The name of a Chicago restaurant, owned by a man who is 3/4 Chinese (his mother is Chinese-Italian), is Chop Chop Chinaman. Is this an ethnic slur?

It gets better! Jeanne Harrell, who is 26, half Japanese and was raised in Tokyo, thought it a slur and wrote that on the window of the restaurant with her Nars (expensive for you men out there), red lipstick. She was arrested for misdemeanor criminal damage to property. That kills me - lipstick can be easily washed off.

Here is an analysis about when the word began to change. In the 40s and 50s the word wasn't offensive, according to the article. However, it began to change in the 70s:

quote:

It was around the 1970s, said Northwestern University assistant professor Andrew Leong, that the term lost whatever was left of its neutral connotation. He cited the political movement of Asian-Americans during that era, at the same time that Asian-American literature took hold, that pushed words such as Chinaman and Oriental out of favor.

Of course if she'd been a little more sophisticated with her window dressing, perhaps she wouldn't have been arrested. She wrote, according to the Trib (fill in the blanks yourself): " "F--- this hate crime s---. It's 2015." She then even more brilliantly tweeted a picture of it so that she was easily identified. Yet, I don't believe the restaurant owner who said it cost him "hundreds of dollars" to scrape off his business logo and put another one on. Lipstick can be removed, as the defendant says, with Windex.

Life is interesting...

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kalleh,

Does someone who is three quarters Chinese have N-word privileges regarding that sort of word? I'd say they do. However, I suppose it's possible that the woman thought the owner might not be Chinese. Unlikely though, in my experience anyway.

Here's a link to an article where we get more of the restaurant's side of the story.

quote:

Does someone who is three quarters Chinese have N-word privileges regarding that sort of word?

Apparently not, since at least two other Asians were offended by it. Of course, there is no way of determining how many Asians laughed it off and went on their way unconcerned about the name.
What bothers me is "hundreds of dollars" needed to remove the lipstick. It appears either the owner is setting up a law suit for damages, or he was ripped off by a cleaning company. Either way, I don't understand why the police were necessary. Nothing was broken or needed replacing.

The owner of the restaurant should mollify the protester by changing it to a French restaurant and calling it Le Chinois*


*Look it up in a French slang dictionary

quote:

The owner of the restaurant should mollify the protester by changing it to

Chink Chow

At least I didn't write it in lipstick.

Nah, I can't swallow that. (hung chow)

Whether it's a racial slur or not is in the mind of the beholder. Apparently a Japanese woman and a Chinese woman were offended yet the Chinese man thought it a fine idea for a sign. One man's slur is another man's slogan.

How many indignant people does it take to make a slur quorum? Is one person objecting enough to cause a retraction? As in nuclear physics, what is the critical mass?

One man complaining makes a hell of a lot more noise than a thousand men not complaining.

Bob, living in china, what do you think?

Speaking of Chinese food, here's an interesting tidbit from the Wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_boy_egg

The Virgin boy eggs or "tong zi dan" are a traditional delicacy of Dongyang, China. They are prepared by cooking eggs in urine collected from young boys. Every year in early spring, the urine of prepuberal school boys (preferably under 10 years) is collected. It's boiled with eggs and sold for 1.50 yuan, around twice the price of a regular boiled egg. In 2008, Dongyang recognized the eggs as a local intangible cultural heritage.

Try to name a restaurant serving young boy yummies.

And I was about to go to Chinatown in Chicago to a dim sum. Ewww!

Odd, I would never have seen "chop chop" as particularly offensive, requiring one to cite N-word privilege! My wife is [Canadian-born] Chinese, and so, I'll need to solicit her opinion! "Chinaman", however, does tend to have a pejorative tone, I would think.

BTW, Kalleh, we go to dim sum every week, and I'm sure that you'll agree that anyone who hasn't tried this delightful art form has a real treat in store. Ideal, however, if you are a first-timer, is to go with a knowledgeable Westerner (ie, is familiar with our NA diet), for he/she is likely to be a better assessor of what is "good" for NA tastes.

I think the woman was outraged by 'Chinaman' not 'chop chop'. Perhaps she thought it was sexist as well? Why a half-Japanese woman should be so put out on behalf of the Chinese I don't know.

'Chop chop' is from a pidgin Cantonese phrase and simply means 'hurry hurry'.

Yes, arnie. I wasn't sure if WeeWilly was kidding or not.

Is it possible to make an ethnic joke without slurring your words?

Silly me, I thought a slur was a musical term.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slur_%28music%29

Ah, yes. I forgot about that kind of slur.