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GOLDSEA |
ASIAMS.NET |
ASIAN AMERICAN ISSUES
WHAT FOBs THINK OF AMERICAN-BORN ASIANS
y FOBs we mean anyone who has ever been called an FOB. -- "fresh-off-the-boat", anyone not born here. In other words, half the AA population. Even the 2 million AA who immigrated as kids and speak English like -- or in some cases, better than -- native-born Americans rarely escape the sting of being dismissed by American-Born Asians (ABAs) based on real or imagined differences.
The stereotype of the hopeless FOB who just doesn't get American culture is all too familiar. But intra-Asian prejudice is a two-way street.
No less insulting are the images held by FOBs. ABAs are the descendants of the lowliest of peasants forced to flee their homelands to become indentured servants, sniff some FOBs. Born and bred to accept second-class status in a white society, sneer others. Slackers who don't know the meaning of ambition and sacrifice -- and who lack the guts to do anything about it in any case.
FOBs run the socio-economic gamut. A significant minority (perhaps a tenth) are highly successful trans-Pacific business families seeking a safe haven for their fortunes. The vast majority are engineers, scientists, physicians and academics braving the uncertainties of new lives for a chance to work hard for more money and better opportunities. A few are refugees and illegals risking their lives to escape hopeless, grinding poverty.
It's safe to say few FOBs feel in any respect disadvantaged relative to American-born Asians. In fact, given a dozen years most do as well or better than ABAs financially, if not socially. They can be excused, then, for harboring some less-than-flattering assessments of ABAs. By the same token, in their struggle to acculturate, FOBs often come to appreciate the trails blazed by the ABS, or at least, by their ancestors.
Assuming you're FOB or straddling the FOB-ABA fence, what's your image of ABAs? Let's hear the good as well as the bad.
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WHAT YOU SAY
[This page is closed to new input. --Ed.]
(Updated
Tuesday, Apr 1, 2008, 06:03:26 PM)
AC,
To reduce everything to the basics regarding MS'rise to wealth and power in the Tech world in a single sentence.
Microsoft became rich and eventually the "controller" of the PC market due to IBM's stupidity to allow Bill Gates to market MS DOS separately from the IBM PCs.
No, it wasn't the Asian PC Clone companies that triggered MS to become a juggernaught tech company, they just gave it more juice; but it was IBM's lack of insight that caused its development, which lead to the rampant flooding of PC compatibles running on the several different versions of MS DOS and Windows.
Michael Chang,
That's what I said! Many Taiwanese hold PHDs, while PHDs among Cantonese are almost non-existent. Don't jump the gun before you spout.
CTFC!
Thursday, April 04, 2002 at 11:47:04 (PST)
FOP (A HK Born Chinese):
“Cyrix was bought by Via, a Taiwanese chipset company a couple of years ago.”
*My bad, was wondering what was going on with Cyrix, which seem to have almost disappeared.
AC Dropout & FOP (A HK Born Chinese):
IBM does not advertise their PCs as much as Compaq and Dell but they have a huge corporate sales force and competitive products. They failed to keep their dominance but they are a major PC vendor. Yes, they are considered the premier Mainframe company.
AC Dropout:
*Names -> trademark, not copyright.
*Name one company that influenced x86 CPU market other than Intel, AMD, and Cyrix (Now Asian but not when we started seeing the dramatic PC price reductions).
*Compaq = first to “reverse engineer” and create/enter the clone market
*Compaq started the cutthroat price wars that began early 90s in attempts to dominate the market.
*The point I made was that market forces had a lot more to do than your implication of "Asian Angels" had come down and reduced the PC component prices that allowed Microsoft to dominate the OS market.
*Who said that the Asian companies reverse engineered all PC components?
*Compaq did it first in this market, which opened up the market for others.
*As for licensing issues, how can you compare illegal copiers to royalty paying generic product producers?
*Most Asian PC clone/component manufacturers that influence the PC market (at least in the largest market – “industrialized” countries) conform to the intellectual laws.
*Even in China, which joined WTO recently, is now forced to crack down on the violators.
*It’s about (perceived) fairness in the competitive field.
AA with not much time:
*Agreed, but China is slowly changing.
AA with (way) too much time
Thursday, April 04, 2002 at 11:24:15 (PST)
Regarding intra-ethnic rivalry among Chinese ... well the mainland immigrants in HK thing is turning out to be something of a non-crisis. No one cares. SCMP (the English language newspaper) didn't even bother putting it on the front page today. Ming Pao had a pretty big spread on it buried somewhere in the middle of the paper.
But the basic deal is, the deadline came and passed, the protestors are still out there in front of the immigration office, the average guy on the street doesn't really care except for people who live in the area and complain about their taking up public space. 6 people out of 4000+ turned themselves in for deportation. 2000 are still participating in further court cases, etc. trying to gain the right to stay. Only 44 kids out of 187 among the group are being permitted to attend school.
HK elites don't give a damn about the issue of these people being separated from their families or not, they just worry that the deportations represent the erosion of HK's judiciary independence (Beijing pressured the government to reverse a 2000 court ruling which granted them the right of abode). The English-language press is taking its' usual left of center argument based on human rights, which (at least from what I've read, though I read slowly so I can't cover everything) is rather absent from the Chinese-language press.
But I think one really telling thing about local attitudes towards this whole issue is that the best media spokesman they could find is an Italian priest ...
T.H. Lien
Thursday, April 04, 2002 at 09:01:35 (PST)
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