Anti-Asian hate crime, vaccines and water slides

Hi there guys. Today's post is about something interesting I had observed recently on Facebook - I am on a Facebook group for Singaporeans in the UK and this guy whom we shall call Rick (not his real name) asked a question. He is going to move to the UK for work later this year and having seen a lot in the news about anti-Asian hate crime, he asked if him and his wife might face any real danger as Asian in the UK. This started a long discussion with many people contributing to the discussion and what I observed in this discussion was actually so interesting that I decided to turn it into a blog pot. Thankfully, despite all the reports of anti-Asian racism in the media now, hardly anyone had experienced it personally - some had stories to share like, "in the town where I live, there was this case when a Chinese guy was attacked in town a few years ago." The worst story was how this woman was at an outdoor market and she was wearing earphones, listening to music - this guy shouted at her but her music was so loud she was oblivious to what was going on around her, so he went up to her, stood right in front of her to use sign language to take off her earphones before shouting some really abusive language at her - the incident shocked her as she had no idea why that man had singled her out in the crowd or what she had done to have upset him, thus she assumed that the only logical explanation had to be racism. She didn't stay there to reason or argue with that angry man, she ran away out of fear which was a very natural reaction.

What I did notice though was that some people did complain of racism and when they shared their stories, I shook my head and thought, that's not racism, is it? Now don't get me wrong, these were very awkward social encounters that left these people feeling unhappy, unsettled and even disrespected. Allow me to reconstruct one such incident: Mrs Soh (not her real name) is a Singaporean woman working in England and had gone to visit a client in Leeds whom we shall refer to as 'David'. Upon noticing that Mrs Soh looked Chinese when she entered the meeting room, David greeted her with "ni hao" - this left Mrs Soh feeling awkward because she wasn't expecting it from him. She then asked David, "do you wish to speak to me in Mandarin?" Turns out David didn't speak Mandarin but it was a desperate attempt by the client to establish rapport that clearly failed, because Mrs Soh wasn't impressed. David explained that had assumed that it was the polite thing to do - when he was on holiday in France, he would always greet the locals with bonjour or bonsoir because continuing in English, that's him making an effort with what very limited French he has and he thought it would be better to at least start off with a French greeting than to simply speak to the locals only in English. Mrs Soh pointed out to David that they were in Leeds, not Shanghai and in any case, she was from Singapore and not China, so English was her first language in any case. My regular readers will remember that this is similar to the Sarah Tiong incident in Australia last year when she got awfully offended, when a white radio DJ tried to impress her by greeting her with ni hao. 

So was David racist? Did Mrs Soh experience racism at the hands of David in Leeds? I don't think so - in this case, David is clearly an idiot with poor social skills whose attempt at building rapport had failed miserably. But is he a racist who hates Chinese people, was he trying to insult Mrs Soh? No, he isn't - not at all. However, people like Mrs Soh would classify such incidences as 'anti-Asian racism' or 'racist aggression' despite the total absence of malice on the part of David. Allow me to share another story of a similar nature that I experienced personally: back in 2007, I acted in a TV programme that was trying to recreate a scene in Beijing, but because of budget constraints, they couldn't fly everyone to China so the programme was shot in various Chinese restaurants in London Chinatown, interspersed with some stock footage of Beijing streets. One of the producers whom we shall refer to as Henry (not his real name) called me up the day before the shoot with a question, do I have any Chinese currency I could bring to the set? He referred to Renminbi, the Chinese yuan, the official currency of China and the question was a dumb one - I had made it clear that I'm from Singapore and I do have a little bit of Singapore dollars at home for my next trip to Singapore; but I'm not from China, I have no idea when I may visit China again so why should I have some Chinese currency sitting around at home. Henry's reply was quite ignorant and annoying, "oh but you're Chinese so I thought you would visit your relatives in China from time to time." I had to explain that even if they do exist, I have never ever made any contact with them before. I have a small amount of Euros at home because I often visit countries in the Eurozone for my holidays but if I went to a country like Morocco or Croatia with their own currency - I'd make sure I spend every last bit of the local currency before leaving. 

Henry didn't know that Singapore was an independent country, with its own currency and was located a long way from China - he wouldn't be able to find Singapore on the world map. He had heard that I was from Singapore but assumed that it was some city or province in China. Yes, that's your cue to roll your eyes. We are dealing with someone who was very stupid and ignorant, who had absolutely no concept of what countries were in Asia: his mental map to the East of Greece was probably just a blur. Henry certainly could have handled the situation a lot better - it was clear that his initial assumption was wrong and he should have just apologized for the misunderstanding rather than try to defend his mistake by doubling down on his original "but don't you visit your relatives in China?" assumption. Was Henry stupid? Oh yes, he was definitely very stupid and he had poor social skills on top of that. But did he have any malicious intent to hurt my feelings or insult me? No, I don't think so. Was Henry racist? No, he's stupid: there is a difference between the stupidity and racism. I find this quite troubling because we need to understand the situation properly and know what we are dealing with if we are to tackle the problem of anti-Asian racism. The problem with adding people like David and Henry into the group of British people guilty of anti-Asian racism is that it only obfuscates the situation - we need to focus on the real culprits who are guilty of having malicious, racist intent. The fact is you're going to encounter a lot of dumb people with poor social skills here in the UK, that's a fact of life we just have to deal with - don't get me wrong, it is a pain having to deal with people with poor social skills, but that is not the same as the challenges of dealing with actual racists. 

So with this in mind, let's go back to the discussion on the Facebook group with our friend Rick who is moving to the UK later this year, I can conclude that 9 out of 10 incidences of racism described by the people on the group were not racist incidents, but instead involved a mix of poor social skills, ignorance and sheer stupidity. There were very, very few instances of genuine racism - such as in the Jonathan Mok case: he was the Singaporean student who was beaten up in London by a group of thugs after they used racist language with him. Yes in cases like that, it is pretty obvious that there was malicious intent involved but thankfully, such instances are extremely rare. Many on the Facebook group also said that they could always turn to their management if there were any instances at work where they felt uncomfortable, when they suspected there was racist intent as there are strict rules in this country that make racist discrimination illegal. But where the law stands on stupidity, ignorance and poor social skills is a lot more fuzzy. Thus do we try to use the law to punish people like David and Henry for their appallingly bad social skills, when they say something stupid and inappropriate? I don't think so: such people usually suffer the consequences of their own poor social skills anyway. They have fewer friends, they have a far smaller network of professional contacts, they will perform more poorly at job interviews, they don't know how to chat to strangers at networking event, they might even have difficult relationships with their own family members as a result of these poor social skills - these people are already punished many times over every single day and so we don't need to get the law involved to try to expand this punishment for their poor social skills. 

Allow me to talk about something I just saw on the TV as a case study: I watch a Dutch-language Belgian reality TV series called De Mol, it is one of my favourite TV programmes. There was a bizarre but fun episode this week when the contestants had to take part in a music video for a Japanese singer Takeo Ischi who is the famous Japanese yodeler. The Belgian contestants did two things which annoyed me: firstly, they referred to Takeo as "Mister Taki" and no one on the production team corrected that mistake, despite the fact that it was obvious that they were mispronouncing Takeo's name. The second mistake one contestant made was that he was able to speak to his wife about his day, he then excited told his wife, "we were awoken by a Chinese yodeler this morning!"  Woah, firstly, Takeo is Japanese, you spent the day with him and you never bothered to find out if he was Japanese or Chinese? And secondly, he has a Japanese name - surely anyone who has had some contact with Japanese culture would be able to simply look at a name like 'Takeo Ischi' and conclude that this person is Japanese? Actually, Takeo's surname should be spelt "Ishii" in romanji but he changed it to Ischi to help the German-speaking market pronounce it more easily in German. Was it rude for the contestants to get Takeo's name wrong? Yes. But was it racist? No I don't think so, it's more a case of poor social skills in this case. Likewise, was the contestant who said to his wife that "Mister Taki" was Chinese being racist towards Takeo? Again, no - this is a mix of ignorance, stupidity and of course, poor social skills again. Whilst I was upset with the behaviour of some of the contestants in this episode, I do not think they were racist at all. Stupid perhaps - but not racist. 

Furthermore, it's not just British people with poor social skills who are responsible for these awkward interactions - from what I have read in the discussion, I can see that there are some instances when the Singaporeans are the ones who are equally guilty of having poor social skills. Stella is a Singaporean woman working in a British company and her CEO had invited everyone in her department to submit ideas for their new marketing campaign. Stella thought, "great, this is a way for me to prove myself to my boss", so she worked very hard to come up with her proposal to present her ideas. However, when her white boss looked at her proposal, he wasn't impressed and went with another colleague's ideas instead (and this colleague happens to be a white woman). Stella was furious as she thought her ideas were better but she had been passed over in this case because of racism. What do you make of Stella's situation? Is this a case of racism as Stella alleges? I think that she made a mistake to assume that racism was the main reason why her proposal was passed over - perhaps there were good reasons why her colleague's proposal was chosen over hers, but she wasn't willing to discuss the matter and Stella had already dismissed that as a possibility, which meant that she missed an important opportunity to try to find out how she could improve in that aspect of her work. In any case, even if her proposal was indeed better, what if her colleague was sleeping with the boss and getting favours like that in return? In that case, this had nothing to do with Stella's skin colour or indeed, anything to do with Stella at all but somehow, she refused to consider the other possibilities so she's convinced that the sole possible reason for her proposal to be rejected is racism. 

Stella had no reason to assume that her proposal is so perfect that there's just no way her boss could have rejected it. Stella's faith in her project stems from the fact that she had worked extremely hard on it, however, in the creative world of marketing, it's not like one can easily grade proposals and say "this proposal is better than Stella's proposal" - often, it is subjective and it is up to each individual to present their case and justify why they think their idea is so good. In playing the race card, Stella is presenting herself as the innocent victim who has done nothing wrong and doesn't need to do anything differently but there is always a possibility that she did make some mistakes in her proposals and if that is the case, then there are changes she can make to improve her work. Likewise, in assuming that racism is the only reason for her boss to dislike her, Stella is completely oblivious to the range of factors that govern our complex social relationships in the office environment - there are a thousand other reasons why her boss could dislike her without it having anything to do with racism. He could be misogynistic, he may consider her too working class and not his social equal, maybe Stella simply hadn't made enough of an effort to try to establish any kind of social rapport with him outside work or it could be something very personal like if Stella slurps her coffee loudly in the office and he finds her coffee-drinking habits annoying. The fact is us humans are capable of finding loads of different methods to hate each other, so Stella shouldn't assume that any kind of interpersonal problems must only be a result of racism, to the exclusion of all other possibilities. 

But I hear you ask, what about all the reports of anti-Asian hate crimes in the media, you may ask me. Well as horrific as they are, it is time to talk about statistics. When an Asian person gets attacked in New York or London, sure it becomes headline news and we all react emotionally to that. However, when I have a very uneventful day, I just won't talk about it on social media as nobody would be interested.  So we need to crunch the numbers and work out the statistics: the odds of an Asian person suffering a horrific racist attack in New York or London is actually pretty low, however, the emotions sparked by the attacks that had been reported in the news makes a lot of Asian people very nervous and scared about the possibility of an attack. So allow me to compare this to something I experienced just three days ago: I got vaccinated with the Oxford Astrazeneca vaccine. Some of my friends were shocked that I agreed to be vaccinated with this vaccine in particular because of the risk of blood cots associated with it, but the fact is the risk of developing a blood cot with this vaccine is about 1 in 250,000 or 0.0004% and the benefits of being vaccinated far outweigh the risks associated - now let's compare that to a risk of a flight from London to New York which takes approximately 8 hours. The risk of developing a blood clot associated with deep vein thrombosis (DVT) on that flight is 1 in 4,656 or 0.021% - which is actually about 54 times more risky than getting the Astrazeneca jab. However, these very same people who are so worried about the vaccine would not hesitate to get on that flight to New York if say they won a free holiday in a lucky draw. Yet because of the sensational way these minute blood clot risks have been reported in the media, it has so totally played into the hands of those anti-vaxxers who are subject to confirmation bias without any real understanding of the science or the statistics. 

I took the bus to go for my vaccination - that may seem like a mundane detail, but allow me to use that to put things in perspective: in the year ending in June 2020, a total of 24,470 people were killed or seriously injured in road accidents in the UK. Given the population of the UK is 67 million, that's a 1 in 2,738 chance (or 0.037%) of me getting killed or seriously injured during my journey I made to and from the hospital, making that seemingly mundane bus journey a lot more dangerous than the Astrazeneca vaccine. But this is when people become so illogical and even downright stupid: they have no qualms about taking a bus to go for a hospital appointment because they are familiar with the bus route, it is a journey they have done before, they know exactly which bus stop to get off, they might even be familiar with the bus schedule and know approximately how long the journey ought to take. However, when it comes to how vaccines work, there is probably a lot they don't understand behind the science and thus you hear people claiming, "I am not letting them inject me with that thing because I don't know what is in that vaccine!" That's when I will roll my eyes and say, you're an idiot, you're not a medical professional nor a scientist - of course common folks like you don't know what is in that vaccine. You don't know how a mobile phone works but yet you're constantly on your phone all the time. Look around the room you're in right now, if you're not allowed to use anything that you can actually claim "I know exactly how this works", then you're not allowed to use it. You don't know how your Wifi router works? Then no internet for you. If you were to abide strictly by that rule, you would be living like cavemen in a hunter-gatherer society, devoid of your modern comforts. 

We naturally trust the authorities that govern us to ensure that everything is in order - I recall an incident when my nephew was much younger and we took him to the water theme park Wild Wild Wet. My father decided to tag along as he had nothing better to do that day and he wanted to spend some time with his beloved grandson. When my father looked at some of the water slides there, he commented to me, "我不懂这些安全吗?" (I don't know if these are safe?) I rolled my eyes and had to explain to my father that nobody is expecting him to do a full safety assessment before he lets his precious grandson onto a water slide - the Singapore government would have very strict safety standards that would be implemented in all leisure facilities and these slides were designed with those strict safety standards in mind. Every single facility in the venue would have been tested many times to check if they all meet those strict safety standards before the first member of the public is even allowed to get on one of those water slides. The people in charge have ensured that everything in the water theme park is safe for the customers to enjoy and nobody is expecting a customer like my father to do a risk assessment when they get there. So my father doesn't need to understand the physics behind the water slide but it doesn't matter, because the experts have done their job already. I don't claim to be an expert when it comes to the engineering behind these water slides - that's quite a niche field of design and engineering but I am more than happy to trust the authorities to do their job to keep me safe whether it is a water slide at a water theme park or a Covid-19 vaccine or indeed, the issue of anti-Asian hate crimes in the UK. Of course, you can't micromanage every single aspect of your life - so you have to trust others in your society and reap the benefits of being a part of that society. 

Furthermore, there is an issue with the way hate crimes are being reported in the media. If a journalist were to contact me and ask me if I was worried about anti-Asian racist hate crimes, my answer would be, "no, I am not worried, I've got other things to worry about." That would not be the kind of quote that would make an interesting report, so the journalist would prefer to interview people who go on these protest marches and get angry reactions from them. Likewise, if a journalist was trying to do a story about the public reaction to the death of Prince Philip, even if the journalist did interview me, my reaction would be, "I am not really interested in what happened, thus I have no emotional response to speak of, in fact I'm just surprised there's so much fuss." No, the journalist would prefer to interview someone who has taken a day off work, travel hundred of miles to lay some flowers at Buckingham Palace as that would make a far more interesting story. Sensational content creates click bait in an environment where all these online news websites are desperately competing for your attention, so boring, more mundane reactions are often ignored altogether. However, this leads to the situation whereby people like myself do not get my views represented in the media - that's why people in Singapore could read the news and come away with the inaccurate impression that all Asians in the UK are extremely terrified about anti-Asian hate crime (when we're not) and that everyone else here has been mourning the recent death of Prince Philip.

So why should the issue of anti-Asian hate crimes be any different than vaccines or water theme parks? After all, it's not like we're living in a lawless, consequence-free environment where people get to commit crimes without fear of punishment. The thugs who attacked Jonathan Mok in London were arrested and sentenced: well, guess what? We actually do have a police force and a legal system here to deal with things like that you know - sure both of these entities could do a better job when it comes to the policing of hate crimes and the system isn't perfect of course, but nonetheless a system does exist. Yet somehow the way that these anti-Asian hate crimes have been reported in the media has left our friend Rick in Singapore that it is the 'wild west' here where there is a total absence of any kind of law enforcement. There are places in the world which are truly lawless, such as in Somalia 1991 to 2006, where the outbreak of civil war led to the total collapse of the government and a state of anarchy ensued in the absence of any kind of law enforcement - this happened as well in 1997 in Albania, where a revolution led to the collapse of the government and armed gangs rushed in to fill the gap that ensued, taking control of vast swathes of the country. Then there's the Central African Republic which has been suffering from civil war for many years now, currently their government's troops control less than half the country and thus the other half is controlled by various armed militias - given the complete collapse of any kind of law and order in the rebel held territories, crimes are committed daily with complete impunity. Whilst one racist hate crime in one too many, let's be clear here - the UK and US have not descended into anarchy like these three places.

I recognize that the situation in the UK is far from perfect, of course there's a lot that can be done in terms of improving law and order in our society and to reduce our overall crime rate. However, I need to point out that if you're going to experience any kind of crime here in the UK, it is extremely highly unlikely to have anything to do with racism - however, there are other kinds of crime that happen on a daily basis and these have absolutely nothing to do with racism. Some of the more common causes of crime are related to gang violence and drugs, so drug addicts who are desperate for their next fix may rob you if they think you're an easy target. Given the number of drug and gang related crimes there are in the country vs the number of anti-Asian hate crimes, it does beggar belief that Rick is so worried about racism whilst he doesn't seem to care about other kinds of crime that he may have to deal with when he is in the UK. It is a huge blind spot on Rick's part which is puzzling - he is moving to the UK because of a lucrative job offer, the guy is educated, he certainly isn't stupid but he does seem quite irrational and illogical when it comes to the issue of racist hate crime. If Rick genuinely wants to be adjust to life in the UK, he is asking the wrong question: instead of focusing on the one topic of racism, he needs to find out more about what it is like to live in a country where the crime rate is higher than Singapore and what are the real risks that he has to face in this aspect, noting that the vast majority of crimes in this country have absolutely nothing to do with racism at all. After all, if Rick is going to adjust to life in the UK quickly, there are so many other issues he really needs to focus his attention on rather than be very consumed by the worry of experiencing racism. 

So there you go, that's it from me on this topic - what do you think? Are Asian people overreacting when it comes to racist hate crimes in the West, or should we take the stance that one racist hate crime is one too many? Am I being rational when I default to using statistics to evaluate our risk when it comes to the risks involved in racist hate crimes (and Astrazeneca vaccine related blood clots) or am I being tone deaf to the feelings of others? Is there a way we can strike a sensible compromise between the two? Or am I barking up the wrong tree when I start using statistics to evaluate the risk of an Asian hate crime, because this is not solely about the incidents of crime per se, but about how safe Asian people who live in the West feel simply walking down the street, trying to get on with their lives? Have you met white people like David and Henry who are quite stupid and have very poor social skills but are actually not racist at all? Or perhaps you might know someone like Stella, who is all too ready to assume that the other party is racist without first exploring the possibility of that they may not be? Do you know the difference between a racist with malicious intent or just someone who is so stupid and has quite poor social skills? Please leave a comment below and many thanks for reading.