From: underdog@leland.Stanford.EDU (Dwight Joe)
Subject: Re: Negative connotations, was Media Stereotypes
Organization: Miners for a Heart of Gold
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 93 20:50:17 GMT

>John Park writes:
>>Dwight Joe writes:
>>>The analogy is 
>>>       Feds (folks in the Federation) = Americans
>>>       Romulans = Chinese
>>>       Klingons = Soviets  (a little out of date now)
>>>       Vulcans = Japanese
>>Huh?
>Actually, I've seen this discussed somewhere else (I forget where,
>but it wasn't the net).  The analogy's exactly the way Dwight describes
>it:  it's a three-way balance of power, as in the 1960s (after China
>became hostile towards the Soviet Union), with the Federation being
>the good guys.

I don't make things up; if people like Mr. John Park (jpark@rwja.umdnj.edu)
are angered by those "things", then it's too bad.  A number of people who
care nothing about Asian societies hold the same view that I have about
the above analogy.

>In one of the early episodes, when the Romulans are first encountered,
>Spock's physical resemblance to the Romulans is a plot element.

(1) This stuff is in reference to the episode where the Feds first make contact
with the Romulans.  Captain Kirk orders that the Enterprise chase and destroy
the Romulan ship, which has a cloaking device, as it retreats back past the
neutral zone.  Yes.  Spock's physical resemblance to the Romulans is a plot
element.

(2) In another episode, where the Feds try to steal the cloaking device
from the Romulans, Chekov remarks that physically Vulcans and Romulans
are similar and that its is hard for him to beam Spock (who is fakingly
romancing the female Romulan commander) back to the Enterprise because he
is the lone Vulcan in a ship full of anatomically similar Romulans.

Note that in this episode, the weapons officer notes that the Romulans are
using Klingon-designed starships.  This is a _direct_ analogy to the Chinese
use of Soviet-designed fighters (Mig-17, for example).

(3) In another example, Spock and McCoy are teleported back to the ice age
of a planet.  Spock meets a beautiful lady and loses control.  He is
living 5000 years in the past, and he remarks that (at that time in the past),
his society was not governed by logic.  He remarks that, at the time, 
Vulcans were "savage barbarians" (exact quote).

Note that the time period to which Spock refers is the time period when
Vulcans are still Romulans _before_ they branched off to create two
sub-species: Romulans and Vulcans.  This is a direct analogy to the
Chinese-ge past (and present, given that we now have knowledge that the
Chinese-ge practiced cannabalism as recently as the 1960s); at the past
(and possibly the present), the Chinese-cu Chinese-ge were savages with
no notion of fundamental human decency.

They behaved in a way that would make even the cruel Tojo weep.

(Below is my favorite tidbit.)

(4) Deanna Troi, the ship's counselor on Captain Picard's ship, is queried
by the Captain on his first encounter--face to face--with the Romulans.
Decades have elapsed since the last encounter.

The Captain asks Troi about what kind of people the Romulans might be.
She says (exact quote), "Their [Romulan] belief in their own superiority
is beyond arrogance."

This is a direct analogy to what many Americans (including non-Chinese-cu
Asian-Americans) and Japanese (with whom I've chatted) have observed about
Chinese-cu Chinese-ge people.  These Chinese-cu have an incredible arrogrance
in believing the inherent "superiority" (quotes intended) of Chinese-cu
culture and society over all other cultures in the world.

This is evidenced by the _fact_ that many Chinese-cu Chinese-ge coerce their
children, in many cases, into learning the Chinese-cu language.  They
insist that because a person is Chinese-ge, she must learn the Chinese-cu
language.  They believe that their motherland (the nation of their loyalty)
is China even though they are Chinese-Americans.  etc.  etc.  etc.

(truly)
She says , "Their [Chinese-cu] belief in their own superiority is beyond
arrogance."

P.S.
Star Trek is a wonderfully insightful show.  The way that it captures
the essense of modern-day society is awesome.

Case in point:  The Romulans resemble the Chinese-cu Chinese-ge to a "T".


Legend-
   -cu = culturally speaking
   -ge = ethnically (i.e. genetically) speaking
   -ci = speaking in the sense of citizenship

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