Is a McDonald’s in Richmond, BC (the first one ever opened outside of the U.S. incidentally) the new hotbed of racism in Canada? According to some, it is. Charles Adler and Anthony Furey discuss the issue.
Personal Note: 2.7 km north of that McDonald’s my elderly [white] mother asked the [Asian] sales clerk what the function of a certain product was. There was no English or French label on it.
The young woman glared at my mom and said, “Why are you shopping here anyway?”
But such stories don’t get widely reported, do they?! š If my mother had filed a complaint with the BCHRT, do you think the laughter from them would have been louder than a jet engine?
Because a corporation with 34,000+ outlets in 127 different countries around the world is obviously inherently racist. I guess if you’re a B.C. hipster you must have absorbed the narrative that they only exist around the world to serve whitey while he is on his jaunts to impose colonialism and oppress indigenous people or something like that.
My family and I were taken to dinner at a very upscale Chinese restaurant in Richmond by a Chinese business associate and his wife. The next time my wife was out of town I said to a (white) friend “Come on you’ve got to see this place!” The maĆ®tre de greeted us with “We wouldn’t have anything that you people would like” and resisted seating us. I guess he didn’t want two middle aged tubby white guys lowering the class of his establishment. I assured him they would have stuff we liked and stood there until he seated us. Tried not to think about kitchen staff revenge on our food.
That was just one of several, usually more subtle, instances of racism I experienced when living in Richmond a little over twenty years ago.
I mentioned this to a Chinese apprentice I was working with about five years ago. He said he had worked at a bar in Richmond and they wouldn’t serve whites because they didn’t want people complaining/reporting that they allowed smoking.
Another co-worker was in Japan and claims he went to a restaurant that actually paid his cab fare and meal charges to eat somewhere else.
It’s the way it is. It is human nature.
As UBC engineering students my friends and I liked to poke fun at double standards like that. I was amazed at how often we would hear things like “That’s not sexist, it’s feminist” or “That’s not racist, it’s being multicultural”. There are none so blind…..
My apologies. I hadn’t read the linked article before writing my Richmond stories. If things happened the way things are reported then the manager is a jerk. The customer is always right and there is no room for tirades against customers. One would expect better from (I assume) an Arts major.
My English skills are fine, but I don’t always get what I asked for at McDonalds and I either accept what I got or expect that they will change it in polite way. When travelling or living in other countries people cut me a lot of slack for my poor local language skills. We should all try to do the same here.
Ironically the only way to get rid of systems like your BCHRT is for people for your mother and millions like her to file complaints. Its distasteful and I’m sure your mother has better things to do but its right out of “Rules for Radicals”. Once they realize its a 2 way street, they will shutter their own windows and lock their own doors rather than give you any satisfaction.
Making mountains out of molehills. It would be nice if there were a video accompanying the report with Mrs. Sun speaking so we could judge the intelligibility of her English.
Here’s a somewhat different take on that incident: Over the decades, I’ve noticed that the quality of service in fast food places is inversely related to the economy. The better the economy, the worse the service.
It isn’t hard to understand why that might be so. The fast food places hire mostly at the bottom of the labor market. If the economy is not doing well, they get better employees, and conversely.
You expect beginners to make beginner’s mistakes. (And if you are running a fast food place, you expect many of your employees to leave soon after you get them trained.)
And now for an incident I saw at a local Wendy’s a month or so ago. A handicapped woman was trying to order. She was white and, as far as I could tell, American. But she had great trouble speaking, and so her order took long to place. As I recall, the cashier kept asking her whether she wanted this product or that product.
Eventually, she did get her order placed, but it must have been a very unpleasant experience for her.
I don’t particularly blame the cashier for this, but I do wonder whether Wendy’s might want to provide a printed menu — with pictures — to their cashiers for this kind of situation. That way the customers who have trouble with English could just point to what they wanted.
(Oh, and the different menus for non-Chinese in Chinese restaurants? Food writer Calvin Trillin was reporting on that decades ago, saying that he would sometimes ask for what a Chinese patron was eating, only to be told that he wouldn’t like it.
I don’t think that was exactly racism. The waiters were judging from their own experience and trying to steer their customer to a dish they would like. That, too, may have been a mistake in Trillin’s case, but again an understandable mistake.)
Al, here’s a video of when “the compraining rady” was informed the window seats were all taken on the way over.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbVw7entkxg
I remember dealing with a problem customer who seemed unable to speak or understand English, right down to the point where she tried to pay less at the till because she claimed she didn’t understand the price of the product. As soon as she had paid for the item her cell phone rang. She answered and started a conversation in perfectly understandable English.
On the other hand I have lost count of the people I have had to deal with who have lived in this country for decades and seem genuinely unable to speak – or understand – either official language. I wonder how they managed to become citizens.
And there are the literally dozens of stories I have of those on student “visas” from the PRC who lied and cheated their way into this country, including taking legitimate jobs in public institutions while trying to get their families into the country. Communism has a wonderful way of creating a amoral attitude in these people that allows them an untroubled conscience while breaking all the rules. We should be seeing a lot more of them as their economy starts to collapse in the coming year. Get ready. They also pretend not to understand or speak English as it suits them.
The inequity which is currently at odds with our rule of law where al are equal before law is called “the doctrine of white privilege” (ie: white skin is deemed to carry with it social/civil privilege as the result of oppression of non white “persons”) This doctrine has no basis in history or objective evidential reality but is instead a “theory” put forward by radical left pseudo-intelligentsia to broad brush vilify the race group they deem the existing power elite comes from. It is essentially Marxist class struggle taken to a race-struggle context and then used to politically/socially destabilize the so-called power structure from a race perspective – nothing more than this base motive – just old shop-worn Marxist revolutionary internal destabilization and subversion.
Unfortunately this destructive fringe mythos has permeated the Human Rights industry and the result has been that non-white racism has been institutionalized and has now become legal convention.
I tracked down a copy of this racist doctrine and as you gag reading it, please note the source of this doctrine – the epicenter of US statist Marxism.
Heh. I remember going frequently with my other white friends to the long-gone Ho Inn in Vancouver’s Chinatown, and from time to time the owner, a delightful man, would pop by, sit down with us, and pour us each a shot of whiskey from his tea pot.
She didn’t go to the BCHRT — to her credit.
It’s not racism. But, it sounds like the manager at the Mickey D was being a jerk to the woman and he exploited her weakness to do it. First-rate jerk if true and deserves to be fired.
Sorry forgot the link –
http://www.tolerance.org/article/racism-and-white-privilege
Racism is just a substitute word for tribalism – a trait that’s inherent in all of us. Its overtly negative connotation is cleverly used to fan the flames of discord and hatred. Divide and conquer, as it were..
The irony of this happening in Richmond, BC is exquisite. There are entire malls there designed to cater only to the Chinese.
It would be like a McDonalds in south LA unwilling to properly serve Mexicans.
That was Sam Kee. I spent many a delightful hour at the Ho Inn,it was one of the few places in Vancouver you felt welcome in the ’60’s. The Ho Inn was the place I first took my girlfriend from Ontario, now my wife of forty years, to impress her with good Vancouver Chinese food.
The waiters were great,usually newcomers who used that job to learn English.
I always enjoyed the way they would stack all the dishes,lotus petal style, at the end of the meal,and carry them off with one hand held high.
The Ho Inn’s “beef tomato fried rice” pronounced “bee toma-o fry ri”, was the best I’ve ever had.
Sam Kee fell afoul of one of the Tongs and they burned the place down, it was never rebuilt.
Interesting, the hell one can now raise over hurt feelings as long as one is not white and middle class.
Occam is right in the overall picture by making the point that “Marxist revolutionary internal destabilization and subversion” is rampant in western society, and that is also why the left is allied with radical Islam.
However in this case, I suspect that what is at play in cases like this is what NeoLuddite said about the trait of familiar tribalism that is inherit in all of us whether it be Scot, Irish, German, Russian, Chinese, or a multitude of other ethnic origins. The secret is to rise above this to embrace other ethnic groups, and not in the Marxist class sense.
Another vote for the Ho Inn from times gone by! I remember each booth had a little juke box on the wall so you could listen to what ever you wanted at your table.. Best Won-Ton soup! I also remember the colorful service staff and their flourishes.
Oh well, I guess one could always join the throngs down at Hon’s…
Semantics can be very insidious – e.g. tolerance and acceptance are two very different things and yet often confused and used within the same context.
I can grit my teeth and tolerate an insensitive neighbour who loudly plays rap music – that does not indicate my acceptance of his obnoxious invasion of my privacy. That said tolerance is somewhat temporary or conditional, whereas acceptance is more or less unconditional.
Try shopping at some places in Surrey. They won’t look at you unless you are East Indian. They won’t speak to you in English. This is from personal experience. Welcome to multiculturalism Canadian style.
How does this woman think Chinese immigrants learned English in the nineteenth century? On the Internet, perchance? Did they peruse through a plethora of ESL books and DVDs? This woman’s English skills are allegedly poor yet she knows enough to demand a written apology. Hhmmm? I’ll buy that there may have been poor service on the part of some unskilled teen-ager but I believe it’s more likely that racial and cultural divisions are so ingrained in this “multicultural mosaic” that also caters to every whiner.
Robert, if the offending sales clerk was Chinese, tell her that your mum will be frequenting Japanese and Korean run stores from now on. Watch her head explode when she realises “white devil” money will line the pockets of Mr. Kim or Tanaka.
BC now impounds alleged speeders cars, trucks with any outsider plates. Without a day in court. A ticket & impound for a Vacation in BC. They can kiss their tourism industry goodbye.
Over 1,600 vehicles this year. Up about 500 from last year. That’s what happens when you chuck innocent before guilty common law.
We all know what happens when your Polish in BC.
Talked to a Lady from Vancouver Island north of Victoria, who has moved here. They have drones flying 24/7 there now.
I know of at least 7 people who cancelled going there .
They ae now taking a trip to Northern Saskatchewan.
Something doesn’t smell right here. This is a McDonald’s in Richmond. An area with a large Chinese population. It’s unlikely this story went down they way the complainer said it did. I’ll bet someone is looking for a big pay day claiming hurt feelings.
However if it did go down they way she says the manager is a jerk and she needs to learn better English.
Hey folks this is Canada we have two official languages, if you want to come here to live and prosper and create a better life for yourself and your family learn at least one of them. Stop whining and feeling sorry for yourself because you met up with some jerk, I m sure there were just as many jerks in the Sht hole you left before coming here, most of them were a Hell of a lot meaner. If this offends you then you should probably go back where you came from
Actually, Quebec only has one official language. The two official language theory is a expensive joke that stopped being funny decades ago.