females in traditional chinese martial arts

[Razaunida]

thanks for confirming. living in the U.S. and based on my exposure too... most native speakers of chinese i know, or those immigrate from chinese speaking countries later in life don't go around bragging that they know chinese.. to them it's just normal. it's easy to tell when one's level of chinese is "elementary".

just a general comment about trolling and how i chose to handle it..

a troll can be someone who got banned previously, a completely new member, a current established member who wants to take more risks through an alias.. it can be anyone and any made up identity.

but anyway, once i've determined that someone's main purpose for posting is to make personal attacks and not contribute usefully to a discussion, i chose to ignore it. don't even bother reading past their name. once we've established who is a troll, i think personal attacks towards them is then a waste of time. it's too easy to for them to create a new name and do the same thing over again under a new alias. giving a troll more attention is exactly what they want. that's probably all i need to say about that. thanks for posting.

What exactly have you contributed? BTW I never took a class of Chinese in my life. I see many ABC's who claim all sorts of Asian pride and can't say a word of Chinese. They don't think the culture. That is fine, they are American, but when the same people try to set themselves apart and try to represent themselves as Chinese I always feel like they are more Amy Tan. Good, but they often idealize the old country culture according to modern western norms. This is what is happening here.

[omarthefish]

thanks for confirming. living in the U.S. and based on my exposure too... most native speakers of chinese i know, or those immigrate from chinese speaking countries later in life don't go around bragging that they know chinese.. to them it's just normal. it's easy to tell when one's level of chinese is "elementary".

.

Actually, all I needed was this:

台湾人看不懂汉字。 什么可能？


My first hint was that his Chinese language posts were a little too easy for me to understand. As a non-native speaker of Chinese, I usually have to put a little effort into reading comments from native speakers when I brows actual Chinese language boards. His comments felt like the sort of thing I would write. So I ran a few of his Chinese posts past my wife (actual Chinese person) and the post shown above really jumped out. She yelled at me that I used to always make that mistake. I've grown out of it but it's really a classic foreigner grammatical error up there. It's not the kind of error a native speaker would make. Once she (my wife) pointed it out to me I was embarrassed not to have noticed it myself.

[dirtyrat]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VU_HKb74FAY

that vid on the Chinese stone lock was cool!

[Jimbo]

cool, thanks for sharing.



in my experience, shifus and students don't make any issue out of gay/lesbian and don't talk about it. but i do observe among TCMA folks some gayphobic teasing, most of which is light and schoolyard stuff that boys may do. also one of the ways folks are dissed is by calling them sissy or basically any other word that represents femaleness in a negative way. calling someone "gay" also to mean "weak". i have observed this on the forums here, as well.

what i find ironic (particularly if they are asian men doing this), is that in the U.S. media asian men are not portrayed well and in fact feminized (they are portrayed as weak, feminine, nerdy, and have small *feet*.. except in kung fu movies.. and yet still, the predominant stereotype is not positive). they don't realize that their way of degrading others is actually also the very same language in mainstream U.S. which put asian men in a subservient or "feminized" position. being asian myself, i find the language problematic, but i get used to it.

most don't really get into the games and just focus on training. i think the primary focus is on transmitting our beautiful art and culture and during these moments of training gender and everything else disappears. it's just the martial arts.

i have had both excellent male and female instructors. if someone is detail oriented and can break down and explain things well, i thk they are qualified whatever the gender. in my exp, most schools in TCMA are majority male with a few females in the class.

Hi, Jian.

A big part of the problem of the U.S. media's view of Asian men is that so many Asian men willingly help promote the weak, nerdy, subservient, "feminized" stereotype in American TV and film. If called on it, they often state that it's not true, or they reason that they must take what they can get in Hollywood. So the problem continues to perpetuate itself. Even the Asian MAist stereotype isn't an upgrade, since in American TV/movies, the Caucasian or black character will almost always be shown as 'better' if they face off against him. I'm Asian, but I realized a long time ago that you can only represent yourself. Regardless of what may be the general media image out there.

As to someone's preferences, IMO it shouldn't matter, and I've never seen an issue come up as to someone's sexuality in a MA environment. That is, except in one example many years ago, overseas, when one guy displayed very exaggerated feminine mannerisms, where he would grin in a creepy way and try to grab guys inappropriately. He didn't last too long in training. But every group has its bad examples. Otherwise it should be no one else's business.

IMO, sometimes women become better students than males, though it all depends on the individual and how interested/inclined they are toward the MA.

[Razaunida]

Its not the media.

All the nerds come over. They are good students. They guys from shop class don't. Lots of man's men in the mainland. They drink bai jiu and beat down wimps. In the US we only see the ****s. It is the same with white people. You don't see the manly men in ivy league schools, you see them building monster trucks and working construction or felling trees with their peni.

As a result many people think Chinese are all smart, not really true, but a social division.

If the only Mexicans you saw were the top scholars you would think the same of Latinos.

My uncle won a scholarship for South America for winning a math contest. He's really, really smart. Social skills...not so much. If the only Latinos you saw were like that, people who can't build a shelving unit in their home it would change your perception of everything.

[Jian]

Hi, Jian.

A big part of the problem of the U.S. media's view of Asian men is that so many Asian men willingly help promote the weak, nerdy, subservient, "feminized" stereotype in American TV and film. If called on it, they often state that it's not true, or they reason that they must take what they can get in Hollywood. So the problem continues to perpetuate itself. Even the Asian MAist stereotype isn't an upgrade, since in American TV/movies, the Caucasian or black character will almost always be shown as 'better' if they face off against him. I'm Asian, but I realized a long time ago that you can only represent yourself. Regardless of what may be the general media image out there.

As to someone's preferences, IMO it shouldn't matter, and I've never seen an issue come up as to someone's sexuality in a MA environment. That is, except in one example many years ago, overseas, when one guy displayed very exaggerated feminine mannerisms, where he would grin in a creepy way and try to grab guys inappropriately. He didn't last too long in training. But every group has its bad examples. Otherwise it should be no one else's business.

IMO, sometimes women become better students than males, though it all depends on the individual and how interested/inclined they are toward the MA.

the problem i think in american film is there are not enough opportunities for asian men to participate.. i think of all the films "airbender" etc, where they still pick white actors to play asian roles. in terms of mainstream film, the control is just not premdominately in our hands. i do think that in alternative film and media asian men can create their own images..

thanks for sharing about sexuality in MA environment... whether he's acting in an exaggerated girly way or not i think is irrelevant. grabbing dudes in class is creepy on its own.

i think women can become good students in MA. i also feel like a sifu in TCMA classes that is personally invested in supporting the female students is much needed.. in my experience those schools tend to be majority male which can be tough for some women esp if they're the only one.

[Razaunida]

the problem i think in american film is there are not enough opportunities for asian men to participate.. i think of all the films "airbender" etc, where they still pick white actors to play asian roles. in terms of mainstream film, the control is just not premdominately in our hands. i do think that in alternative film and media asian men can create their own images..

thanks for sharing about sexuality in MA environment... whether he's acting in an exaggerated girly way or not i think is irrelevant. grabbing dudes in class is creepy on its own.

i think women can become good students in MA. i also feel like a sifu in TCMA classes that is personally invested in supporting the female students is much needed.. in my experience those schools tend to be majority male which can be tough for some women esp if they're the only one.

American films do that? Asian films worship white people. So do advertisements.