Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire This is just not right!!

While there was nothing better on TV last night I settled on watching that show "The Amazing Race"...(Really lacking for something to watch)

Anyway, the contestants were in Tiawan....They were all in need of getting a TAXI to take them to the next leg of the race.

What was really appalling to me is that the taxi drivers in Tiawan wouldn't stop for AMERICANS!! I mean it was a reall insulting fiasco.
The Americans had to stand in the midle of the strret & physically block the road to get one to stop..
One driver after being stopped, rolled his window down & said "I won't take you" in perfect English!

These are the people that we sent billions of our dollars & thousands of our people to help with disaster left by the Tsunami...

Frankly I have LOTS of trouble with this, & wouldn't *pizz* on them if they were on fire!

Just my thoughts on that...

Rockinbbar

I'm not sure Taiwan was hit by the tsunami, but I am sure that the US kept Red China at bay from swallowing up Taiwan ever since their "revolution" that ushered in communism. Looks like maybe we need to do something to deserve the angst we get all over the world these days. But that's childish thinking: but fun.

Same neck of the woods & type people though....

I experienced the disdain the people feel for Americans first hand when a film company from Hong Kong came over to film a movie in Texas....They were the most biggoted, racial supremeist people I have ever seen....

In my opinion, we should have left them all to their own devices & routed the money raised for the tsumani disaster to helping people that already live on good 'ol American soil.

I REALLY think we ought to close our borders as well.

Nope, no trouble saying what I really think, huh? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />

Rockin'

Um, Shanghai is not in Taiwan. It's in the PRC. The PRC doesn't receive any economic assistance from the US, other than the fact that we have a huge trade deficit with them. But that says more about their consumption habits than ours.

The tsunami was in the Indian Ocean. Neither Taiwan nor the PRC have any Indian Ocean coastline. They both have coasts on the Pacific. Both countries have sent aid to the tsunami affected countries.

"I no take you" may have been the only English besides "Hello" the driver knew. If you were a taxi driver, how anxious would you be to pick up someone that you knew you couldn't understand? Especially during rush hour?

While you and I probably didn't think anything of the way the contestants were dressed, to the Chinese, they would have looked like Western travel bums. "Hooligans".

How would a taxi driver know they were Americans? I didn't see them waving any flags. Why wouldn't they think the contestants were Canadians, or Swedes, or Italians, or Germans..... They were all "guilao", and we all pretty much look alike to them. Oh, and any decent Chinese businessman welcomes guilao customers. More profit in it <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Not one person in the bunch said a single word of Pudonghua to any of the Chinese. But that's ok right? Only you'd be pizzed at any Chinese that came over here that couldn't speak any English.

While I have no quarrel with your being ticked at folks that are happy to accept our assistance dollars. But your lack of geographical knowledge makes your statements unsupportable. And go a long way to supporting the worlds view of Americans as naive and self centered.

Scott

P.S. - PRC = Peoples Republic of China, for those of you that are acronymically challenged.

And I'm outta here for China for two weeks tomorrow. Where I know I'll have no problem getting a taxi. And as I walk down the street, passers by will say "Hello" to me. Even if it is the only word in English that they know.

I only really paid attention to the part of the show where they were comenting on the people not getting the taxi's to stop because the the people were Americans....
You are right it was China, not Taiwan.

No matter where they were located, I'm sure that the people that come over here don't encounter the same rudeness & prejudices that they experienced over there....
The movie company from China, came over here to film a movie in a "Western" setting & treated all of us like subservient dogs, then packed up in the middle of the night & departed the U.S. owing hundreds of people hundreds of thousands of dollars.....I DO know that for a fact.
It just brought back the same "attitude" I felt from them when they were here when I watched the show last night.

I would also suggest that if you have felt the animosity that the asian race has toward Americans (along with the majority of the Muslim world) that YOU are the one that is not very well informed, no matter you geographical education.

My point is, is that we continue to help people & nations in the world that harbour nothing but scorn & hatred for us.
In my opinion, there are people HERE that need our help & support....That statement is supportable, as is the rudeness encountered by the Americans on the show last night.

I didn't see other nations rushing over here to help when we had hurricanes pounding US.

Rockin'

Rockinbar
Cannot add much to what Scott said, relative to the TV show, however, in my time in Taiwan I met quite a few people and only had one scowling person the whole trip. Two weeks, a complete driving tour of the island and only one scowl... I get that every day going across Anchorage.

I found the taxis to be incredible... inexpensive and a scarey, wild ride...
art

I work for a large, Japanese owned company and have to deal with them every day. For the most part, i find the japanese to be condescending towards American workers, always trying to prove that they are smarter than Americans, and even refusing to speak English when dealing with the workers in their factories. I've gotten pretty good with sign language though, especially the one-fingered wave!

Whatcha gonna do In China, Scott? I bet it's a fascinating place!

Scott,

Yi lu ping an. Yi lu shun feng.

Paul

How did they manage to run up such a bill ? Maybe we should adopt the old chinese saying "No tickee no laundly" So much for being neighborly <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

rockinbar - I can sympathize with your situation where the company screwed people out of pay. But Chinese will screw other Chinese just as quickly as they'll put it to us foreigners. Ditto goes for American employers and their American/Mexican/Chinese/Vietmamese employees. A-holes are pretty universal, and the sh***y way one person may treat another could have nothing to do with ethnicity. For instance, my Chilean born British mother is horrible to the wait staff at restaurants, never mind what their ethnicity might be. I don't want to know what the special ingredient may be in her pea (sic) soup.

Again, I have no beef with you regarding the lack of thanks America gets for its generosity. But disagree with you that the taxi drivers were being rude to the contestants because they were Americans. I saw it as a display of the kind of tension that would arise when people that speak one language, have to deal with other people that do not speak that language, and the physical difference between one group and the other is obvious. Add the fact that people are racing for a cool million, and the show producers want to draw in an audience...

Also, the show was taped well before the tsunami. Some of the contestants that were eliminated earlier are actually family friends. These were the "grandparents".

Art - there ain't no one as cold as a teller at the Peoples Bank of China. Even the woman at Chinese Immigration managed a hint of a smile when I said thanks and good evening to her as I entered the country. The tellers at the Peoples Bank were magnificent in their complete and utter indifference.

Paul39 - the one drawback to pinyin is that different people spell the same word in different ways. Hence my big need for context when listening to conversations. With the vocabulary I have, what you wrote didn't make sense to me, but that is surely because I don't recognize the idiom, and have no context.

For instance

yi = one ?
lu= le = indicates past tense ?
ping = bottle or land/plain? as used in "bei ping" and " xiao jie, qing ge wo yi ping pi jiu" (Miss, please bring me a bottle of beer )
an= peaceful/pleasant ? as in "wan an", or "zao an"

A quick search shows that it means pleasant journy or bon voyage. So, thanks! Still no idea what "yi lu shen feng" means. I know four words that have those pronunciations, but the words I know wouldn't make sense arranged that way. A quick search didn't help.

RickyD - I'll be visiting family. Hence my rather strong feelings towards branding an entire country based on a few seconds of TV. I'll be in Hong Kong for a couple days, then down to Hainan. (where the US spy plane had to land a few years back)


Regards,
Scott

They probably remember the spanking that they took in WWII.

Scott,

You got it. Both versions mean "Have a pleasant journey".

Yi = one (a)
Lu = road
Ping an = peaceful, or level* and peaceful.

It is the same "ping" as in Bei Ping or Northern Plain, the Nationalist name for the city. Bei Jing is the Communist name meaning Northern Capital. Used to be you could tell a Chinese' politics by what he called the city.

Yi lu shun (xun?) feng means "May your road (journey) have favorable winds".

Either way, have a nice trip.

Paul

*Edited: level is a better translation than smooth.

Based on my experiences I would agree that the Chinese are racist. They rank the races yellow, white, then black. Can't say about the Japanese. They are a different country you know, not even "the same neck of the woods" any more than the U.S. and, say, Colombia. I can't defend their racism, but it isn't hard to understand. China has been around for thousands of years. They were a major civilization when our European ancestors were wearing animal skins and carrying spears. I have found that even Chinese of limited education have a pretty good knowledge of their history, which is pretty amazing when you consider that many Americans don't know much about our own country's history that is only a couple of hundred years old. I'm not surprised at some of the negative feelings expressed here. It isn't comfortable being on the receiving end of racism, which is something few white Americans really experience. It has been amusing when I have discussed Chinese racism with liberals who, as an article of faith, believe that White America invented racism. They simply can't believe that "people of color" can be racist. Another thing many people don't think about is that China is a huge, diverse country. They have their own prejudices against their own different groups. It seems that many Chinese hate the Cantonese (Kwangtung province and Hong Kong). They attribute to them many of the same behavioral stereotypes that anti-Semites attribute to Jews. By and large the Chinese hate the Japanese, which makes sense considering what that country did to China in WW II. I have found most individual Chinese to be good people, just like anyone else. One thing is for sure, we can't ignore China, it is just too vast. Like having an elephant in your living room. Better to have them as friends and trading partners than enemies.

Paul

I've spent a bit of time in the East, Singapore, and the crossroads of Asia and the Middle East, Kazakhstan, and a bit in Europe as well, and can say by and large people are the same the world over. I found most folks were decent, and there was the occasional a-hole. I also didn't come off as the a-typical ugly American.

If you have the attitude that you'd not even wiz on someone that was on fire, then you'll have that opinon about any race, religion, country, county that is different then your own. I tend to find the wide angle view is more pleasing than tunnel vision, but to each their own.

Nah, Ya'll don't make it about race....it's not.

I have spent huge amounts of time in Mexico with a fishing lodge in Sinaloa state, & a trophy whitetail operation in the northern part of the country. The people there were nice as could be. Sure there were a few scowls, mostly from the lower income bracket of Mexico, partly because I drove a brand new Jeep Wrangler to outfit in.

I also spent time in the Bahamas. Those people were the greatest. Nice as could be, & frendly & helpful in every way. I never saw disdain or a scowl while there.

As to what I saw on TV, I don't think it was the language barrier that kept the cab drivers from stopping. They wouldn't stop long enough to know what language the Americans spoke...
If I have someone waving me down, no matter what color they are I'll stop & see if they need help.

I guess my statements came from how unfreindly those people came across to Americans. I have no respect for that type of behavior, no matter what thier color.

I guess the people in New York have a rep for turning away in a time of another's need. They didn't hear that woman scream on the street, or they didn't hear that gunshot go off in the hallway of thier apartment. See what I mean? t's not a color or race thing, but sometimes it CAN be a matter of how the gov't over in a particular country views Americans, and how thier press portrays us. That alone will lend itself to the general public not being favorable to Americans.

As to how we all got screwed by the Chinese in that movie deal...Well, they paid bills in cash....The movie company was using things like high lift cherry-picker's, film, food for the entire crew, special effects, guns, horses, the set...Alamo Village in Bracketville Texas, motels, transportation companies, extras as background, the list goes on & on...It is very expensive to film a movie in the U.S.
Well, the whole Chinese crew, actors, accountant, & everything was supposed to wrap things up & give everyone thier final pay for the past 10 days, & leave in about a week, after everything was settled...They packed up everything & flew out of the U.S. in the middle of the night! I mean Poof!! Gone....I don't think it was ignorance on our part. Maybe being a little too trusting, but, I do that anyway.
Those people just shaved off 10 days filming expense on thier movie.....
I'll bet if they come back again, there will be whole different level of trust involved, whether it is the same people or not.

Rockin'

You watched a reality show on TV and got all worked up? What did it look
like to a cabbie when any one with a film crew tries to pull you over?
Get a life. Bob