CHEAP CHOW AND RICKSHAWS
March 31st 2009 06:35
I wasn't supposed to write anything today. I just finished a round of tasks that sent me traveling all over the country and I thought I'll rest for a while... I wasn't even planning on getting out of bed early.
But the blaring sound of a radio set from somewhere was talking about a columnist in Hongkong who supposedly made a racist comment calling the Philippines a "nation of servants." The name of the columnist sounded like "cheap chow."
I switched on the TV and there was a mention of that name again there. The papers, it turned out, also ran a story about this guy who's name turned out to be Chip Tsao. And what an uproar he has created!
His column which came out in HK Magazine on March 27 included this portion: "Manila has just claimed sovereignty over the scattered rocks in the South China Sea called the Spratly Islands, complete with a blatant threat from its congress to send gunboats to the South China Sea to defend the islands from China if necessary. This is beyond reproach. The reason: There are more than 130,000 Filipina maids working as US$3,580-a-month cheap labor in Hong Kong. As a nation of servants, you don't flex your muscles at your master, from whom you earn most of your bread and butter. “
Click here for more Really Long Link
It was an incendiary comment. Check out this link for reactions: Really Long Link
Curious, I tried to find out about the guy. He was a former BBC reporter, he was into radio and he writes a column. I was surprised to find out that he also works for the money. A paid hack - just like most everyone else!
In short, he is just like his Filipina maid who has a degree from a Manila university.
Ooops, sorry! I didn't mean to humiliate Luisa, the Filipina maid, by comparing her to him.
She must have had a really good education to learn how to give allowances to the idiosyncracies of an employer who thinks he knows better than most, and to continue to show respect to him. In the first place, she seems to know her responsibilities. He doesn't seem to know his.
Nope. I shouldn't compare her to him. At least, I know that she belongs to a race that will continue to fight for what they believe is right, no matter how small their chances are of winning.
I wonder what her employer would do should his own employers decide to abuse his family and take away everything that he believes belong to him?
Or maybe she should remind him that “coolies” used to pull rickshaws for the limeys.
In case you want to know why they used "coolies" to pull the rickshaws... it was because it was cheaper to use them than to use horses.
But the blaring sound of a radio set from somewhere was talking about a columnist in Hongkong who supposedly made a racist comment calling the Philippines a "nation of servants." The name of the columnist sounded like "cheap chow."
I switched on the TV and there was a mention of that name again there. The papers, it turned out, also ran a story about this guy who's name turned out to be Chip Tsao. And what an uproar he has created!
His column which came out in HK Magazine on March 27 included this portion: "Manila has just claimed sovereignty over the scattered rocks in the South China Sea called the Spratly Islands, complete with a blatant threat from its congress to send gunboats to the South China Sea to defend the islands from China if necessary. This is beyond reproach. The reason: There are more than 130,000 Filipina maids working as US$3,580-a-month cheap labor in Hong Kong. As a nation of servants, you don't flex your muscles at your master, from whom you earn most of your bread and butter. “
Click here for more Really Long Link
It was an incendiary comment. Check out this link for reactions: Really Long Link
Curious, I tried to find out about the guy. He was a former BBC reporter, he was into radio and he writes a column. I was surprised to find out that he also works for the money. A paid hack - just like most everyone else!
In short, he is just like his Filipina maid who has a degree from a Manila university.
Ooops, sorry! I didn't mean to humiliate Luisa, the Filipina maid, by comparing her to him.
She must have had a really good education to learn how to give allowances to the idiosyncracies of an employer who thinks he knows better than most, and to continue to show respect to him. In the first place, she seems to know her responsibilities. He doesn't seem to know his.
Nope. I shouldn't compare her to him. At least, I know that she belongs to a race that will continue to fight for what they believe is right, no matter how small their chances are of winning.
I wonder what her employer would do should his own employers decide to abuse his family and take away everything that he believes belong to him?
Or maybe she should remind him that “coolies” used to pull rickshaws for the limeys.
In case you want to know why they used "coolies" to pull the rickshaws... it was because it was cheaper to use them than to use horses.
Illustration pic source: Wikipedia
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Comment by british bulldog
I too know of this HK apologiser, but have you ever thought why people say nasty things about this country.
1. It is no i for political killings in the world and no 6 for the murder of journalists.
2. It is based on other peoples money either a. break up your family to send an ofw abroad to earn money to send back, or b. inward investment from foreigners, or c. foreign retirees to retire here with their money or d. foreign men to marry a daughter and build a house for the family and then they're stolen from and kicked out of the house and country. Why is there no entreepreneurial culture here instead?
3. Where i live there is not one cement road connecting the major towns and what has been provided is by Japan or other peoples money again.
4. The Catholic church are discredited in the modern world for opposing all change whether scientific or socail as well as for murdering Jews for centuries. Christ was a Jew as were the disciples and the first 15 bishops of jerusalem. The president forbids publicly financed contraception yet the countries birthrate ensures it 's continuing mass poverty and ignorance.
Only last week the Pope said no contraception in the face of a mass aids epidemic. he was condemned rightly by several foreign leaders. The Bible is not a history but a work of ideology like Karl Marx' Das Capital. It does not reflect how humans are in the real world. In this society, now religous observance is on the decline, people have nothing but materialism to fall back on and so disaster lies ahead. In modern countries we build civic cultures.
5. So foreigners may not believe in hell but they've been there and it is called immigration processing in Manila, it is a fate worse than death.
6. The levels of corruption here are stunning, nearly everyone's up to it, as a foreigner 75% of manila taxi drivers try to rip me off and why can't you get home contents insurance, because of the high levels of theft.
7. This country never had the money to become independant and with Manila in ruins too. Even Singapore waited until 1962. I consider Quezon and his cronies not heroes but villains for not seeing the awful consequences for the mass of people of independance once the Yankees had left.
8. Most people here are subsistence farmers on 4,000 pesos a month. The industrial revoluion has still to arrive for them more than three hundred years after it began in europe.
9. The mass media here is unbelievably bad. Shows like Wow Wow Wee are childrens programs for adults. The culture doesn't teach saving which is an adult pursuit, but instead the childish pursuit of instant gratification whether San Miguel, Lechon or Fortune tobacco it's party time.
There are hundreds of things wrong with this country that if don't change will condemn it to an even worse future. Filipino's should not complain when people say bad things but listen, lean and take action instead.
Regards,
British Bulldog
Comment by Market Newbie
Gizmo Peek
Stock Market Punk
I'd like to believe that you mean well every time you make your comments o r give your observations. But why do I get the feeling that every time you write about this country, you are actually writing about your own domestic affairs and personal misfortunes?
If this country is so rotten, the way you seem to believe it is, then why are you and your family still here? Why don't you take them to your European paradise and live in eternal bliss?
I assure you, majority of Filipinos listen to constructive criticisms. But one has to learn how to criticize constructively if one wants to help or be effective. Filipinos are meek, patient, courteous, respectful and very flexible, but just like any other race Filipinos don't take insults very well.
This country and its citizens are not the problem, Mr. BB. The problem is this country's leaders. And no, we don't deserve them. In fact, we've thrown a couple of them in as many bloodless revolutions.
They are just like a bad dream - they keep coming back
Comment by Fobzy
Fobz