Perpetuating Asian Stereotypes

If you’ve ever been to PAC mall (Pacific Mall) you’d know that trying to find a store you visited last weekend in that forever shifting labyrinth is a practice in futility. I was on a quest to find computer mods as I wandered through the glass abyss. I tooled around for about an hour and in that time I was made uncomfortable by the hordes of Chinese staring at me then glancing away surely thinking, “He’s not Chinese.” I got over the discomfort quickly when I realized, I’m taller than 75% of these people.

Finding the store I saw suction-cupped to the glass door, to my disappointment, a sign that had scrawled upon it countless indecipherable Chinese characters and the time “12:30”. It was 12, so I decided to take a gamble and wait around. After watching a small boy no more than 10 years old dig for gold in his nostrils, with fingers from BOTH hands mind you (thumbs included in the mining party), I was just about to give up but decided to wander again. I came across another sign in another window a little ways away. The sign being in English my greedy eyes ate it up. The picture is a little blurry, I apologize, I took it with my camera phone. For those of you who are having trouble reading it

1. You are going blind, seek medical attention
   
2. The sign reads, “We’re Microwavable! Warm and Soothing Friends”

I thought about it as I walked back to the now open computer store… Why would you want a microwaveable stuffed toy? Then it came to me, “Oh! So that they’ll be warm when you play with them. Ingenious!” I always heralded PAC mall for the deals, the bartering, and the fact that you can get shit there that you can’t get anywhere else in the GTA. Microwavable stuffed toys. Another hit for PAC mall. Ingenious, I thought. Then I changed my mind. What do you see in the basket the sign is referring to?

Some cats and dogs.

Now really, Is it a good idea to have “microwavable” cats and dogs in the largest Chinese Indoor Mall in North America? Doesn’t this only further perpetuate the myth that Asians like to eat family pets? And beyond that, what kind of message does this send the children!

Warning: The following is a microfiction intended to illustrate the above point.

Little Oku decided one day that the family dog Lucky wasn’t as warm and cuddly as her microwavable stuffed animals.

Grandmother, upon seeing what little Oku had done, was too late. All grandmother could say, as Oku asked what was wrong with Lucky, was, *“Precious Oku, Lucky wasn’t so lucky after all.”

All joking aside, stereotyping is bullshit. It's for racists and lazy people. Not all Asians are bad drivers. Some of us suck at math. Not all of us know karate, ju-jitsu, taekwando, or kung fu. Although Asian women are viewed as exotic, mysterious, and subservient, and through this are thus imbued with an inherent sexual allure, it is not true that all Asian women are freaky-deaky. To dispell the myth that all Asians have baby-sized penises, I submit mine. It's huge. We're talking satisfy-a-cow, did-you-grow-up-near-a-nuclear-reactor? grade stuff. But most importantly of all, Chinese people do not eat dogs. Nor do they eat cats.

Filipinos do. (dogs anyway, and not all of us. And no, that's not why I breed german shepherds. dick.)

While I don’t support racism if you have to be racist because you were brought up in a small town in Belleville where they still do minstrel shows then please, at least be accurate.

*Translated from Japanese