Do white people look down on Asian people?

Hi there guys, let's continue with the theme of questions I wished my family had asked me but they never did. Now the title of this post may seem ridiculous and even provocative but let me tell you what led to me choosing this topic. I was chatting with a good friend in Singapore recently and I told him how a lot of Asian people are very reluctant to say anything critical about their own culture in front of white people because they feel like they should be ambassadors of Asian culture and thus never give white people any reason to look down on Asian culture. Thus they would only go to another Asian person if they wanted to have the kind of conversation where they would criticize certain aspects of their own culture but in front of white people they would only say very positive things about Asian culture. This was based on an implicit assumption that white people would always be racist towards Asians and it was somehow our responsibility as Asians to challenge that. I grew up in a very working class family in Singapore where we had hardly any contact with white people until I got involved in gymnastics and started interacting with gymnasts from other countries. I then left Singapore and have spent the last 27 years living amongst white people in Europe, so I am uniquely placed to look at both sides of the issue to see why Asian people feel this way and how my experiences living as an Asian minority in European has contrasted with all of these assumptions that people like my parents have made about the attitudes of white people. Firstly, we have to examine what the origins of this belief is and before we dismiss it, we need to look at whether or not it holds any merit and how we ought to react to it. You know the saying: there is no smoke without fire and I think it is important to try to understand why our parents would have felt this way rather than just dismiss their point of view out of hand as something stupid or irrelevant. The world was a very different place a generation ago and it would be useful to understand the context for their world view, as it will provide some useful insight into the world they grew up in. 

A history lesson to set the scene. 

Hence I would like to begin with a history lesson to take you back to Singapore during the colonial era, when it was part of British Malaya (1819 to 1957). Back then, there was only a very small number of white people in Singapore but they were part of the ruling elite as Singapore was a colony then. There were plenty of poor British people back then, they just never made it to Singapore - no, instead they were stuck back in the UK doing the dirty work consigned to the working classes, living a pretty miserable life. They weren't lucky enough to be picked to work for the foreign service, where they would be sent to the colonies to be placed in positions of authority to impose British rule over the colonial subjects. It was only the elite from the upper classes who were privileged enough to get those good jobs and those were the kind of white people who have ruled over people like my grandparents in Singapore back in the day. This kind of situation did not give the people of Singapore back then a full picture of all facets of British society because they were only encountering the very rich elite with power. Allow me to give you an analogy to make my point about just this totally misrepresents a situation: my regular readers will know that I am a gymnast and I like to post my training clips on Instagram. I usually only post the best clips to make me look good and if I were to have an epic face plant, unless it was absolutely hilarious, I wouldn't post it because I want my followers to have a good impression of me and think that I am a great gymnast rather than this clumsy loser who is always falling on his face. However, even as a gymnastics coach, if I observe that someone isn't falling at all during training, that means they are not taking themselves out of their comfort zone and trying new skills; I would encourage that person to try to learn something new and of course, that would inevitably lead to loads of falls before that gymnast masters that new skill. Thus any experienced gymnast would recognize that we spend a lot of our training just falling when learning new skills, but even I don't want to share that on social media lest I give people the wrong impression. I also tried another simple experiment with Google image search with the word 'Panama', a country I visited three years ago for work and the results consisted of the following: the impressive skyline of skyscrapers in the central business district of Panama City, the famous Panama canal, the quaint old town (ciudad viejo) in Panama City and some posh beach resorts. This only represents a relatively small portion of Panama, it is the best of Panama experienced only by those with a lot of money that they want the world to see and I got a little bit more than what I bargained for when I wandered off the beaten path to see how the real people live and nearly got killed when a man with a machete tried to rob me - it is important to be aware of that crucial difference, when you're not given the whole picture.

Poor white, working class folks do exist, you know?

Let's fast forward a few decades to my childhood in the 1970s and 1980s, the only white people you would see in Singapore are either highly paid expatriates or rich tourists looking for an exotic adventure in South East Asia. Even then, there were plenty of poor, working class white people in the West - they just weren't ever going to set foot in Singapore then. Hence we have a unique situation whereby the only white people that Singaporeans like my parents were going to meet then were those with money and power; it is hardly surprising they felt inferior and worried about being judged under those circumstances. But do people from our parents' generation actually believe that these rich white people they were encountering back then were representative of all white people? It is important to note that back then, the GNP per capita for Western countries like United States, Switzerland and Australia were all a lot higher than Asian countries like Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. Sure there were poor American, Swiss and Australians but again, ordinary Singaporeans would never cross paths with them. Now contrast this to my experience living in London, I pass plenty of poor people everyday in London and realize just how fortunate I am not to worry about money. Just this evening, I was at the gym and whilst gymnastics is a rather expensive sport, I realize that the staff cleaning the toilets there are paid the minimum wage and yes, the people doing jobs like that are white British people. This experience gives me a totally different perspective on the matter compared to people like my parents in Singapore, who would never ever cross paths with a white person who cleans toilets for a living. Furthermore, there is this misconception that there is a massive supply of foreign workers to do jobs like that cleaning toilets when that is greatly exaggerated - there are still plenty of white, working class people in countries like the UK who simply are not educated or skilled enough to do anything but manual labour and those are the only kinds of jobs that they can realistically perform. Forgive me for stating the obvious, but poor, working class white people do exist, even in the richest countries in the West. This is simply a result of the way a capitalist society is structured: Let's think of a factory as a microcosm of our modern capitalist society: at the very top of the pyramid, you have a tiny number of rich board members at the very top of the food chain, then one level below you have the middle managers and finally at the base of the pyramid, you have the vast majority of the lowly paid factory workers. This is the same model all over the world, so by default, you will always have poor, working class white people in the West cleaning toilets. Not only do they exist - they're in fact in the majority even in richer Western counties like the UK and that is a key feature of capitalism: the working classes are always in the majority and the rich are in the minority. 

Socio-economic status plays a vital role in power dynamics.

Thus with that in mind, I would never assume that a white person would look down on an Asian person because I would judge everyone based on their socio-economic status and not make any assumptions based on the colour of their skin. There is no correlation between one's skin colour and one's socio-economic status, instead we have to look for subtle clues to try to figure out just how rich a person is. What is clear however is that if someone is going to look down on you on the basis of your inferior socio-economic status, then that is not the same as racism which is a form of hatred and bigotry based solely on the colour of your skin. By that token, it is entirely possible for a poor white working class person to harbour hatred and resentment against an Asian person who is a lot richer, but that hatred is not based on any perceived notion of superiority, instead it is often something a lot more personal. Let me give you an example of something I witnessed recently at the sports centre where I train: you all know that I train gymnastics but did you know that the sports centre where I train at offers a whole range of other sporting activities as well, including badminton which is very popular with Asian clients. The sports centre closes at 10 pm most nights which poses a somewhat problematic situation because the badminton players can actually book a 9 pm to 10 pm time slot to play, but at 10 pm sharp, they are supposed to just pack up and leave the building immediately. This usually creates some tension when the badminton players want to play for a few more minutes or take their time in the changing rooms. Usually the front desk staff would expect everyone to leave the building by about 10:10 pm (or 10:15 pm at the very most) since they weren't paid for extra time after 10 pm, but on the night in question, there were some badminton players still in the showers at 10:15 pm and the duty manager asked them to leave the building quickly. Some angry words were exchanged and I was leaving the gymnastics hall at the time, I am not sure who started it but apparently the Asian badminton players insulted the white duty manager, mocking him for doing such a lowly paid job. The Asian guys had a sense of entitlement, they felt like they had paid for their badminton session and thus were entitled to take their time in the showers and leave when they wanted to - that would have been the case if they had booked an earlier session of course and no one would have cared how long they took in the shower, but as it was already 10:15 pm, the considerate and appropriate thing to do would be to hurry up and leave. Thankfully, before this all escalated any further, one of the Asian guys was sensible enough to tell his friends to just go and not make any trouble. Phew, crisis averted and we were al out of that building by about 10:20 pm. 

Why do Asians always assume it has to be racism?

So imagine if it was an Asian duty manager trying to get a bunch of white guys out of the building and they turned abusive, there will be so many Asian people who would immediately assume that it was because of racism. But if the tables were turned as in the situation I had described above, hardly anyone would even suggest that racism played a role in the incident. The way I see it, the badminton players had behaved with a sense of entitlement and they were selfish in refusing to consider how their actions would have an impact on others. Whilst that selfishness didn't have an element of racism to it, that still manifested itself in quite a nasty and abusive way towards the duty manager. Need I state the obvious? Bigotry can take many different forms and racism is but one form of bigotry. Let me explain it this way: an apple is a kind of fruit, but there are many other different kinds of fruits like watermelon, strawberry, peach, mango, pear and banana. You can buy many different kinds of fruits at the supermarket, but you should never assume that the only fruit available at the supermarket would be apples just because you are more familiar with apples. If you simply told me to go get you some fruit from the supermarket, I might end up buying you some apples but there are a whole bunch of other fruits I could buy there as well. There are a whole bunch of different reasons why people don't get along with each other and that can lead to some form of bigotry or hatred different at the other party, racism isn't always a factor every single case and so it is important to analyse each conflict a little more carefully before assuming that racism must always be a factor in the conflict. There are plenty of ways two people can hate each other without racism being a factor! Furthermore, there is this implicit assumption that rich people would somehow always look down on poor people and that would be a source of conflict. Poor people can harbour a lot of resentment towards rich people for a number of reasons - trust me, I grew up in a very poor family and know that feeling only too well. It is not simply a matter of jealousy per se, but it is more that sense of injustice when I looked at my peers who had rich parents and all the privileges they had access to. What have these rich kids done to enjoy all of those privileges that I can only dream of? I don't think it was ever personally directed at the rich kids because it is not like they stole that money, no they were simply lucky enough to be born into the right family with loads of money and hence it is just this general resentment against the inherent unfair nature of life that I have harboured all my life. Thus poor people can harbour resentment, even hatred towards rich people; you don't need to be richer than the people you hate, bigotry doesn't work that way. Resentment and hate will always find a way to manifest itself; hence being poor doesn't somehow make you more noble or innocent in this regard. 

Option C: I don't have any feelings, I don't have an opinion, I am entirely neutral.

Our human relationships are really quite complex and so it is at best inaccurate, but if I may be blunt, downright ludicrous to make any kind of assumptions about how one person might relate to another and this boils down to one basic human desire: we want to be respected. Thus at the very heart of this accusation is the assumption that someone of higher socio-economic status would disrespect someone of lower socio-economic status. But I want to point out that this isn't always true; so come with me as I go to the gym and I run into the guy cleaning the toilet. Which statement do you think describes my feelings towards that cleaner? A) I feel much more superior to him as I am a lot richer and so I look down on him, I may even be abusive if I am in a bad mood. B) I respect him because I recognize the valuable contribution he is making to society, so I make an effort to be extra nice to him. C) I don't really have any feelings, I don't talk to him, he doesn't notice me and I just walk past him as if he is invisible. The answer, unsurprisingly, is C, I really don't have any feelings (negative or positive) towards him since I don't know him personally, so I neither look down on him nor respect him - I just have no feelings on the matter since I don't know the guy at all. I hope you're not disappointed that I didn't pick option B, but I reserve genuine respect for people I have gotten to know and thus have information to form that respect upon - if I don't know that cleaner since I've never spoken to him before, then he remains a stranger and so option B is out of the question. I don't choose option A as this cleaner has done nothing to offend or upset me, but simply choosing option C over option B doesn't make me a bad person either - it just makes me a normal person. I don't have enough information to go for options A or B in this case, so I have to default to option C. Actually, I think poor, working class people like my parents are paranoid about richer people (white or otherwise) looking down on them when the reality is that the vast majority of rich people would simply pick option C and not have any opinion at all on people like my parents. This leads me to conclude that only people with low self-esteem would just assume that others (like richer people) would look down on them as that is not so much a reflection of any real discrimination but more how they feel about themselves when they look in the mirror. If you don't even respect yourself, you wouldn't expect others to do so. People with healthy, normal self-esteem wouldn't make such negative and pessimistic assumptions: if the other person doesn't have enough information about me to form an opinion, so then at that stage, they simply do not have an opinion. 

Case study: The myth about women from Ipoh

What I find quite frustrating about this discourse with people like my parents is that there only seems to be the two extremes of black or white: they believe that white people either really hate Asian people or would respect them as if Asians were superior; there simply isn't a third option of not having an opinion on the issue. Is this concept of neutrality, of simply not having an opinion so rare? Allow me to share a true story of when I really didn't have an opinion on the matter. A few years ago, I was chatting with a good friend from China when I told her that my father is from Malaysia and I had travelled a lot around Malaysia over the years. She told me that she heard that the city of Ipoh is famous beautiful women and she wanted to know if there was any truth to the rumour. To be fair to her, I did a Google search and this rumour about women from Ipoh that has been around for a while. I did a double take as that was actually the first I had ever heard that claim and thus I really didn't have an opinion on the issue. In order for me to hold any kind of informed opinion on how beautiful the women of Ipoh were, I first needed to have had some information and even though I have been to Ipoh before, as a gay man, I simply wasn't looking for beautiful women there. I don't remember much about the women in Ipoh in particular, I do remember the good food there though. Thus in this case, I resorted to logic and reasoning to try to form some kind of opinion for my friend: Ipoh is the biggest city in the state of Perak with a population of about 750,000 - it is the third largest city in Malaysia after the capital Kuala Lumpur and Johor Bahru. Many people from rural areas in Malaysia would move to Ipoh for better education and employment opportunities, which is why the population of Ipoh has grown 15.5% between 2010 and 2020, So even if you saw a beautiful Malaysian woman on the streets of Ipoh, she may have grown up in a different part of Malaysia and has simply moved to Ipoh to attend university or for work. In any case, female beauty is completely subjective: there isn't any kind of standardized measure for us to try to ascertain the average level of female beauty in Ipoh, short of subjecting every woman in Ipoh between the age of 18 to 60 to some kind of beauty pageant judging. In any case, Ipoh is a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural city with a mix of Malay, Chinese, Indian and other Asian inhabitants, so would this assumption of female beauty apply to all groups or only certain groups? Could you claim that there's something in the water or air in Ipoh that is so beneficial for health that it has made the local women more beautiful? I think that's is just way too farfetched to be plausible. That was why I chose to tell my friend that I don't have an opinion on it, as I simply didn't have enough information to form an informed opinion. 

Case study: The colleague with body odour 

So let's analyse this case study: do I think that Ipoh women are ugly? No, I would never say that. Do I believe that the rumour that women from Ipoh are beautiful? No, I don't think that could be true either, I just don't believe that kind of assumption can have any kind of validity, given that you are dealing with such a vast number women who don't share a gene pool. I stand by my stance of not having an opinion on the issue. My friend then informed me that she has a friend from Ipoh called Leila who was very beautiful, I was even shown a picture of Leila and I then said, okay I can agree with you that Leila is a beautiful woman but to assume that all (or most) women from Ipoh are beautiful based on a sample size of one simply doesn't stand up to scrutiny. So if Leila had sisters, then we can then make some kind of assumptions on their good looks as they do share a common gene pool as siblings and thus there is at least some basis to make those assumptions. Leila is beautiful because of the genes she has inherited from her parents, rather than because of the fact that she is from Ipoh. Thus going back to the issue of whether white people would look down on Asian people, I have to point out that it is utterly ludicrous to treat "white people" or "Asian people" as a monolithic entity. After all, there can be a lot of different reasons why person A would look down on person B and I know why people like my parents choose to assume it is always going to be racism. If you are a victim of racism, then you are completely blameless as you can't change the colour of your skin and the person who is being racist is the villain in that case. But let's take an example of a man who is discriminated in the work place because of his body odour, he smells really bad and hence he is shunned by his colleagues. Whose fault is it in this case - who do you blame? Do you blame the guy who desperately needs a shower and some deodorant, or do you blame his colleagues for refusing to put up with his bad smell, can you accuse them of being intolerant? It is rather hard to feel sympathetic towards someone with terrible body odour and that is precisely why I had chosen that case study to demonstrate that the supposed "victim" isn't always blameless; in this case, it would be reasonable to expect the "victim" in question to take appropriate steps to mitigate the effects of his body odour by changing his clothes regularly (or when necessary) and using effective deodorant. Failure to do so would indicate that this person is either selfish and doesn't care about the effect of his body odour on those around him or that his social skills are so poor that he is oblivious to how he is affecting those around him. Either way, he is not a blameless victim in this case and the ball does lie in his court, if he wants to resolve this rather difficult situation with his colleagues. 

Are all 'victims' completely blameless? I don't think so. 

Okay perhaps the body odour is a simplistic example where we put the blame squarely on the smelly party, but what if it was a less obvious situation? Let me take you into my world of finance in London, a group of colleagues who notice something about the new guy in the company is working class: this new guy turns up at work inappropriately dressed, standing out like a sore thumb but is still somehow completely oblivious to how everyone else as noticed his mistake. The colleagues then play a game to decide which person is going to be the one who tells the new guy that there is a problem and that he cannot show up for work tomorrow dressed like that. Obviously, nobody wants to have that awkward conversation, so the loser of the game has to take on that responsibility as a forfeit. So in this case study, can we blame the colleagues for looking down on that working class new guy in the office? Are they guilty of discrimination in this case? Or do you think the new guy should have made a greater effort to learn what was required of him in this new job, since he wasn't a student anymore and as an adult, it was actually his responsibility to do that so if he faced discrimination as a result of his failure to arrive at work for his first day dressed appropriately, then really, he has no one but himself to blame as he has no excuse for being so utterly clueless? I think there is some blame on both parties in this case: firstly, it would be reasonable to expect the employer to brief all new employees on all matters relating to their new job, including matters like appropriate work attire. But how far do you go with that, do you require the line manager to go through every single detail, down to the socks and shoes? Or can you expect an adult to at least open his eyes, observe how the others are dressed in the office and if he isn't sure about something, look up that kind of information on line or at least ask the line manager questions like, "is it appropriate to wear trainers to the office?" I would say that the responsibility does fall on the new guy to find out what is expected of him and it is okay to ask questions if you are not sure, but it is definitely not okay to just make wild guesses or assumptions when there is a risk of getting it wrong. So in this case, I think the new guy needs to bear the bulk of the responsibility for the situation he has found himself in because he should have clarified what was expected of him before his first day and whilst the colleagues could be nicer about the situation, that's a courtesy they could extend to the new guy but it is not an obligation for them to do so. I am using this example to point out that there are times when the person who is at the receiving end of being "looked down upon" has only brought this upon himself and thus isn't be any means a helpless victim. So if someone is looking down on you for whatever reason, ask yourself this: so are you a completely innocent victim of bigotry, or do you bear at least some blame in this situation? 

Fat Ken doesn't want to acknowledge his obesity. 

One of the key reasons why this kind of discrimination irks us is because we feel it is unfair, that the other person has made an assumption that is totally untrue. Allow me to give you an example to show you how this can hurt and feel us with that sense of indignation: many years ago I was in Scotland when I encountered this man at an event, he was serving coffee and had made the assumption that I drink instant coffee at home - since I had only just met him, I felt angry as instant coffee is associated with poor, working class people as richer folks would prefer proper coffee made with a machine. I don't know what I had done or said that could have given him cause to make that assumption but needless to say, I felt offended mostly because his assumption was totally false as I never drink instant coffee and I most certainly am not working class. I wanted to pick a simple example of how an unfair assumption can make us feel falsely accused of a crime we're not guilty of and that sense of outrage that goes with it, but what if there was some truth to the accusation? Allow me to share another case study to make my point: when I was at university, I got to know this gay black guy whom we shall refer to as Ken (not his real name). He claimed that white gay men were racist as he could never get a date with a white guy, but I thought, no that wasn't true as Ken couldn't get a date with a black or Asian guy either for a simple reason: Ken was incredibly fat. Sorry but there's just no way to delicately dance around the issue, Ken was so overweight and that was the first thing that you would notice if he walked into the room. Thus the reason why Ken couldn't get a date was probably because he was very fat and if he wanted to boost his chances on the dating scene, he ought to go on a diet, exercise more and lose some weight. Thus by placing some responsibility and blame on Ken by recognizing that his obesity is an issue, I am placing the onus on Ken to do something constructive to rectify the situation. However, if he adamantly refuses to even acknowledge the fact that his obesity is an issue, then he is squarely placing the blame on the other party by accusing them on discriminating against him on the basis of the colour of his skin - it does come across as a decision to avoid taking any responsibility to resolve the situation by convincing himself (and others) that he is the innocent victim of racism. Ken can't change the colour of his skin, but he most certainly could go on a diet and the thinner and fitter black gay guys have no problems getting loads of action on the dating scene in London, that goes to show that racism isn't the issue here but fat gay guys like Ken will struggle a lot more to find a date as they are perceived as ugly and unattractive on the gay scene. Yes, perhaps this is a rather extreme example but my point is simple - there are people like fat Ken who will play the racism card just to avoid taking any responsibility for the problem.

So what have we learnt today? 

So when it comes to my parents, I'm afraid there could be a whole range of reasons why someone might wanna look down on them: they're not educated, they're typically working class, they're not rich, they're not well travelled, they're quite ignorant, they are so inarticulate and can't express themselves, they have terrible social skills. I could be really unkind and go on but you get the idea. Look, I'm not saying that it is okay to go around bullying people you consider inferior to yourself, but I am pointing out that it is utterly unreasonable to demand respect when you have not earned it at all and then play the victim like Fat Ken when you simply don't get what you want. There are two keys points I want to end this piece with as a reality check: firstly, there is loads of Chinese on Chinese (or white on white, black on black, Indian on Indian etc) discrimination and people will find a way to look down on others within their own society or community based on some measure of worth (like income, wealth, education, looks etc). There is certainly no shortage of Chinese Singaporeans in Singapore who will look down on my parents, this inability to gain respect has nothing to do with skin colour or racism, but it is simply a product of the fact that respect is something you need to earn and fortunately for my parents, as they live within their very working class community, they are unlikely to cross paths with people who have much higher socio-economic status and so that does shield them from that kind of discrimination when you're socially inferior to the other party. Secondly, whilst some racists do still exist in our society, most white people simply don't have much of an opinion on Asian people and are not racist as alleged. They don't know enough about Asian societies and culture to form an informed opinion, so they simply don't have an opinion as a result and I'm perfectly fine with that. I actually think that's a much better outcome than if they tried to form an opinion based on inaccurate or incomplete information. After all, this ridiculous assumption that white people look down on Asian people is a product of my parents forming an opinion on misleading and incomplete information. The only real way to avoid people looking down on you is to earn their respect and there's also an element of simply accepting that you are never going to have the respect of everyone out there. My reaction to that is simply to shrug my shoulders and say, "I don't care, you can think whatever you want of me, look down on me - your opinion doesn't matter to me as I only care about the opinions of people I respect and you have yet to earn your place in my inner circle to have that kind of influence over me." After all, you should only focus on those people that matter the most in your life, instead of treating life like a popularity contest. So there you go that's it from me on this topic, what do you think? Leave a comment below and many thanks for reading.