Gwai priviledge / inverse racism indeed
Mon, 2003-11-24 14:02 — Anonymous
Some years ago a Chinese friend of mine was playing tennis at the Ladies Recreation club (LRC) in the Mid-Levels. She was asked rudely by a member of staff to leave the court because she was wearing a pink top which was incorrect attire. My friend obliged since it was club policy to wear white only on the tennis courts. As my friend left she noticed four expat women all dressed in non-white colours enjoying a game of doubles on a neighbouring court. Outraged, she questioned the member of staff who expelled her from the court why he had not enforced the same rule to the four expat women. The staff member told my friend to mind her own business and not to question how he did his job.
My friend did nothing further since she did not want to start a big fuss. Fuss? maybe a little. I think it's also a question of attracting unwanted attention which may result in loss of face. The solution: let oneself be silently raped.
Re:Gwai priviledge / inverse racism indeed
I hope this was SOME years ago indeed as hopefully situations like this no longer exist in such establishments in Hong Kong whereby the colour of your skin determines extra privilege or the ability to bend rules.
That's one side of the coin...the other being speaking out. I have personally witnessed women on the MTR being touched by men and doing nothing about it, but merely getting off the train at the next stop.
I realise it is never easy to draw attention to oneself in such situations, or to create a fuss when nine times out of ten the man will deny any such wrong-doing...but unless we speak out against this, it will continue.
One friend of mine told me that she had observed a man every morning waiting on a platform where she boarded a train and carefully selecting a victim. He decided it was her turn one morning and lived to regret it as once his fingers started to do a little walking she very loudly chastised him until the next stop and then when he tried to flee grabbed him by the shirt and held him until a station assistant approached.
I'm pretty sure it will be a long time until he does that again. But had she not done something, it would have continued.
I too have had the 'pleasure' of such frottage on an MTR train and found that a well placed high heel on the arch of his foot made him forget he even had fingers!!
Re:Gwai priviledge / inverse racism indeed
[quote]That's one side of the coin...the other being speaking out.[/quote]
A few years ago at a Chinese New Year banquet I ended up on a table of local ladies. As often happens, conversation swung around to "Can you tell us the English word for ...", and in this case it was for "Haam sup lo", which means pervert, or dirty old man. I thought they couldn't mean that - I must have the tones wrong or something, and said I didn't understand. But that is exactly what they meant - to clarify what they meant, they gave the same example of being touched by men on the MTR.
They wanted an English word they could shout out the next time it happened. I wondered at the time why they just didn't shout it out in Cantonese (or even better stamp on the man's foot) ?
I'd forgotten about it until Fiona's post, but I guess it must be quite a common occurrence - the ladies above were in their late forties or older, and it was obviously still a problem for them.
MrB
Re:Gwai priviledge / inverse racism indeed
hopefully, now chinese people will have more solidarity and stand up together against the rest. with the whole china situation forever present. STAND STRONG AGAINST THE GWAILO!
Re:Gwai priviledge / inverse racism indeed
Huh??? :?
Re:Gwai priviledge / inverse racism indeed
8O huh indeed....everyone i've spoken to about this issue be they chinese, indian or european/american/australian.....has told me that the perpetrators are local men!!