Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago
Date: Tuesday, 15 Sep 1992 17:09:35 CDT
From: <U58402@uicvm.uic.edu>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
Subject: Re: Chinese-American Mental Strategies

In article <1992Sep13.225928.3971@leland.Stanford.EDU>,
underdog@leland.Stanford.EDU (Dwight Joe) says:
>
>Over the last several months, I have received much mail from Mr. Wilbur Pan
>(u58402@uicvm.uic.edu).  He's an example of someone who has been probing
>my background; he's Chinese-cu afterall.  Perhaps, we can learn something
>about one aspect of Chinese-cu mentality that has no parallel in Western
>thought.  His behavior, as that of a Chinese-cu, is quite different from those
>who are Chinese-ge but not Chinese-cu.

Mr. Joe has a selective memory. The first time he responded to one of my
posts, he commented that perhaps that my response, which he
characterized as racist and irrational (it was neither), was a good
reason why the US should tighten up its immigration laws with respect to
Chinese immigrants. The obvious point is that if the US kept out Chinese
immigrants, I, as a wrong thinking "Chinese-cu" would not now be on the
net. If this is not probing into one's background and making assumptions
about one's personal history, I don't know what is. For the record, I
was born and raised in the US.

The only comments I have made on the net regarding Mr. Joe's background
are in reference to whether or not he is a racist and an anti-Chinese
bigot. If he is of Chinese descent, then I would not consider him
racist, only severely misguided. I do consider him to be a liar, as he
has fabricated facts to back up his irrational arguments in the past.
This evaluation has nothing to do with Chinese or Western culture.

>You silent readers of this newsgroup must have read about stories where
>the Chinese gov'ts on China, Singapore, and Taiwan has been involved in
>spying on its own citizens when the only crime that they've committed is
>to air their opinions.......

The only reason that these readers are silent is probably because
they have added Mr. Joe to their kill files. Unfortunately,
our system does not have such a feature. And I don't know where
Mr. Joe gets the idea that I am spying on him.

Mr. Joe has the right to air his opinions. I also have the right to say
that they are poorly reasoned, irrational, bigoted, and racist (if he is
not himself of Chinese descent). I also offered counterarguments and
REAL facts to support my case. Mr. Joe prefers, I guess, to make up his
own facts.

This is why free speech is valuable. It exposes the utter banality of
thinking such as Mr. Joe's for what it is.

>      Each e-mail
>from him has attempted to allude to something in my background.
>(Note that I do _not_ acknowledge and do _not_ comment on the accuracy of
>his probings.)
>
These are not mere allusions to his background, but knowledge I had
before I started reading s.c.a.a. They were sent via e-mail just
so they would be kept off of the net, because I did not feel that
it was my place to do so. If Mr. Joe wants to publicize them,
he is free to do so.


Wilbur Pan
(aka u58402@uicvm.uic.edu
 at the ever so friendly and personal univ. of ill. at chicago)


Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american