Doggone it

Rhea Becker explains why she thinks dog might be on the secret menu at one Cambridge restaurant.

http://www.snopes.com/horrors

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/food/chinese.asp

It's astounding that this racist bullshit still gets around, especially in someplace supposedly as progressive (and well-educated) as Cambridge.

anon (not verified) | Wed, 07/23/2008 - 11:50pm

Take a trip to china, They

Take a trip to china, They will and do eat anything that moves, and it's becoming a problem as their populations boom and animal stocks can't support it. You can buy endangered species in almost any market that are used as traditional medicinal medicines, or food.

How is this racist btw?

anon (not verified) | Thu, 07/24/2008 - 8:10am

I've had a native speaker of

I've had a native speaker of Mandarin, freshly arrived from China, try to demonstrate to me the difference between two tones, and I found them indistinguishable (both sounded like the same exaggerated "ooo").

After that experience, I doubt I could accurately identify isolated words in a Chinese conversation.

Neil Van Dyke (not verified) | Thu, 07/24/2008 - 12:07am

I'm curious as to why, even

I'm curious as to why, even if the word dog was spoken, the conclusion was jumped to that the young woman must be ordering Fido Gai Pan and not, say, talking about the puppy she'd gotten as a pet over the weekend.

Mollynotloggedin (not verified) | Thu, 07/24/2008 - 5:24am

It's not racist. It's a fact. Dog is eaten in China.

The New York Times ran a whole story on this about 2 weeks ago.

anon (not verified) | Thu, 07/24/2008 - 6:25am
anon (not verified) | Thu, 07/24/2008 - 6:30am

Do...you even understand what racism is?

So, someone heard what they think might be the word for dog, assumed it was in fact the word for dog, and assumed that the only reason Chinese speakers would say "dog" would be to order some to eat? Uh, yeah, assumptions based on a stereotype that presents their culture as inferior to ours based on our norms (the norm that we find eating dog meat to be "below us").

Hey, I heard there's these really barbaric people out there who eat cows and pigs and even chickens. I'm going to blog about it! Can you believe they'd DO THAT?

http://1smootshort.blogspot.com

eeka | Thu, 07/24/2008 - 6:49am

Or they could have heard

Or they could have heard that story on the news, which has been all over the news, and her brain made the connection when she heard the word.

This isn't racism, nice try thou.

anon (not verified) | Thu, 07/24/2008 - 8:12am

A cultural ambassador

Could she possibly be more racist? She heard one word (without context) that may have sounded like a word she once remembered hearing, and she assumes someone was ordering dog because, obviously, everyone who is Chinese eats dog. Wow. Here's where she gets her language skills:

"I know because I had Asian roommates in college and they taught me Asian things, like how to play badminton, ... and how to insult people in Chinese."

Oh, I see. So all Asians speak Chinese. I wonder if all those Asians speak Mandarin? Or Cantonese? Or Shanghai? And now badminton is an "Asian thing." In any case, she sure learned how to insult Chinese people in English.

ly | Thu, 07/24/2008 - 8:40am

General Gau Chicken! Could

General Gau Chicken!

Could it have been this chinese food mainstay they were refering to?

It sounds like someone knows just enough Chinese to get herself in trouble...

ShadyMilkMan | Thu, 07/24/2008 - 10:54am

It's alwys fun to see a

It's alwys fun to see a bed-wetting liberal like Rhea getting slammed for Crimes Against Humanity by other goo-goos.

anon (not verified) | Thu, 07/24/2008 - 12:39pm

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.