check this and tell me if this wuz true during british occupation of Hong Kong in the past or was that sign made up: http://pekingduck.org/archives/no%20dogs%20or%20chinese.jpg

I heard from my grandparents that the british use to mistreat the chinese in hong kong and they would dare to compare chinese to dogs..as indicated from that sign(which i'm not sure if that is true).

Dude that's from a Bruce Lee movie, Fists of Fury, where the story is set in 1930's Shanghai, during the Japanese occupation.

really? lmao but my grandparents told me that the brits mistreated the chinese in hong kong(and like dogs) in the past, is this true tho?

and the french here in Quebec, Canada: http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national...f6e&k=69310 The french here are so racist.. i remember this one time, when a french guy overheard my mom speaking english..he said "hey this is quebec speak french..stupid chinese anglophones" and my mom would reply back "i wuz raised in montreal and i can speak english, french, and chinese" Montreal is acutally both english and french..where the french are the slight majority. There wuz this one incident where there were riots in chinatown in the early 90's. In addition, french(more specifically Quebecois) ppl have so many jokes or slangs about chinese ppl

If any of you have a facebook.com account...join my "We Demand an appology from Boisclair for racist comments against asians": http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2254867967

how is the relationship between the malays and the chinese now?

much better than say 20 yrs ago but discmrination against chinese still exist at varying level in brunei malaysia and indonesia

Part of the attitude to the French Canadian can be explained (if not justified) by the situation which prevailed there in the 60s, 70s and early 80s. Back then, it was relatively easy to immigrate to Canada, Canadian citizenship could be obtain after a mere 3 year residence, and Canadian citizenship allowed easy immigration to the US. So Canada was used, by many, as a springboard for immigration to the United States. In Quebec this posed a problem to the french speaking majority, who had (rightly) felt left behind before, and was seeing French language (although it was an official language) be gradually replaced by english, because of non english speaking immigrants. In their mind it was a bit as if, in Hong Kong, new migrants demanded to be schooled in English only, and spoke only english, because english was more useful to them than Chinese (why go to HK in the first place, then?).

This led to a series of laws, the Bill 22 in 1974 (passed by the Liberal Party, ie not the Parti Québécois), and then the Bill 101, which considered that migrants to Quebec should be taught in French unless they could prove that english was their native language to begin with (actually it was a bit less restrictive than that).

Globally, I think the comment you heard (which I do not defend, btw), has more to do with linguistic problems in Quebec, ie the difficulty French Canadians had over time keeping their language as immigration increases, than racism. As a child in Montreal who spoke little english, I heard the same kind of remarks targetted at Italian or Greek shopkeepers, who would tell you (in heavily accented english) "sorry I don't speak french", whereas, at the same time, most english speaking canadians in quebec would make the effort (and generally speak more than decent french). This wasn't racism, just the result of french canadians, as speaker of a minority official language, tend to be touchy about this. I don't know where the chinese community in Quebec stands on these matters, but if they insist that just English is enough, there are bound to be such clashes (and bear in mind that Montreal is probably the most tolerant place in Quebec on such matters).

As for the remark of Boisclair, the Parti Quebecois always had a significant number of nutcases in its ranks, I don't quite know why. But judging all french canadian as racist from this example sounds just as racist to me...

Francois

Montreal is actually different from the rest of Quebec with it's strong english and ethnic minorities communities..which represents about over 45% of the Island of Montreal population. Montreal's old immigrants were the Chinese(Taishanese), Greeks, Italians and Jews..where as the new are the Arabs, Haitiens, and Mandarin and Cantonese speaking chinese. I understand it is important for the french to preserve their language and culture in Quebec from the surrounding English neighbours, but Montreal is different. It is wrong for anyone to be racist...no matter what. Canada and the whole province of quebec is a modern, industrialized and democratic society...where there is room for apologies and for racism to stop. Using hong kong as an example is different from Quebec...where Hong Kong belongs to the Cantonese ppl..where as Quebec really belongs to the Native Indians and NOT the french..who took their land. Montreal is a multicultural city and should continue to do so..without the presence of racism.

I have to disagree with this, Montreal, as every large city, is multicultural to some extent, but it is a part of Quebec. Besides, it is interesting the you give figures for the "island of montreal", what about the "greater montreal" (Laval, Longueil, etc... yes, I've lived there, I know the place...)? I suspect if you look at the agglomeration, it still is different from Quebec (although a city like Hull probably has more english speakers, in proportion...), but less multicultural that your numbers suggest...

But this is not the point, the point is that there is a logic to the idea that a country has a right to demand that its immigrants adapt, to some extent, to the local culture. And this is the whole point of the french language laws. I understand that you have a different opinion, ie that you have a duty to "stay the same" and not adapt, what I am trying to do here is just to explain that french canadians see it differently, and that it is not an instance of racism, because they did the same, in the past, to italians or greeks, who are just as white as them.

Of course racism is wrong (but then I suggest that comments like "The french here are so racist..", ie bundling all french into one homogeneous group certainly won't help building a better multicultural montreal), but this is not racism.



Hmm, try all the threads on CHF ethnic forum... the ancestors of the cantonese were certainly not living in HK but probably further north... who the ancient native of HK are is unclear (Yue people maybe, or maybe some others who were pushed southwards later on) but if you look back enough, you won't find "cantonese" in HK. So, it is pretty much the same, neither HK nor Quebec belong to their actual inhabitants if you consider "belonging" means always having been there. But this is a moot point, very few people can claim that.

I think you can consider that, just like cantonese in HK, French canadians are the current owners of Quebec, because both are the oldest and largest group there.

Francois

Forcing immigrants to learn French(bill 101 law)..when Montreal is actually a bilingual (not officially but demographically) and multicultural city is injust..don't you find? And as a chinese canadian living in montreal...i experience lots of racism not relating to language..but becuz i am chinese. I've heard french ppl say to me Mauche(?!) Chinois, esti chinois, etc.. and i would respond back hehe



Wrong Cantonese are a mix of Yue and Han groups... which is why we don't look exactly 100% like our brothers and sis' in the far north nor 100% of our cousins in the neighbouring south(Vietname).

check this out(a another PQ leader blamed ethnics for making them lose the '95 referendum..when ethnics only compose less than 5% of the total pop. of the province of Quebec..just using us as scapegoats): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYeaCoMmzhc (look at 3:55..you'll hear him say "blame money and the vote ethnic" NB: money = l'argent and ethnics = ethniques).

Sorry but no. Paris (where I live now) is probably even more multicultural than montreal, yet children are required to be taught in French, and the same would go with London, and many other cities. Point is, Montreal, or Paris, are not independent city states, but belong to a larger entity, Quebec or France.

In my opinion, it is logical that states try to enforce policies defending their original culture. The idea is that no one forces immigrants to come, and that the burden of adapting to their new environment lies on them, and not on the host country. In return, the host country should not care about the origin of its citizens: so long you're canadian, where your grandparents came from is of no importance. Personally, I think this is sensible.



That would be "maudit..." and "ostie de...". You'll find xenophobia everywhere, and in every culture. But again, when I first arrived in Montreal, I was a "maudit Français" to most of my schoolmates, because of my accent... and this wasn't racism. My personal experience is that proving them you were just as a good canadian as them worked better than shouting back, back racism comes from ignorance, and the solution to ignorance is education.



This is very debatable, at least judging from the many heated debates on the subject on CHF... But wouldn't you agree that if you look back far enough, you'll find some other "first nation" everywhere... And, in my opinion, even if it were proven that the original inhabitants of HK were not cantonese but papuans, it wouldn't make HK more papuan or less cantonese. National culture is just more than "who was there first".

Francois

Yes, this is true. At first, all was quite well between the British visitors and the Chinese, but there was a huge trade deficit on the part of the Brits, who really didn't have anything to trade in exchange for the Chinese goods, as most everything the British made, the Chinese made as well, while the Chinese also made things that the British had never even seen before.

In an attempt to stem its losses, Britain started importing opium into China. Keep in mind that opium consumption and trade was illegal in Britain, and yet it was allowing its distribution to outside nations. China attempted to curtail the opium trade, knowing that it was harming the nation, and this led to a British invasion, which the Chinese were not properly equipped to handle. Britain occupied much of the Canton regions and took Hong Kong as a "permanent" colony (as we all know, HK was returned to China in the past decade). They also treated the Chinese as second-class citizens, evicting them from their lands and building their own residences, missionaries, and embassies.

I might be wrong about all this, but to me, this seems to be the root of the problems.

General academic consensus today is that the sign never existed in that form in any of the Treaty Ports or Hong Kong. However the sign remains a powerful myth in Chinese nationalism, because one only needs to bring it up to get many Chinese people emotional about "100 years of humiliation".

basically, u are right. The NO- dogs- and- Chinese- are- allowed banner could also be seen in Nanjing Rd, Shanghai. But it was removed when PLA occupied Shanghai in 1949. I think it was better to be preserved to teach the younger generation the history when China was weak how she was treated.

Pff, when you hear the whole five minutes, this is hardly a racist speech... Basically they lost a referendum by a small margin, which makes it likely that small groups could have the last word. The whole question is 'was there a community vote?' during this referendum, if there was, and if it was against separation, (and all your previous posts suggest that it was), then Pariseau is basically right.

Francois

Re the "No dogs and Chinese allowed" sign: it was only believed to have existed in Shanghai, never in Hong Kong. And for the proof that it is a myth, see http://blog.vdare.com/archives/2005/03/27/...ical-too/print/ (though you are advised not to take the writer's slightly Euro-chauvinistic attitude too seriously)

Not to say that British racism against the Chinese was not a problem in those times, but to make up a story to prove that it existed goes entirely against the ethics of history. I have zero tolerance for the promotion of historical myths, because they have so often been used to stir up bigotry or hatred.

That said, I believe the myth about the sign really took off with the "Fist of Fury" film, and was not consciously manufactured by the PRC government.

Whether it is fictional or not is not important. The presence of west power on our territory and being exempted from Chinese laws itself is a big humiliation on us. And they treated Chinese as uncivilised. My grandama once told me she saw how those red headbanded Indian police whipped Chinese arbitrarily.

Ironically, these Sikhs were themselves vulnerable to racism from their British officers. I doubt they were very happy people.



Another irony of this is that a big part of the 19th-century European perception of the Chinese as barbaric was based on the heavy use of capital and corporal punishment in the Chinese legal code. The extraterritorial rights issue developed from cases before the Opium War, when certain British sailors were executed by Chinese authorities for accidentally causing the death of Chinese subjects. Yet before the mid-18th century, capital and corporal punishment were commonplace in European criminal justice, and were never regarded as overly inhumane (ever heard of drawing and quartering?). Indeed, French Enlightenment philosophers like Voltaire idealized China's Confucian society as more civilized and humane than Christian Europe. But it was the same Enlightenment values that by the early 19th century had caused Europeans to perceive capital and corporal punishment as uncivilized, and thus look down on the Chinese.

The heavy use of capital and corporal punishment was no more than a pretext to keep the privileges the west powers enjoyed. It was not those brutal punishment that caused discriminations by westerners on Chinese but just another proof to justify their prejudice. Additionally, the coporal punishments were abandomed in the law system reform in late 1900s. The West powers yield no rights which the Chinese should have in 1930s when modern continental law system had been established and exerted for decade in China. The maltreatment were everywhere, for example, the Bund 12, where HSBC once located at , banned Chinese enter from the main door but a back door and were restricted whithin a small narrow place in the corner. This is not some kind of rumor, several relatives of mine who experienced confirmed it.

This is very true. Interestingly, in the late 18th and in the 19th century, the perception of China by european intellectuals was globally positive. Voltaire, for instance, wrote a whole tragedy, L'orphelin de la Chine (the orphan of China), from a chinese play, which was inspired from a passage in the Zhao chapter of the Shiji. The story showed how enlightened the chinese were, and was typical of the opinon educated europeans in the 19th century had of China. So, the situation is a bit more complex than the simplistic "europeans (as a whole) despised chinese".

One point which must be mentioned was that the colonies, or the chinese concessions, were some kind of "frontier" for europeans in the 19th century, ie a ruthless place when one could get rich quickly. This is not, btw, totally different from the expat mentality we see nowadays...

Francois

I don't know how others might think of this line of reasoning, but to me, it was unlikely the Brits put up that sign in HK because ... the Brits are famous/notorious for treating their pet dogs super-duper well ...

As far as I can remember, Edgar Snow in his Red Star Over China confirmed this. He was a journalist of British newspaper then. He wrote an article to compain this discrimination and that cost his job.

There is a big turn of altitude to China in European philosophers around 18th and 19th century. Leibniz and Voltaire's view of China are almost Utopian, but Jean-Jacques Rousseau is very critical. But they have no direct contact with China anyway, they were mostly using China to promote their own philosophy.

Most of their knowledge of China came from the Jesuits there, notably people like Amyot, who spoke of themselves as "we the chinese" (and who, btw, was the first translator of the Art of War). Confucianism, as an idealised, non religious, philosophical theory, was the major reason why these philosophers had this utopian vision of China. But then, wrong as they might have been, the respect these people had for chinese civilisation is interesting, because it shows the contrast between intellectuals in the age of Reason, and the ruthless realists of the Opium Wars. Basically, I think it shows that, just as Qing China cannot be summarised in a few sentences, the Western conception of China at the time is more complex than mere racism and spite.

Francois

I see the turning point as being the widespread adoption of the ideal of Progress in the early 19th century. This can be seen in Hegel's "The Philosophy of History" lectures delivered not long before the Opium War, in which he calls China a stagnant, backward-looking civilization that will eventually go the same way as India because it has not embraced Progress like the Europeans have.

By the mid-19th century, European intellectual attitudes towards China had mostly shifted to contempt, to a large extent because the Opium War seemed to 'prove' that China was stagnant and weak, and no match for European civilization.

I believe intellectual attitudes branched more than they shifted. After 1850, there really are two positions. In politics, China, or, more precisely, its government, is despised as decadent and corrupt. On the other hand, the admiration for chinese art, and culture in general was expanding, and getting to larger and larger audiences.

Many intellectuals collected chinese objects (I visited Victor Hugo's house in paris today, I was amazed at the number of Chinese things he had, and he was no more a sinophile than any other, just typical of his time). This is also the time when chinese (Tang, generally) poetry was translated and put into western songs (Mahler, and then Berg and Webern), or made into collection, which enjoyed some publishing success. The second half of the 19th century was also the moment when major classics (Confucius and Laozi) were translated an popularised, and when quite a number of stories taking place in China (from Anderssen's Nightingale, to Puccini's Turandot) were written.

Again, I think a difference must be made between the opinion educated europeans had of chinese art and culture, which was quite positive through all the 19th century, and the judgment passed by europeans on the government and the state of China in their time, which was not very flattering.

Francois

Not sure whether any actual signs survived, but this often quoted observation by a late Qing/early Republic writer Yao Gonghe (姚公鹤) recalls the practices in the various foreign concessions in Shanghai. There were signs excluding Chinese and dogs from various facilities such as race courses and parks etc. Those signs that he comments on were posted on the gates and are specifically mentioned by Yao as being in English (今门首高标英文于木牌，所云：‘狗与华人不准入内’是也。)

Sorry I won’t translate in full but an interesting thing that he mentions is that the sign was an extrapolation from earlier signage forbidding dogs from entering particular areas of the park, presumably so that the flowerbeds would not be trampled etc. and that this was extended to Chinese because they were thought to be rather unsparing of the trees and flowers (i.e., would vandalise them).
Another thing he mentions is the building of a segregated "Chinese park" for the locals’ use (另建华公园，为华人游息之所).

姚公鹤说：“租界中外人公共建筑所在，每不准华人之擅入，喧宾夺主，无过于此……惟此事并无国际强弱之关系，乃国民教育之关系。闻昔时外人并无此项禁令，历见华人一入公共地方，折花驱鸟，糟蹋地方，无所不为，于是跑马场首以营业公司名义，禁止华人之涉足。今门首高标英文于木牌，所云：‘狗与华人不准入内’是也。公园禁止华人于理较欠圆转，不得已，就苏州河浜，南自白大桥起，另建华公园，为华人游息之所。此项公园建筑，远不逮西公园，然尚必派捕照料，故树木尚少攀折。呜呼！教育不普及，又曷怪公益之心薄弱耶！”

You can find the passage quoted in various places on the internet, including this site:
http://book.sina.com.cn/nzt/his/feichangdao/104.shtml

What I have not been able to find is a text (online) of the original work in its entirely.

Well..not all ethnics and anglophones are anti-quebec nation or Federalist...so it"s not a community vote. The majority of ethnic minorities and anglophones are federalist..but still you should not go blaming ethnic groups like that in public(after the referendum). Parizeau is an racist..there wuz this press conference(in '95)..where he pointed a finger @ a ethnic minority and said out loud "it's because of you people" He is wrong to say it's the fault of "Ethnics" and Money..when ethnics comprise of less than 5% of the quebec population in '95 and where the english community comprised of about 10%. The ethnic minorities are not a significant group..as compared to the english and the majority french(over 85%).

Why don't you post the whole link? It says clearly that the story was made up respectively fiction from a Bruce Lee movie.

http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20050618_1.htm
http://pekingduck.org/archives/002522.php

lol..i didn't see that, i got that link from google image..so it only gave me the picture. I found out after posting that link that it wuz from a bruce lee movie. But even if it wuz from a movie, the point is that there wuz discrimination against chinese from the British in HK(in the past) and the "no dogs and no chinese allowed" incident was also present..as according to what my grandparents told me.

Quite correct, but it was ironically NOT the british that startet this trade, it was entrepenuring traders from India and Indochina that startet this, the british *just* saw it's true potential and made a mass market product out of it while at the same time monopolizing the production of Opium and increasing the production of the same morethan 10 fold.



No it was not, it could freely be bought from pharmaceies for medical purposes just like Heroin could later, See and read old Sherlock Holmes stories, there the opium dens is quite freely describet, the main reason they were raided from time to time by the police were NOT because of the use of Opium in there, it was because they frequently were used as fronts for illigal brothels and gambling dens.



At the start it was because of the FINANCIAL havoc it left behind by drawing out riches from mainland China and leaving nothing behind except greater corruption, it was NOT because of any concerns to the health to the average citizen that might use it or not, that part of the concern only came later were the epidemic of opium use had spread even wider and directly coursed the SECOND Opium war. but ironically it was also the second Opium war that gave the birth of the anti-drug/Opium movement in Britain, and consequently lead to it's eventual illigalization after several hard fought years, it was manily because of the havoc opium use createt at this time(1870') in China that the goverment and several church and buisness interest began to lobby to have drug use made illigal in Britain, simply to forestall any similar problems to develop.

Andy Lau,

If your grandparents said the dog juxtaposition existed, then you should not doubt it. Why would they cheat you about it? Have faith in your grandparents and your ancestors.

Check Chen Lifu Biography for validations about what your grandparents said.

And, be sure to know how to tell one big nose from another, and don't mix up Hakka with the big nose.

Your grandparents were not incorrect as signs prohibiting Chinese and dogs existed on the same sign, though, as Yun posted, the prohibitions were not exclusively restricting Chinese and dogs--i.e. the sign contained No Dogs and Chinese allowed among other things. If I read a sign that listed no dogs, no Chinese, no food, no drinks, no skateboards, no rollerblading, no bicycles, no unicycles, whatever... I would remember the No dogs and no Chinese part... And who knows, maybe evidence of that sign containing just the phrase "No Dogs and Chinese" will turn up.

Sad to say, public prohibitions against a certain ethnicity was not restricted to China. Minorities and subjugated peoples throughout history would have known a lot about this. Even in the Land of the Free, African Americans were restricted to privileges held by the white populace... Saying such, these actions are not anti-Chinese, but anti-people-who-look-different-than-me...

I must write this here,according to one program aired on my local cable TV History Channel several years agos.Brititsh imperialists also put up " No Dogs & No Arabs Allowed " in what's now Saudi Arabia and some parts of today's Middle East.

Up to the 1980s, there were still FIVE levels of people in HK, with the Indian policemen one level above the lowest of all, Chinese whose pay or salary was always the lowest as well even if they held the same jobs as British or Indian.

The racial discrimination was real. And, don't assume that it is not here today.

"No dogs and Chinese allowed" - did the sign exist?

Yes. Not only did the sign exist, but there is a photograph of it in a book called "China in Old Photographs 1860-1910", by Burton F. Beers. Unfortunately, I don't remember where the photo is from (Shanghai maybe?) and I no longer have the book.

I have been to a place on the Bund, which is where the Original sign (this is in the former British Concession of Shanghai) was supposedly placed, perhaps this is where the mistake was from?

However, i have reason to believe that a similar sign may have been put up near Victoria Peak, did they happen to say where the sign might be?

and pointless side note, that scene in Fist of Fury was shot in Macau i believe.

This one if the sign from Fists of Fury, an attempt by the publisher to fill some empty space in the book with a picture, I suppose (see how low those western media can go !)

Here are a few interesting links on the topic, this one has the Bruce Lee pic, and a few interesting, modern, variations on this theme (misses the No Frenchmen or Dogs, though...)
http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20050618_1.htm

and this one has a copy of the actual sign, which might have started the whole story, including the one on CHF (Andy Lau, you should have quoted the whole article, it made a very good job at explaining the story...)
http://pekingduck.org/archives/002542.php


Francois

My parents used to tell me about seeing that sign on more than one occasion. My father was born in Tien Tsin and served in the KMT. He was all over the area until the 1940s. I never asked for specifics, but I believe that it was not uncommon. Wade