User:Andrew Robertson/names

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{{AfDM|{{{1|English language names for Chinese people}}}|English_language_names_for_Chinese_people|http://en.wikipedia.org|2007|April|3}} <!-- End of AfD message, feel free to edit beyond this point --> {{POV}} {{Mergefrom|Chink|date=April 2007}} {{Mergefrom|Chinaman|date=April 2007}} {{Mergeto|List of ethnic slurs|date=April 2007}}

English language names for Chinese people[1][2][3]

The various English language names for Chinese people comprise those in the list to the right. They can be derogatory in intent, or taken to be derogatory, but are not necessarily derogatory. Several have undergone processes of semantic change, both perjoration and amelioration, over the years. Some, but not all, are slang names. The historical semantic changes, as well as the various connotations that the names have accrued over the centuries, has led, in the 21st century, to a wide range of viewpoints (some strongly opposed to one another) on the individual names.

Contents

[edit] The variety of origins

Some English names for Chinese people are based upon (sometimes stereotypical or expatriate) Chinese cuisine and eating practices, naming people after what they eat or the (to the eyes of those from other cultures) unusual way that they eat. These names are all slang and derogatory in intent. They include "chow mein" (a romanization of the Chinese language for fried noodles — see chow mein), "chopsticks" (after chopsticks, eating utentils — a name that is common in the late 20th century in the slang of black street gangs in Los Angeles), "fortune cookie" (after fortune cookies), and "rice-belly", "rice-eater", "riceman", and "ricer" (all from the fact that rice is a staple food in China, with "riceman" and "ricer" being most frequently used by African Americans)[1]

Other names are more simply related to the names of China and the Qing Dynasty.[1]

[edit] "Chinese", "Chinaman", "Chinee" and related names

As of the late 20th century, "Chinese" (used as a noun, as in "a Chinese") is the preferred name for a Chinese person, both within the community of Chinese Americans and outside of it, and is largely neutral with respect to both negative and positive connotations. However, in earlier times it has carried negative connotations of inferior design, backward thinking, unintelligibility, and deceitfulness, as in a "Chinese puzzle", a "Chinese compliment", or a "Chinese fire drill".[1].

"Chinee" and "Chiney" are, as of the late 20th century, taken to be simply jocular or illiterate forms of the name "Chinese". However, in the 19th century, they were racialist slurs. "Chinee", in particular, was popularized by a poem by Bret Harte, The Heathen Chinee, making it, as a racialist name for a Chinese person, especially an immigrant labourer, a household word across the United States.[1][4]

"Chinaman" and "Chinawoman" are similarly used, as of the late 20th century, without pejorative or racialist intent, although they are both (especially "Chinawoman") considered to be patronizing, with Chinese people in the United States raising the objection that non-Chinese Americans are not called "America-man". Mencken notes that both names are categorized as slang similarly to "Chinee" and "Chink", all of which are discouraged in favour of "Chinese". In the 18th century and earlier, a "chinaman" was simply a person who traded in Chinese porcelain (i.e. "china") or, in a related and also original context, a ship engaged in the china trade. "Chinaboy", for a Chinese males regardless of actual age, is universally considered to be pejorative.[1][4][5]

Whilst "Chinaman" itself is not in the 20th century considered to be racialist, "Chinaman's chance" is, although it was embraced in the title of Chinese-American historian's Liping Zhu book on Chinese in the gold mining towns of Idaho, A Chinaman's Chance: The Chinese on the Rocky Mountain Mining Frontier.[1][6] which overturns negative myths about the Chinese in the gold rushes by exploring their phenomenal successes in this field.[7]

"Chinaman" was in the 19th Century often used as a self-descriptor by Chinese themselves[citation needed], notably in the 1852 Letter of the Chinamen to then-Governor Bigler of California.[8]

In the Chinese Labour Corps after the end of World War I, "Chinaman", "Chinee", and "Chink" were sometimes used with varying degrees of derogation by the British military, in Lewis' words "insensitively and insultingly, in a demeaning manner", but most of the time were used simply as "innocent slang terms not intended to cause offense or hurt".[9]

Nonetheless, "chinaman" has been undergoing a revival among Asian American and Asian Canadian artists and web persona, who use it as a proud self-identifier. These include Fresh Kid Ice, who goes by the name "The Chinaman" and is the founder of Chinaman Records and a member of the rap ensemble the Chinaman All-Stars, and Texan comedian Mark Britten, whose chosen stage name is "The Chinaman" and whose act lampoons ethnic steroetypes as well as pretensions.[10].[11][12][13]

Taiwanese scholar and ex-political prisoner[who?] chose "Chinaman" as a translation for zhuong guo ren, normally translated "Chinese person", as a paradigm or archetype in his critique of modern Chinese cultural attitudes and issues, and also in the title of his study of this topic, The Ugly Chinaman and the Crisis of Chinese Culture (醜陋的中國人), a usage meant to echo the phrase "the Ugly American".[14][15][16]

[edit] "John Chinaman" and 19th century rhetoric

Another similarly derisory name for a Chinese immigrant to North America in the 19th century, was "John Chinaman", which was used widely in the press and everyday speech. Ward characterizes it as as not being used to convey as much disparagement as "chink" was in the 20th century but nonetheless that it was used "with heavy overtones of mockery and contempt".[2][1][17]

In the New York 1855 census, over half of the Chinese people listed had the given name "John". By the 1870 census this had risen to two-thirds. This is in part due to the fact that "John" was simply a very popular Anglo-American name in its own right. However, the popularity of the name amongst Chinese was greater than the average. The reason for this popularity is unknown, although hypotheses (put forward by Tchen) include that the name was given to Chinese immigrants by missionaries, ship's captains, or other officials; and that the name was a popular choice amongst the Chinese themselves.[17]

The name "John Chinaman" itself was analogous to "Jack Tar" and "John Bull", appearing from the middle of the 19th century onwards and in wide use by 1869, with articles in the New York Times and the New York Herald having headlines such as "John Chinaman — What Shall We Do With Him?" and "Sambo versus John Chinaman — The California Republican". In 1845, John B. Dale, a U.S. lieutenant serving on the Constitution in China sketched a scene of two men trading which he entitled "John Chinaman trading with Jack Tar".[17]

Tchen describes the use of "John Chinaman", "Oriental", "swarthy", "Johnny Coolie", "pigtails", "imitative", and "magical" by 19th century writers and speakers such as John Swinton, and by others as part of everyday life in New York City, as being the language of scientistic racism. These various names promoted the idea that Chinese people were irreconcilably different. A particular example is "coolie labor" being used as a blanket term for all Chinese workers, despite the fact that there were significant differences in employment contracts across the population of Chinese labourers. The name carried connotations of exploited indentured workers from Peru and the Carribbean, and Chinese labourers became associated with "coolieism", which was, in its turn, "but another name for African slave labor". Similarly, "pigtails" and "swarthy" served to reinforce in readers' minds, by reminding them of racial stereotypes, the preconception that Chinese people and their culture were incompatible with the culture of European immigrants.[17]

The Anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States of the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries was reinforced by many of these names being employed in popular culture, with Broadway musicals being entitled Chinatown Charlie and Chop Suey One Lung and containing songs with titles such as "Chin-Chin Chinaman", "Chinee Soje Man", "Chinky China Charleston", and Victor Herbert's "Chink! Chink!"[18]

[edit] "Chink", "Ching Chong", and related names

"Chink", "chinkie", "chinky", "chinki-chonk", "chinky-chonk", and "chino" are all United States English and Commonwealth English slang, and derived from either a Chinese courtesy exclamation "ching-ching!" or from the name of the Ch'ing (an older name for Qing) Dynasty. Authorities vary as to the earliest occurrences of these names, with the Oxford English Dictionary dating them to 1901, Eric Partridge dating them (in particular "chink") in British English to 1880 (compared to "Chinee" which he dates to 1855), and Spears dating them to the middle of the 19th century.[1][19][5]

Whilst they are almost always, as from the 20th century onwards, perceived as slurs, they have been used without an intent to slur, and several people are attempting to ameliorate them. Frank Chin, for example, opts for amelioration, preferring "chink" and "chinaman" over "Chinese American". However, they have been used as slurs as well, such as in the children's taunt "Chinky, Chinky, Chinaman! Yellow-face, pig-tail, rat-eater!" and the children's rhyme "Chink, Chink, Chinaman, sitting on a rail. Along comes a white man and cuts off his tail.". The taunt "Ching-Chong Chinaman", a veiled insult, was the refrain of a children's skipping rhyme that was once common in Victoria and New Zealand.[1][20][21][22]

Many children's rhymes including this taunt against Chinese people have existed, including "Ching Chong, Chinaman, Sitting on a wall. Along came a white man, And chopped his head off." (a variation on "Chink, Chink, Chinaman" above), "Ching Chong Chinaman bought a toy doll, Washed it, dyed it, then he caught a cold. Sent for the Doctor. Doctor couldn't come, Because he had a pimple on his bum, bum, bum.", "Ching Chong Chinaman, Born in a jar, Christened in a teapot, Ha ha ha.", and "Ching Chong Chinaman, walking down the street.".[22][23][24][25]

Several Chinese people have adopted this name as their own from these taunts. Mason reports an 8-year-old happy to accept the nickname "Ching Chong" given to him by other schoolchildren, in igorance of the fact that it was a shortened version of the "Ching Chong Chinaman" taunt. Similarly, the person reputed to be the first Chinese immigrant to East London, South Africa chose the English language name "Ching Chong" for himself, reputedly from such childrens' taunts. A gravestone in the West Bank cemetery records where Ching Chong buried his 16-year-old son, Kong Chow, in 1902. The tale of his choosing the name has it that when he disembarked from the boat that he arrived on and walked up the street, he was followed by a group of children shouting "Ching Chong" as a taunt. He liked the sound of the phrase and, unaware of its connotations, chose it as his name.[26][27]

Asian-Canadian (and Asian-American) comedian Tommy Chong disastrously persuaded his fellow band members to rename Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers as "Four Niggers and a Chink" when that band moved to San Francisco in the early 1960s.[citation needed]

The nickname for the athletics team of Pekin High School in Pekin, Illinois was "The Chinks" until 1980, with the team mascot being a schoolchild dressed in Chinese costume and celebrating the team scoring points by striking a gong. Cole Porter's original lyrics for the chorus of his song Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love! was "Chinks do it. Japs do it.". However, upon being informed that "chink" was considered to be offensive, he changed the line to "Birds do it. Bees do it.".[1]

In British English, a "chinky" has also become the name of a particular type of Chinese restaurant or of the meal that one obtains from such a restaurant (see chinky). People in the United Kingdom differ on the subject of whether the name is in fact intended pejoratively or not, although when used to denote the type of restaurant or the meal, rather than to denote a type of person, it is generally held not to be pejorative in intent.[1][28]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Philip H. Herbst (1997). The Color of Words: an encyclopaedic dictionary of ethnic bias in the United States. Intercultural Press. ISBN 1877864978. 
  2. ^ a b William Peter Ward (1990). White Canada Forever: Popular Attitudes and Public Policy Toward Orientals in British Columbia. McGill-Queen's Press, 3. ISBN 0773523227. 
  3. ^ Lester V. Berrey and Melvín van den Bark (1953). American Thesaurus of Slang: A Complete Reference Book of Colloquial Speech. New York: Thomas Crowell, 348. 
  4. ^ a b Ernest Weekley (1967). Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, Vol. 1. Courier Dover Publications, 294. ISBN 0486218732. 
  5. ^ a b H. L. Mencken (1945). The American Language: An Inquiry Into the Development of English in the United States. New York: A.A. Knopf, 609. 
  6. ^ A Chinaman's Chance: The Chinese on the Rocky Mountain Mining Frontier, , University of Colorado Press, Denver (2000)
  7. ^ missingauthor (missingdate). missingtitle. missingwork.
  8. ^ "Letter of the Chinamen of California" to Governor Bigler of Cailfornia, 1852
  9. ^ John Fulton Lewis (2004). China's Great Convulsion, 1894-1924: How Chinese Overthrew a Dynasty, Fought Chaos and Warlords,. Sun on Earth Books, 137. ISBN 1883378834. 
  10. ^ missingauthor (missingdate). missingtitle. missingwork.
  11. ^ missingauthor (missingdate). missingtitle. missingwork.
  12. ^ missingauthor (missingdate). missingtitle. missingwork.
  13. ^ missingauthor (missingdate). missingtitle. Gotcrack.com.
  14. ^ missingauthor (missingdate). missingtitle. missingwork.
  15. ^ missingauthor (missingdate). missingtitle (PDF). missingwork.
  16. ^ missingauthor (missingdate). missingtitle. missingwork.
  17. ^ a b c d John Kuo Wei Tchen (2001). New York Before Chinatown: Orientalism and the Shaping of American Culture, 1776-1882. Johns Hopkins University Press, 190,230–231,338. ISBN 0801867940. 
  18. ^ Peter J. Conn (1996). Pearl S. Buck: A Cultural Biography. Cambridge University Press, 31. ISBN 0521560802. 
  19. ^ Eric Partridge (1960). Slang To-day and Yesterday: With a Short Historical Sketch and Vocabularies of English, American,. New York: Bonanza Books, 429. 
  20. ^ Harold Robert Isaacs (1972). Images of Asia: American Views of China and India. New York: Harper & Row Limited, 110. 
  21. ^ Kathryn Cronin (1982). Colonial Casualties: Chinese in Early Victoria. Melbourne University Press, 132. ISBN 0522842216. 
  22. ^ a b Brian Sutton-Smith (1959). The Games of New Zealand Children. University of California Press, 94. 
  23. ^ California Folklore Society (1947). Western Folklore. California Folklore Society, 120–121. 
  24. ^ Benson Tong (2004). Asian American Children: A Historical Guide. Greenwood Press, 172. ISBN 0313330425. 
  25. ^ Ed Cray (April 1970). "Jump-Rope Rhymes from Los Angeles". Western Folklore 29 (2): 119–127. doi:10.2307/1498801. 
  26. ^ Gail Mason. Spectacle of violence, The: Homophobia, Gender and Knowledge. Routledge. ISBN 0415189551. 
  27. ^ Melanie Yap and Dianne Leong Man (1996). Colour, Confusion & Concessions: The History of the Chinese in South Africa. Hong Kong University Press, 56. ISBN 9622094244. 
  28. ^ The Vicar Of Dibley (PDF). the bulletin 21. Ofcom (2002-07-25).

[edit] Further reading

  • Hyung-chan Kim (1986). "Chink, Chink, Chinaman". Dictionary of Asian American History. Greenwood Pub Group. 199. ISBN 0313237603. 

Category:Chinese people Category:Stereotypes

[edit] talk page

[edit] Merge debate for Chinaman

  • Oppose Chinaman has an exhaustive body of literature and has other meanings than as a name for Chinese people. User:Uncle G who created this article has done so, and placed a merge template, on the Chinaman article because his other attempt to foist a merge on that page failed completely. In my view, this article should either be merged with List of ethnic slurs, which it replicates the material of (and is properly a list itself), or deleted as spurious and personal-agenda-serving on the part of its creator.Skookum1 04:44, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Bad faith nomination stemming from previous Chinaman-Chink merge discussion at Talk:Chinaman.--Keefer4 | Talk 09:16, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
    • On the contrary, it is an entirely good faith illustration by concrete example of the point that I tried to get across to you before. There is a larger subject here than just an individual word, and the individual words are all the same subject (as is revealed by the fact that the sources discuss these words all together). It is patently silly to have the same, single, subject discussed repeatedly in multiple articles, one each for each of the individual words that are in the list at the top of this article, each addressing but a facet of the actual whole. We merge duplicate articles, and this is the sort of article into which such duplicate articles should be merged. Uncle G 21:13, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
    • Your position that Chinaman is a "duplicate article" is utter hogwash, given all the non-Chinese-people meanings of that word. What's a duplicate article is THIS article, which duplicates List of ethnic slurs, albeit through a one-ethnicity filter. Stop being disigenuous; none of anyone else who's in their right mind could buy your claims that yours is a "good faith" article; it was clearly created to undermine the work of other editors you've been obstructive towares, and this merge nomination is just more POV GARBAGE like your proposed merger of Chink, which has been shot down out of the water. You can't get your way, so you try and create new ways around things rather than actually deal with other people honestly. Well, what you've done here is entirely POV and irresponsible and your comments above are somewhere between "being coy" and outright wheedling. You're not a knight in shining armour, Uncle G, even if you want to pretend to that role.Skookum1 21:20, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
      • That's a spurious (and grossly incivil) argument. The "non-Chinese-people meanings of that word" are not dealt with by Chinaman. The other things that the word can denote are dealt with by the other articles that are listed at Chinaman (disambiguation). Chinaman deals with the meaning that is an English language name for Chinese people, as it says in its very introduction. Creating a merger target article to show exactly how all of these articles on the same single subject can be merged and dealt with all together, in the same way that the sources deal with them all together, is clearly not bad faith. Uncle G 21:29, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
Oh, cut it with the "incivil" stuff; your creation of this article was incivil. Like I said to Hong, maybe you should read that Bo Yang article/speech about his book The Ugly Chinaman and the Crisis of Chinese Culture and learn something about yourself, and how even other Chinese see your kind of behaviour (Bo Yang's article is a critique of Chinese culture/attitudes, not of white ones); you're living up to his archetypes, that's for sure. Other than that, since you created this merge where's your vote????? Or are you only here to argue with other peoples' positions and not actually defend your claim that this page has a right to exist, which it doesn't.Skookum1 21:38, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose - A similar suggestion has already been proposed and rejected. Please stop.Zeus1234 13:15, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge debate for List of ethnic slurs

  • Support There is no need to replicate these words, which are already listed on the main ethnic slurs list. This page was created entirely to undermine efforts to bring clarity and full content to the Chinaman article - no sooner than this article had been made than its creator User:Uncle G, who has been entirely unhelpful at Talk:Chinaman, put the merge template on the Chinaman article; but, interestingly, not here. The far more obvious merge is to List of ethnic slurs, and that I will support. Failing that, this article should be filed for speedy delete as spurious.Skookum1 04:44, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
    • This is not a list article. Merger to a list article is obviously wrong. Uncle G 20:58, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
      • This is a list; any attempt to claim that it's a documentation of common or comparative lingistic features of the various words is WP:Original research. It's just a glorified list, Uncle G, and it's going to get either merged (with List of ethnic slurs) or it's going to get deleted. It's also perhaps some kind of violation of Wiki rules as it's clearly been created to subvert efforts by all other editors (even HQG) at Talk:Chinaman/Chinaman. None of the rest of us are fooled, and there's enough intelligent admins out there who know the difference between what's a list and what's not, and also what's created to try and foist a POV/ethnically-biased-content agenda on Wikipedia. The contents of this LIST are already on List of ethnic slurs. Look up "reinventing the wheel" in your dictionary, maybe. Oh - and where's your vote??? (in this section and the one above?)Skookum1 21:45, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
        • This article clearly isn't a list, as can be seen by reading it, and doesn't support any agenda. And no, the discussion here is not in that list, as can also be seen by reading the two. Uncle G 22:06, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
          • It seems that at least three people disagree with you and think this article is a list.Zeus1234 22:54, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
            • Then I can only infer that they haven't read it. It clearly isn't a list. Uncle G 13:47, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
            • It only doesn't read like a list because it's full of his editorializing and original research about the terms and their supposed history; take away all the dross and it's just a list. A pretentious, covertly-hate-mongering list with a lot of editorialization - but still a list.Skookum1 23:24, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
              • None of the research is original. It is all sourced. The sources are cited and any reader can check them for xyrselves. Uncle G 13:47, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
    • These are not necessarily slurs, as the article itself says. Merger into a list of slurs is obviously wrong. Uncle G 22:27, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
      • That's quite comical that you'd say that. Because Chinaman isn't necessarily a slur, but Chink most definitely is and you were the one who foisted (and now has re-foisted) the Chink merger discussion, which was effectively closed when you abandoned it in favour of this new merge but since 4.zip.zip and another popped by for the obsolete Chink merger, you appear to have revived it even though you abandoned it yourself, because now you think you might have support; or perhaps have enlisted it, who knows. Do you know how foolish and hypocritical you look because of all this?Skookum1 23:26, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
        • Looking over your list, it is quite obvious they are all slurs depite what you may claim.Zeus1234 23:42, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
        • As the article explains, citing a source for the analysis, "chink" has been used as an "innocent slang term". As I said, the article itself does explain these things. I suggest reading the article. Uncle G 13:47, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Support - per Skookum1.--Keefer4 | Talk 09:18, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Support - I agree with Skookum.Zeus1234 13:14, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge debate for Chink

  • Oppose Chink has a completely different history than other racial terms against Chinese people. Also, 'Chink' can refer to people from any East Asian country, including Vietnam and Korea, thus making it innapropriate to merge with an article exclusively about Chinese people.Zeus1234 16:06, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
While I agree overall, there's an argument that some users of Chinaman, usually in the derisive sense, refer to anyone who looks Chinese, including and particularly Japanese but also Korean and Viets; but that's an "eccentric usage" and fairly rare, as also when "that old chinaman" is used in examples I've seen to refer to a Chinese woman.Skookum1 23:39, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose There's enough information about this particular term to garner its own article. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 17:28, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose Chinaman has various meanings, not all of them to do with Chinese people; Chink is only a derisive when used to refer to Chinese people (it does mean other things, at all, e.g. a chink in one's armour). This merge nomination, also, is a "hostile merger" meant to attack the work ongoing at Chinaman.Skookum1 23:39, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

NB this merger discussion is out-of-context; I just looked at Chink and the only merge teamplt there is {{mergefrom}}. It appears that throughout the merge discussion with Chinaman, Uncle G never put the merge template on that article, just as he also didn't put it on this one - only on Chinaman. And he still won't vote on any of them, other than criticizing what votes others have made. And this guy calls himself an admin...Skookum1 23:42, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I just added the merge template to Chink for protocol's sake, even though it's "interesting" that Uncle G never placed it there. An oversight? Perhaps, but I can't assume good faith right now given this individual's conduct around here. On the whole, I'd like to wipe all three merge templates and just put {{speedy delete}} as should have been done in the first place, but now the merge discussions are underway they have to close before an AFD can be started.....Skookum1 23:46, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV

There is no evidence, either in the edit summaries of the editor who placed the notice or on this talk page, what the neutrality dispute with the article actually is. Uncle G 22:02, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

  • Don't you read fairytales? Ever heard "Be careful what you wish for". Hong presumed a similar line of evasive pretension to yours about "Chinaman's" many non-derisive contexts, and look what happened because of THAT. I've been busy today, other than rejoindering your silly arguments (and you still haven't voted on your own merge and I note that your attempt to get rid of a merge template someone else placed - on POV/mergist grounds no less - was of course reversed by another editor, as I would have myself had I been in the house at the time. This would appear to be the second time you've removed that template, which is disgraceful conduct for an admin.Skookum1 23:21, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
    • That paragraph contains zero explanation of what the neutrality dispute with this article is. And no, I have not "got rid of a merge template." I have reverted a change to the merge template, that I originally placed, that bizarrely re-directed the merger suggestion to an article about a type of restaurants instead of to here. Uncle G 13:42, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merges vs. AFD

Well, turns out you don't have to wait for a merge discussion to end in order to start an AFD. See the AFD page for this article and join in the fun...(Wen Hsing is my hero!).Skookum1 04:03, 3 April 2007 (UTC)