didn't exist. I never said there wasn't representation of them, I said they are significantly under-represented in student government, the campus radio station, and the Ubyssey (which is the real student newspaper).

I didn't say anything false (if you don't count Perspectives as a newspaper). If you do count it as a newspaper, then one of my sentences was false, but the rest was true.

By the way, I'm Asian too, just look up my name on Facebook to see my picture.

 

Cause if you're not involved in student government or the campus newspaper, you have no life and study all time right? lol.

 

So what if there are many UBC students that don't speak English at a high level? We have a lot of international students from Asia, so it's not surprising. Lumping Asians together into one group is misleading.

The fact is that the % of Asians in student government do not match the % in the student body. Whether or not the current % can be deemed little is subjective. You seem to think so, I don't. Either way, the fact that the % of Asians doing student society stuff is lower doesn't indicate that Asian students are any less involved overall because you're not sampling from a broad range of activities.

By the way, you seem to equate being misinformed with being a liar. A bit quick to judge, aren't we ?

 

I'm curious,
if we do admit there is a problem; which most people do know there is one, what do you propose we do about it? Any action we do take, we are instantaneously called racist and ridiculed, and if you take the issue further, you can expect a visit from the RCMP, the city council of Vancouver and/or the Human Rights Commission of Canada. As the popular saying goes, everyone in Canada has rights except Canadians.

I think the older generations in Vancouver still view Vancouver with the rosy glasses from the 1970's and 1980's. In part; especially if you are over the age of 50 and considerably wealthy, you can literally isolate yourself from the social problems in this city. To everyone else...

Vancouver is a city of "commerce" and everything here be "bought" - from undergraduate degrees (see the Asian students who are completing degrees in European History - yet are unable to complete a sentence to English!), to citizenship, drugs and sex (Vancouver #1 in Canada for human trafficking).

But hey, if you have 10 million in the bank account - than the Economist Magazine recommends you to speculate the housing market!

And the Liberal Party of British Columbia is upset that no one is buying Mr. Campbell's Olympic Village Suites... If something sounds too good to be true than it probably ain't.

 

You're kinda all over the place, who are you ranting about exactly? Immigrants? Non-citizens? Asians in general?

 

Hi there,
I think that while the Maclean’s article was a bit on the controversial side and was guilty of making broad generalizations, some of the information was insightful. For one thing, it brought attention to the fact that issues about race do get privately talked about among people attending university. The fact that Maclean’s brought this talk out into the open and spurred a lot of reaction from students across Canada is very healthy. While the generalizations of all asian students being book worms and all white students being party animals may have been unfair stereotypes, one cannot argue that many Asians and white students do fall into these generalizations. But so what if they do. We all choose to go to university for different reasons and for different experiences. If a white student wants to party at university, let him be. If an asian student wants to study hard, let him be. If a white student wants to study and an asian student wants to party…also let them be. As long as no one is killing each other, just let it be. The other thing is, I think that the admissions system at Canadian universities is just fine. I am also an Asian Canadian and I feel very fortunate to live in a country where hard work can be rewarded with a chance to get a post secondary education. My parents have worked very hard to raise three children and I think they have been good role models for me to emulate. I study very hard, but I also play hard. I play soccer, and make sure that I am both physically and mentally fit. When I was in elementary school, I too faced a lot of racism from the white kids. I remember one time I was playing soccer during lunch hour, and after the lunch hour was finished, a white student by the name of Rob asked me why I was showing off. I could tell from the way he said it that he couldn’t stand it that an asian kid could actually be good at a sport. The racism I encountered growing up only strengthened my resolve to work even harder to become successful in this country. In a way, I think that Rob’s negative comments motivated me to study even harder and get the best marks in school. Enough said.