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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3

Chink merger discussion

The most recent edit on the main page was by User:Uncle G and was the placement of, of all things, a MERGE tag - "({{mergefrom}} suggestion, per the AFD discussion)" - which led to to think "which AFD?". Well, turns out there's a chink AFD and there's now an attempt to equivocate/equate that word with this one. I'd say the discussion between HGQ, Zeus and Keefer in the Dictionary section above is enough to validate that little case of mistaken identity. Rather ironic that there's an AFD for chink, which is an English word (albeit a nasty one) and not for Gweilo, which isn't an English word (and is or can be just as nasty). Whatever the case, I'll be filing "oppose" on this merger, for what are by now obvious reasons of the huge body of literature and sources involving "Chinaman", which you won't find for "Chink", and the clear and unequivocal reality that they are not identical, one even when derisive is nowhere near as derisive as the other, and so on. Perhaps User:Uncle G knows better, as the pointers on both page's merge tags come to this page, and being out of the blue and all as they have been I think we may have a clue as to the identity of Four-Point-Point. What's further curious here is that while that edit comment says there's an AFD, there isn't an AFD template on Chink, so "where's the fire?" Oh, I see, it's a made-up AFD to justify somebody's agenda to get these merged because they think/want to be as bad as the other....but I'll look at the Articles for Discussion page because maybe, who knows, some other similar term (whatever it would be) is being deleted/merged (?).Skookum1 18:20, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Further comment about this strangeness: I just did a "find on this page" on Chink and the word "Chinaman" isn't even on the page. And this was proposed to be merged with the Chinaman article? Kinda premature if the Chink article doesn't even use the word you'd like it merged to, isn't it?Skookum1 18:21, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Been going through the AFD logs; all I found so far is Beaner 2nd Nomination AFD discussion which included the following exchange involving Uncle G, whose agenda now is fairly clear:
  • Umm...yes, we do. Do you see those links? I'm not even arguing that Beaner should be a separate article, but your claim that "we don't have separate articles for individual slang names for classes of people" was patently incorrect. —David Levy 16:29, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
I'll continue looking for other AFD discussions to see what the reference in the edit comment was (other than being spurious/nonsense/redherring material). There was apparently a Chink AFD at some point in the past, with a "keep" verdict as accounted for just above. Why do cultural censors think deleting things does away with them anyway? Sweeping things under the rug is a great way to grow HUGE dust bunnies, doncha know?Skookum1 18:31, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose merger. These words are not equivalent and have different etymologies and histories.Skookum1 18:17, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Wikipedia is not a dictionary. We don't have separate articles for subjects just because the words for them are different. Uncle G 20:54, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
      • They are clearly different subjects as well as diferent words; the only thing making them seem identical now is a result of the changes made by Four-Point-Zip which are now locked in. Using your logic Gweilo and Caucasian should maybe be merged as well.Skookum1 21:12, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
        • No, they are not "clearly" different subjects, and the part of the article that you've been edit warring over does not change that. The controversy is the same. The consequences of people using the words is the same. The attempts to avoid their use are the same. The words themselves are synonyms. This is a single subject. Uncle G 02:19, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose merger. Per Skookum's logic.Zeus1234 18:24, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose - The merge proposal on the AfD for Chink was made because at the time of the AfD nomination, the Chink article was only a couple of sentences long. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 19:10, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose Unfortunately, I can't speedy close this discussion because it'd be considered wheel-warring (Uncle G being an admin), but I'll take it up with WP:ANI'll just ask someone else to close this discussion after seven days. Xiner (talk, email) 19:16, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
  • You have an article that talks about "a derogatory ethnic slur for someone of East Asian descent, usually Chinese" that states that it is as comparable in offensiveness as "nigger" and has a laundry list of people who have got into hot water for using the word, and an article that talks about "a derogatory and offensive term referring to a Chinese man" that is "equivalent to nigger" that also has a laundry list of people who have got into hot water for using the word, and yet you apparently cannot see that you have two articles on the very same subject. I suggest reading the articles again, because it really is staring you in the face. This is an encyclopaedia, not a dictionary. The dictionary, where every word gets its own individual article is over there. Here, in the encyclopaedia, we don't discuss the same thing twice in separate articles. We merge duplicate articles. Uncle G 20:54, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
    • An encyclopedia can well have more than one article on related topics. Once a word becomes the subject of controversies and social discussions, it's not just a dictionary term anymore. It seems like most people agree with that. Xiner (talk, email) 21:01, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
      • The merger isn't because it's a dictionary article. It's because it's a duplicate article. Didn't the link to Wikipedia:Duplicate articles make that clear? Wiktionary has separate articles on individual words for the same thing. Wikipedia is not a dictionary, however, and does not. Once again, I suggest reading the two articles, because the fact that they are the same subject, from the discussion of how offensive people regard the word to be to the laundry list of incidents including changing the names of things that use the word, really is staring you in the face. That you've not noticed that there are two words here, both with the same problems and the same assertions over their offensiveness, and that the actual subject for encyclopaedic discussion isn't in fact a single word at all, is part of the problem that you are having with your edit war. Another part of the problem is that editors have been acting like Lost Lexicographers, wandering Wikipedia in search of a dictionary to write, and doing lexicographic primary research in an encyclopaedia.

        Here's a hint for everyone here: Stop using dictionaries as sources, and stop doing lexicography in the wrong project. Using a dictionary as a source either requires original research, of exactly the form that you've been doing earlier on this talk page (analysing raw data to try and infer whether people were racist when they have used a word), or results in a dictionary article. At the very least, start using books like ISBN 1877864978 as sources, which don't deal with these several words separately, notice. (There are at least four other words and phrases that are parts of this subject.) Once you start looking at sources other than dictionaries, and stop doing original research based upon raw data, you'll realize what the subject is, and realize how to properly cover it in a way that you won't have to edit war over. Uncle G 02:19, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

        • ISBN 1877864978, which you could have bothered naming like other people do with books here, is a 1997 publication. "Books like that" - do you mean that meet your approval? That come from a time period when they have suitably vetted by the mavens of linguistic morality? Whuzzup? Does that book explore the sources that actually use the word "Chinaman", or does it only contain denunciations of it and complaints about it? Does it address official uses? Does it admit that dictionaries once included it, unabashedly, and that it evidently figured in newspaper styleguides without any discernible malicious intent in comparison/relation to the use of white man, Englishman, American, and others? No, but of course since you seem to own it why don't you be helpful and quote what it says about "chinaman" (verbatim) and also give its references for whatever actual facts there may be in those sections. Sources are verifiable also only if they are also credible, and cannot shown to be false. Barbeau and Levi-Strauss and Boas are discredited in Coastal First Nations ethnography now, too, but they still get cited and discussed. You don't want to discuss anything about having all the facts present; you want to shut them down, and keep them to books and definitions only YOU approve of. What's going on here is NOT original research, but a clarification of ALL THE POSSIBLE USES of the word, in ALL its historical contexts. Not just the modern one that you prefer, evidently because it entirely omits any legitimate past mention of the word, including dictionaries and obvious ethnonymic/generic usages which were not discriminatory in any way. No more so than calling someone a Canadian, American, or Briton, or at worse a Canuck or Cheesehead, a Yankee, or a Pommie or Brit. You want to shut this down, claiming "original research" when it's very clear by now that the assembled citations seriously challenge the current frozen wording of the article (perhaps established by yourself? or would you care to take credit for those edits?). Are you going to also ask that Gweilo and white man be merged? I bring up the Gweilo article because it's so thoroughly footnoted and researched, and in fact (ironically) helped inspired me to dig up quotes for what I knew to be the case - widespread inoffensive/casual/official use, irrespective of denuncations by publications isused in 1997.....and hell, it's not even an English word and it has its own article; "Chink" and "Chinaman" do not mean the same thing in English, evne when you're using Chinaman in a pejorative sense; the level of invective is entirely different, as are various other connotations; you may be a native English speaker, but not one who's been around people who use these words, or can't hear the difference because he/she doesn't want to....even Hong would agree with me here (I think).Skookum1 03:01, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
          • That entire paragraph assumes bad faith from beginning to end. I suggest that you make a proper argument that does not assume bad faith in other editors as its premise. If you cannot make a cogent counterargument without making wild unfounded assumptions about other editors and inventing a whole army of straw men, then you don't have an argument for your case. I suggest that you try to abide by our Wikipedia:Assume good faith directive. I also repeat my suggestion that you look at sources other than dictionaries. I've already given one for you to look at. Read it, and discover what the subject here actually is. Uncle G 01:01, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
      • If this article currently says that Chinaman is the equivalent of "nigger", that's the fault of it being locked into the POV version last achieved by Four-Point-Point, not because it's valid; "Chinaman" is clearly not the equivalent of "Nigger" - even when used self-referentially by modern Chinese North Americans, e.g. in the various book titles/studies invoking it - no more than it's equivalent to "chink". There are claims that chinaman is as vicious as nigger, but there are no good citations for that at all except for citations of people who claim that they're the same. And that's not a laundry list...(and where's the "laundry list" for the people who "got into hot water" for using the word (presumably you mean "Chinaman")?? Because there's clearly a much LONGER laundry list of people who used the word in official documents, diaries, letters, novels and more without meaning/intending to be derisive. The equivalenc might be between "Chinaman" and, perhaps", "coloured" or "black", but certainly not "nigger". That it's equivalent is certainly a position of the diehard politically-correct, but that's all that is - a position, and not a very citable or provable one either.Skookum1 22:03, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
        • The article said exactly the same thing about the word being "equivalent to nigger" in the version that you wanted, too. And the laundry list of people who got into hot water for using the word is the "Controversies" section of the article. It's by far the overwhelming majority of the article content, and quite hard to miss. ☺ Uncle G 02:19, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
          • You're insinuating that I wanted it in there, and in fact hadn't noticed its reinsertion since its having been taken out (and not just by me) previously during this (and prior, elsewhere) edit wars before you showed up. And what's in the Controversies section is hardly, as I said, a laundry list. Landry list?. More like notes saying "coupla beer, some smokes, and pick up some chips" by comparison to what's amassing in the evidence for historical and official usages, even in the bibliography of modern materials where it figures in film, book and paper titles on Chinese North American culture (and, apparently, given Bo Yang's book, on Southeast Asian Chinese-ness, although its Singapore publication site might be incidental to its actual content). And even so, all your laundry list proves is that there are organizations who've made a fuss about it; that it happens to be the bulk of the article is because of the block imposed by Xiner just after 4.x.x.x's (or "whomever's") last reintroduction of material; if I didn't take out "nigger" on that round it's because I hadn't noticed it; yes, you might find ONE or TWO sources which equate the two terms; but I know Paul Wong, wouldn't (see new stuff on Resources page) and I doubt Frank Chin would, or many others. There are enough valid citations of types of historical/official usage now available as compiled by myself, Keefer4, HongQiGong, Xiner and Zeus1234; the pressing issue at the moment, towards the unblock, is the rewrite of the opening paragraph, and I can see anything that is gonna make me happy is gonna have you freaking out and getting all capital-a Admin about, like you're trying to do here with this so-called original research red herring. I suggest if you feel the Chink article is too similar, you should try and apply similar citation/example methods on that page in order to distinguish its very obviously different meaning from that of the one in this article. Unless you live in a different reality than the rest of us, which is always possible. Anything is possible. Including that the rest of us might be right. The model here is the Gweilo article, and other lexical items around Wikipedia which transcend, as someone here (Xiner?) has pointed out transcend dictionary defintions and require full articles. On the basis of contemporary titles in Chinese-American/Canadian studies alone, there is enough justification for a distinct article on "Chinaman"; "Chink" would NEVER be used in the same contexts.Skookum1 03:11, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
            • It's not my laundry list, and I am not using it to prove anything. And the original research concern is very much not a red herring. You've been doing it above on this very talk page, where you took a quotation that used a word and performed your own firsthand analysis of it to attempt to determine the intent of the author when xe used a word. When you stop doing original research, and start using sources for analyses, you'll find that the sources discuss all of these words en bloc as a single subject. There are not multiple subjects here, and these two articles discussing this one single subject should be merged. Uncle G 01:01, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
          • later interjection than the following: the article does not say the word is "equivalent to "nigger", it quotes ONE commentator who made that equation - in the 21st Century no less. So even the following comment of mine is beside the point, as such content can remain in the article so long as it's clearly stated that it is only an opinion/a position statement; other citations for the same may turn out, but this is an extreme position (one that you've apparently bought into, to be sure). But the article doesn't make this claim, only one of the cited politicos does. There's a big difference, although moving goalposts and definitions in mid-debate and obfuscating references and who said what is something that's all too familiar to me as a tool of dissemblers and misdirectionists. In this discussion it would really help for you to drop the accusatory and hostile tone and perverse logics underway in your posts, and for the sake of this discussion please try and keep separate the content of the citations from the content of the article text per se (such as it is because of the block). That the article does not contradict the citation in question is a fault of the block; even though of course we now have lots of counter-citations, as well as other citations about its apparent offensiveness to some publishers/markets as far back as 1937 or whatever with Mr. Orwell. Those of us who speak English and have been raised in North American culture, at least those of us without a cultural axe to grind as with Maxine Hong Kingston perhaps ("evidently" is more accurate), and apparently also yourself, know full well that "chinaman" and "nigger" are not equal in tone or level of invective, even less so than "chink" and "chinaman". Pretending otherwise is just politics, and that's all Maxine Hong Kingston's comment is; and apparently the producers of Seinfeld have since backtracked on their kowtow.Skookum1 23:23, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
            • It is not the rest of us who have accusatory tones. It is the editor who is making personal attacks on other editors ("different reality", "freaking out", "misdirectionists", "dissemblers", "pretending", and so forth) instead of valid counterarguments. Uncle G 01:01, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
Except one - the reduplicative compound form using both.Skookum1 03:37, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose - per Xiner's points. It is a term with its own history, quite unique from the other term (because of the widespread historic usage in contemporary documentation such as newspapers and archival gov't records). I think we're increasingly beginning to appreciate that, with the source finding.--Keefer4 21:56, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
  • In addition, I suggest any proponents read the section 'Types of source material' at Wikipedia:Reliable sources in order to better understand what we are trying to do here. As far as I can tell, the edit war is finished here and we are now trying to find sources under the guidelines suggested at the above page to verifiably resolve the term in this article. This is absolutely not original research. And the terms are not historically synonymous based on anything that has been presented thus far.--Keefer4 | Talk 03:45, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
    • As far as I can tell, what Skookum has been complaining about is that he wants to be able to insert statements in the article that the word was used in an inoffensive manner based on the fact that it was used in "casual" or "common" manners, not based on a source that contains a credible opinion that such usage was inoffensive. This actually would be original research, as he is relying on his own assessment that the examples of usage he found were inoffensive. You seem to have readily understood the difference between a cited opinion about the offensiveness of the word, and using editors' own opinions about whether or not a word was offensively used. But I'm not sure he understands the difference still, after I've tried to explain many times about the need for sources and the fact that my preferred version of the intro does not make a blanket statement that the word is or ever was offensive, that it only attributes to Asian American organisations that they object to the use of the word. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 04:14, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I'm stunned by the assertion that "chink" and "Chinaman" are synonymous. They have entirely different histories significantly different connotations. For some reason, Uncle G is unable (or unwilling) to grasp the fact that these articles are about the terms themselves, not the ethnic group that they controversially describe. (See the continued "beaner" AfD debate quoted above.) —David Levy 12:53, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Then you need to actually read the sources that discuss these, and the other four words that are part of what the actual subject is here, because you are significantly underinformed. Incidentally, you are creating yet more straw men, or are perhaps simply confused about who wrote what above. (Hint: Quotation marks denote reported speech.) That your straw men telling me what I want to do are markedly different to Skookum1's straw men telling me what I want to do should be a big red flag that gives you (and xem) pause for thought. I suggest that you go by what I've actually written, rather than inventing straw men. What I've actually written is that these are duplicate articles, that cover the same, single, subject — a subject that editors will find, when they actually consult sources that have analysed this subject instead of using just dictionaries as sources, encompasses both of these words and several others besides. We merge such duplicate articles. Uncle G 01:01, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
      • The article at the moment may discuss roughly the same topic as chink, but when it is unlocked it will cover far more, including a history of the term. As already shown through the sources here the histories of the two terms are completely different. When this section is complete, there will be little overlap other than the fact they are two terms that describe a Chinese person in a derogatory manner. Also, the source Uncle G suggested merely says that Chink and Chinaman are slang terms and nothing more. It does not suggest they are the same word. Thank god people disagree with your opinion.Zeus1234 01:14, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
        • Well, there are many instances of people in the world who believed the way to write history was to try to erase it......Skookum1 01:36, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
        • I once again suggest finding sources other than dictionaries and actually reading them. You'll find that, as I keep stating, this is one single subject. I also suggest reading the source that I've cited again. It says far more than what you claim it to say. As to your argument about these being "the same word": You've entirely missed the point. This is an encyclopaedia, not a dictionary. We don't have separate articles just because there several different words. Uncle G 16:33, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
      • I don't think you know what "straw men" means; either get a better dictionary or ask Hong maybe for a better English version for whatever Chinese phrase you've evidently scansioned. If you are a native English speaker, you're using the phrase nonsensically and clearly don't know what it means. That you repeat it over and over sounds like sloganeering.Skookum1 01:34, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
      • Your claim "that these are duplicate articles that cover the same, single, subject" is precisely what I'm addressing, and I haven't the foggiest notion of what imaginary argument you're responding to, Uncle G. The words "chink" and "Chinaman" have different meanings, so I disagree with your position and oppose the merger. I eagerly await your next non sequitur of a reply. —David Levy 02:08, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
        • I'm responding to the argument that you put forward, which is a straw man telling me what I want to do rather than a response to what I've actually written. (I suggest, therefore, that you look to your own arguments for non sequiturs.) That the words have different meanings does not mean that there are two separate subjects to be dealt with in two separate articles. There is one, single, subject, here, as will be revealed to you if you actually read some sources other than dictionaries, including the sources that I've already cited. You are in error to think that the fact that two words are different means that there are two actual encyclopaedia subjects to be had. "color" and "colour" are two different words. That does not mean that there are two different subjects to be had. This is an encyclopaedia, not a dictionary. Uncle G 16:33, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
          • You aren't making sense. "Color" and "Colour" are two spellings of the same word (so we have a single article). Similarly, "paracetamol" and "acetaminophen" are two different names for the same drug (so we have a single article). "Chink" and "Chinaman" have different meanings. They are not synonymous. The articles' subjects are the words themselves, not Chinese people. —David Levy 17:06, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
            • I am meaking a great deal of sense. You are not considering what the real subject here, the one that the sources deal in, actually is. It isn't one individual word. And you aren't reading the articles: "Chink is a derogatory ethnic slur for someone of East Asian descent, usually Chinese." "Chinaman is an outdated term that refers to a Chinese man.". There is one single subject here. The sources actually address it as one subject, not making arbitrary divisions between the various words, and the articles are covering the same ground. Uncle G 21:24, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
              • Please stop reiterating your argument as though I don't understand it. I understand it perfectly and disagree with you. —David Levy 21:48, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
                • I'm going to be emailing this discussion and associated materials to Bo Yang, if I can find his address; his very trenchant comments about people not being cooperative by pretending not to understanding, and tell you that you're the one who needs to be educated/fixed, is just so clearly demonstrated in this behaviour it's quite shocking, and oh-so-blatant as you're discovering, DL. It's endless, and obstinate. I'm sure Bo Yang will find rich material for a future book...(as have I).Skookum1 06:02, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Most people I know, Asian American or not, would consider "Chinaman" just as offensive and yes, racist, as "chink." They may have different origins, but that's no reason to presume that because one sounds more official, it is less offensive. Just as there were people who thought nothing of using Chinaman, and considered it not derogatory, there were people who thought nothing of using chink, and considered it not derogatory. (There were also people who threw around words like "dago" and "wop" and "kike" as general terms for groups of people.) We'll never be able to say definitely what Asian Americans before World War II thought of terms like this because they didn't have the power to object to them. Today, as all these dictionary citations note, both chink and Chinaman are derogatory. [1] illustrates my point nicely.
You're totally wrong about people throwing dago, wop, kike and chink around - all are used only derisively and all were coined to be derisives. Chinaman was not; wrap your head around it, it's a historical truth whether you like it or not. Emily Carr used it and she was no racist, neither was Ma Murray, at least not to the Chinese that she knew and I've never heard of her not standing up for people's rights as human, whatever "tribe" they're from; likewise Mark Twain's flattering comments using the phrase, and many more examples like his. There's any number of very interesting and in fact in some cases notable listings (Carr, Twain, and others) in the evidence presented; that this evidence happens to contradict the claims made by the "1990s arguments", that is the fault of those arguments, not of the evidence. All should be presented, because the word has its own history, and this would include the obviously widespread usages that are outside the derisive defintion. If those are official and generic-meaning usages, as well as all the adaptation-usages which derive from the word, so be it (other than the china dealer and the ship, which have their own origin, although the same etymology, though slightly different syntax in meaning I suppose - "of China" vs "to/from/with China", gen. vs dat.).
If it's racist and derisive when used to mean people, then it should also be branded racist and derisive if used to describe (or name) a figurine, or in a traveller's diary or literary passage in the days when it was the current word for a person from China (usually but not always male). At some point it picked up actively derisive connotations, perhaps because of being paired with "ugly" etc., and at some point in the 20th Century this became strong enough to become a public issue; and even as noted in the 1930s Aldous Huxley was irritated at the new expectation to have to change a word, which in ten years since first publication had become offensive somehow (he doesn't say how, either, though presumably it was at his publisher's insistence/p.r. needs). All these are facts, all must necessarily relate to any article on the word; none of them have anything to do with "chink". We don't call porcelain figurines "chinks", nobody in cricket calls a certain pitch a "chink" (in order of a West Indian player of Chinese origin), nobody would name a chinaware store "The Chink". There might be plays and books named "The Chink" or "Chink", too, and in fact probably there are some, and there may be ethnographic essays and books on Chinese American culture and the history/stereotypes of discrimination which feature "chink" in the title like there are those that feature "Chinaman" in their title. And to my knowledge, death records, immigration records, court records, and suchlike never said anything like "Ah Quong, a chink"; and correspondence to/from the Consul General of China in Canada would not feature "chink" in either its subject, text, or its filename. But should they exist, they are relevant not here, but to the Chink article. The pattern of the Gweilo article begins with an introduction of the different spellings and variations (which can include everyting from chinnish to chink, with comments on usage as citable), then discusses the controversy over its derisive meaning, then explores other aspects of it, including IIRC other cultural and literary references than Gwai Lo Cooking, which is the Toronto cooking show which touched off the controversy now cited on that page. Yes, controversy gets cited, but so does the history of the word; as well as a lot of rationalization of why it's not really derisive, despite its explicit etymology. And yet despite an indeterminate etymology and widespread use outside of any derisive intent or context, there are those including yourself who maintain that it is as explicitly derisive as "chink", which "we" use in a much harsher tone; chinaman is idle, and yes, old fashioned, although I know buddies - and I have to stress this is a multiethnic city where social groups might span five or six "colours", and then some, might say either "you f**king chinaman" or "you f**king chink" and be just joshing around (same context there as "nigger" if all parties are African American/Canadian); say it to the wrong guy, like anything else, and it's fighting words. But similarly "you f**king Irishman" and "you f**king paddy" can be used both jocularly as well as viciously derisive; but "Irishman" is standard and straightforward etymologically like "Chinaman"; whereas "paddy" is intentionally derisive and patronizing, as is also "mick" (or "mic" as you'll see it sometimes) and certain others; those are overt derisives, and were coined that way. Chinaman was not, and it has come into a wide range of adaptative uses which remain in popular culture. You can't hide that, though it seems certain people are trying to, or just can't take the blinkers off and see the truth for what it is.Skookum1 07:51, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your input, 134.173.89.223. From what I gather, no one here is equating the term 'Chinaman' today with anything other than being "usually offensive" (at a minimum). The sources and citations on this page and the subpage have made a clear historical and contextual difference between the words. It's not a simple matter, nor is it a matter of presuming the thoughts of any group of people at any point in time. It is about verifiably establishing the history of a term, and its contexts both as an instrument of racism, in everyday speech and the archival realm, and any other verifiable usages. It's important to say that the archival realm includes government and newspaper documentation, where I have thus far never come across the term "chink". This is not a discussion centring around today's usage only. Simply asserting that verifying and sourcing the term's usage before a pre-selected period of time is futile, does not change the discussion at hand, and is essentially an idea rooted in censorship principles.--Keefer4 | Talk 07:56, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

This merge discussion is now defunct because its instigator, in failing to get it through, put another POV-oriented template on this page for the English language names for Chinese people, which he created because he couldn't get his way around here. And as for 4.236.111.5, since you've decided to vote it's time for a sockpuppet/checkuser report to find out who you're not wanting to be identified as. And to JzG - Chinaman is about a LOT more than a "name for Chinese people"; read the rest of this talkpage and its archive, then comment again; but both these NEW VOTES are out-of-date and irrelevant. If you wish to vote on the current merge proposals, do so at Talk:English language names for Chinese people, where there is also a merge dsicussion for List of ethnic slurs, which is where Uncle G's pet new article should be merged to as it only replicates what's already there.Skookum1 21:51, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Something of a date

This was on a blog, but it is quoting a book (of newspaper columns) so if someone was interested they could find the source. Anyway, you can see Orwell, who was concerned about what we would call political corectness, says this:

One's information about these matters needs to be kept up to date. I have just been carefully going through the proofs of a reprinted book of mine, cutting out the word 'Chinaman' wherever it occurred and subtituting 'Chinese'. The book was published less than a dozen years ago, but in the intervening time 'Chinaman' has become a deadly insult.[2]

The column came from the mid-1940s, I don't have the book so I don't have the exact date but he's saying that, to him, "Chinaman" was fine in the early to mid 1930's but unacceptable in the mid 1940s. Like I said, Orwell is not representative of English-speakers generally. But it might be worth some sort of inclusion if somebody was interested enough to check out the book. --JGGardiner 20:39, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for digging this up. I'm pretty sure we'll need more sources if we are to add to the article about when people started considering it as offensive. It's not like there's an authority that decides these things, and there are probably people who would put it at a later time period than the 1940s as when the word came to be considered offensive. However, I wouldn't object to adding specifically that Orwell placed the time period to the 1940s, as long as we attribute it in the text of the article that it was specifically Orwell's opinion. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 20:56, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Worth quoting Orwell here, even though it's linked:
One's information about these matters needs to be kept up to date. I have just been carefully going through the proofs of a reprinted book of mine, cutting out the word 'Chinaman' wherever it occurred and subtituting 'Chinese'. The book was published less than a dozen years ago, but in the intervening time 'Chinaman' has become a deadly insult. Even 'Mahomedan' is now beginning to be resented; one should say 'Muslim'.
Which seems ample demonstration that, yes, there was a time when the word was not offensive, as also Mahomedan [sic]. The 1947 date is interesting in comparison to the 1954 Fowler's, and does point us to some time in the 1930s when the word began to be condemned. But by who, and where?Skookum1 21:04, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
And is it just me, or does anyone else here find it ironic that the man who coined the name "Newspeak" and the idea of wilfully censored/politicized language also turns out to have spent time censoring/"re-speaking" his own words to suit emergent politicization of terms in "unofficial Newspeak" (which is what p.c. language near-invariably always is).Skookum1 21:06, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I should have also noted that he is bemoaning that the terms are still commonly used as standard. In the same book there is this quote which can be found on Wikiquote:

But is it really necessary, in 1947, to teach children to use expressions like "native" and "Chinaman"? [3]

If I recall correctly, he is talking about a children's book which had a "C is for Chinaman" entry. Orwell obviously doesn't speak for everyone. But I think this does show something of a date and it also shows the difference between an slur and a common word which is seen as offensive without the intent to offend. Somewhat like the word "gypsy" today. A lot of people don't even realize that it is considered offensive. --JGGardiner 21:13, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

New York Times Archives

Don't worry I'm not going to cite all NYT usages, but I did run a search on their archives and it turned up this. I can't afford to join - probably a very interesting resource, no? - but the result "We found 64,176 newspaper articles that match your search for chinaman! Read them all right now with a plan that fits your budget." is no doubt a bit of a revelation; it would be interesting to locate the first article where condemnation of the term is the context, or included in the context; regular-inoffensive uses before that date would of course be legion. In the tens of thousands in point of fact.Skookum1 22:11, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and for "chinamen" (pl.) there are 37,304 newspaper articles in the Newspaper Archive....Skookum1 22:12, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
There are 36,786 articles containing "chink" but of course that word has a large number of other potential meanings that are likely to have turned up in newspaper articles.Skookum1 22:13, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
I have access to the NYT archives if you want me to try and dig something up. Skookum, if you want to find something that you can access, consider Google Books or MSN Book Search. Google Books has lovely titles like this [4] or this [5].Zeus1234 23:23, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, for sure I thought of something. X-ref "Chinaman" with "William Safire" and see what we come up with....Skookum1 03:46, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
And actually, on a separate subject, any NYT or other big-Yank coverage of BC political and/or anything else April 1-Dec 31 1983 would be very interesting to see. You don't have Globe & Mail Archives acces do you (same era/question)?Skookum1 03:50, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
Another NYT Archives search parameter that will probably find something pertinent: search for >use of the word "Chinaman"< as a phrase, or also >using "Chinaman"< and other equivalents. The reason for searching for this phrase is to look for any articles which may discuss the use of the word, and those phrases are the most likely to turn up such articles; I think they'll have quotes on "Chinaman" in the context desired too, rather than without, so that may be necessary for the search parameter, i.e. for that phrase.Skookum1 19:16, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Wow. Google Books turns out to be a goldmine for that idea of a bibliography of titles/articles, huh? Also probably for illustrative passages. As for the NYT, hard to say what exactly to look for out of those tens of thousands...certainly any article about it becoming taboo, in whatever year that might be (?), but also coverage of things like the riots in Vancouver, Wyoming, and coverage of the gold rushes and railway construction maybe. Obviously a ton of material; I'll give it some thought and see if there's anything more specific we might look for in the NYT Archive, vast as it is....Guess I might as well try the Gutenberg Project and maybe WikiSource also.Skookum1 23:28, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I'll be back later today about the very interesting discussions in the translation sections following, but just popping a note here that I just finished items from the Nat'l Archives of Canada and there were a number of items there either addressed to or BY the Consul General of China, in which "chinamen" is in the subject header, and presumably in the text. If the word was so offensive on the dates of those letters, I daresay it wouldn't have been used in diplomatic correspondence to someone who would allegedly find the word offensive; and even more it wouldn't have been used by the Consul General....but the original documents aren't online so you can't see with the Consul General of China himself used. Interesting question, though, and not a red herring (unlike other tangential "gee, I don't know what you mean" disingenuity going on around here).Skookum1 18:35, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Translation needed

Here's one for you Hong, a book that's turned up twice already, in the resources section in a couple of places; it turns out it was originally in Chinese, which poses the question "how is "Chinaman" translated into "Chinese". I'm not sure, but the answer would appear to be zhongguo ren:

NB the equivalency of "Chinaman" and "Zhongguo ren", if that's what is; if Hong could help break down the translation it might be helpful, i.e. if Chou lou turns out to be the Chinaman equivalent here (??), and zhongguo ren in syntactical contexts if the ref to Chinese culture overall). I dont' have that link open; seem to me it's quite early, e.g. 1920 but I'll look once I close the edit.....nope that's his birth year, publication date was 1992. What's the literal tranlation of the Chinese title?Skookum1 01:10, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I speak a bit of Chinese, and the translation is literally "The Ugly Chinese Person." 'Zhongguo Ren" means Chinese person, and is still used today. It is not in anyway insulting.Zeus1234 01:36, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

So the title, directly translated, is "The Ugly Chinese Person" or "The Ugly Chinese", if we drop the nominal person that's not always required in English; and the choice of "Chinaman" was that of the editors. Not much different from The Ugly American, the Ugly Japanese, or the Ugly Canadian or whomever, huh? But the editorial choice of using the rebranded now-pejorative "Chinaman" when it's absent in the original Chinese is in and of itself interesting; a little bit of salesmanship no doubt, also (sensation/controversy always sells, like sex) but to me more of a political choice. Unless Bo Yang himself chose the title, which may also be likely of course. But still, it's a curiosity that even though it's a straightforward lexical equation in the one language it's offensive, in the other it's not. How's that again, and why? Oh sorry, I forgot - "why" is original research...I'm curious; if he discusses in Chinese the word "chinaman" as one of the forms/manifestations of discrimination etc, what characters are used to write it in Chinese, i.e. to distinguish it from "Chinese person"? Which, IIRC, directly means "person from the Middle/Centre Realm", no? Skookum1 01:52, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
Zhong guo ren = Central Kingdom Person (literally). I have no idea if there is a different way to write 'Chinaman' in Chinese, but I really doubt it. Why would there be as it essentially meant the same thing as Chinese person until quite recently?Zeus1234 03:15, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Do you have a source that discuss whether or not the translation of "zhong guo ren" to "Chinaman" in 1985 is offensive or done with the intend to offend? Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 04:38, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Skookum1, what is your point? That the word is more likely to offend now than it was in the 1920's? We all agree on that, in case you haven't noticed.
As for this translation, let me do a better job for you. "Chou lou" means ugly. "Zhongguo ren" means "person/people from China", depending on the context. It is also non-gender-specific. That the translators decided to use "Chinaman" in this context is very interesting. Perhaps they wanted to emphasize the ugliness of the Chinese!
Of course, that is original research, and it shouldn't appear in the article. But so is your interpretation of the non-racist nature of the translation. Mine is more sound than yours, though, don't you think? 4.236.111.15 15:59, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Chinaman = 支那人

Chinaman = 支那人, and 支那 is the old Chinese for CHINA, or SINA the word CHINA comes from. Today, you have SINA.com for example, the leading Chinese website. Now, modern Chinese find 支那 (CHINA=SINA) offensive, who knows why, but they do. So the word CHINA, since it is derived from 支那 SINA is itself offensive. Not being able to bann the use of CHINA (支那) they are able however to get away with claiming CHINAMAN (支那人) is offensive. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.22.218.194 (talk) 09:14, 27 March 2007 (UTC).

Err... where did you get that 支那人 specifically translates to "Chinaman"? It is considered offensive like "Chinaman", but that doesn't mean it's the translation. The common translation of specifically "Chinaman" is 中國佬. Also, 支那 and 支那人 has been offensive terms for decades because this is how Japan referred to China when it was an imperialist power in Asia in the late 1800s and first half of the 1900s. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 16:01, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
Implying that Chinese resentment of the English term "Chinaman" is rooted, at least partly, in the Japanese choice of Chinese characters...but as noted on my comments about Nat'l Archives items on the resources page, what might have been the Chinese government/diplomatic corps' own usages, either in English or in Chinese? The cites on the Nat'l Archives page re the Consul General of China in Canada may perhaps be from the Manchukuo period, but I'm not sure that Canada recognized the Manchukuo and the correspondence is in English anyway. But it's interesting a bit perturbing that linguistic logics that "支那 and 支那人 [have] been offensive terms for decades because this is how Japan referred to China when it was an imperialist power in Asia" is really quite a revelation, y'know. It may be that the Japanese Empire chose 支那人 because of its parallel to "Chinaman" as an offensive term; but supposedly (according to the doctrine) "Chinaman" was already offensive before the Japanese Empire invaded/colonized/imperialized in China; so the equation of 支那人 to "Chinaman" (as opposed to "person from/citizen of 支那") just doesn't figure if the usages of the Japanese Empire is why "Chinaman" is now considered discriminatory in English; but I'm curious now - you said " The common translation of specifically "Chinaman" is 中國佬" and that was my original question, after you (ahem) tried to change the subject and put words in my mouth no less - what is the meaning of 中國佬 if that is "specifically "Chinaman"? Is it offensive in Chinese? i.e. why "佬" vs. "人"??Skookum1 20:40, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
I never implied anything, did not put words in your mouth, and I have no idea how I "changed the subject". How long are you going to continue your bad faith assumption? 中國佬 is a term derived from "Chinaman", not the other way around. And as far as I know, the term 支那人 has nothing to do with "Chinaman", though both terms are considered offensive. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 04:04, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
Could you please answer questions directly instead of pretending you either didn't hear them or didn't answer them? If 中國佬 is "derived" from chinaman, how is it derived from Chinaman? Is it phonetic? A certain set of meanings? How is "chinaman" vs "chinese man" written in Chinese when the word is discussed, i.e. in Chinese? What does "中國佬" literally mean, likewise (since it's here) "支那人"? It's a very straightforward question and you'd save yourself from further loss of face simply by answering it directly.Skookum1 00:58, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
Also, Sina.com does not call itself 支那. It calls itself 新浪. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 16:08, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
Sina is the old Latin name for China; it was unknown in Alexander's time (IIRC there was Khitai, under whatever spelling, i.e. Cathay) so I don't think it exists in ancient Greek; maybe Roman-era Greek, certainly Byzantine; in modern Greek it's still sina but that may have been a reverse-borrowing from Latin, I'm not sure. Ultimately the word might have been a borrowing from Persian or another language with contact to/knowledge of China.Skookum1 20:43, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Skookum, if you are wondering what exactly 支那人 means in each character, you won't be able to find an answer. 支那 is a phonetic transliteration of China and is pronounced 'zhi na.' When combined, the two characters don't have any meaning other than the phonetic one. 支 is a measure word and 那 means 'that' or 'those.' Zeus1234 03:38, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

佬 = man or male, but from my understanding is not used very frequently (at least in Mandarin, I've never heard it used). Cantonese may be different story.Zeus1234 03:43, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

It is nonsense to assert that the English word 'Chinaman' is a translation of the Chinese word "Zhongguo ren". It comes from the English words, 'China' and 'man'. It means, a person from China. Simple. The historical use of English refers to Frenchmen, Irishmen, Dutchmen and Chinamen, but not to Italiamen, Polemen, Swedemen or Japanamen. The reasons for this are obscure, maybe it depends on whether the name has an 'N' in it, but they are the established historical usages. The deplorable fact that, 100 years ago, white Americans or Canadians or Australians were opposed to mass immigration to those countries, from China, does not inherently make the common noun refering to an individual from those countries, offensive.Eregli bob (talk) 11:23, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Worth noting that the same strange rationalizations used to brand "Chinaman" as negative are not applied to the parallel construction "Chinatown" (NB also Frenchtown, Germantown, not Francetown, Germanytown...."Chinatown" in fact has become increasingly more widespread and is used to refer to modern Chinese suburban/commercial settlement colonies, not historical Chinatown districts as was the original North American meaning; one term is popularized, the other is condemned, both have the same construction....go figure...)....English demonyms vary from country to country; country-names ending -ia produce Italian, Russian, Yugoslavian, Romanian etc. and there are distinctions, as was once the case, between adjectival and noun forms, e.g. Polish vs. Pole, Swedish vs. Swede, Finnish vs. Finn; and unique cases like Spain/Spaniard, Greece/Greek, Malta/Maltese. If you look up the cite for Fowler's Dictionary of English Usage, which is somewhere in the refs you'll find older terms for people from China - Chinan, Chinnish etc, none of which "stuck". I submit that whichever term had become common by the time of Chinese emigration to other countries would by now be branded "negative", no matter what it was or how it was formed, and some excuse would be found to demand apology for using it. In fact, for a while in Canada there was an effort ('90s) to supplant the term "Asian" for "Chinese", as the latter kept on appearing in "negative contexts"; until other Asian groups re-asserted "control" of the word (and the strange term "West Asian" was concocted to include Arabs, Turks and Persians...but curiously is not applied to Armenians and Georgians etc...). Similarly, both Oriental and Celestial were deliberately invented as polite terms, but have also been castigated as "racist" by the nouveau-p.c. since the '80s.....the lesson of the day? Some people you just can't satisfy....and it's not for native English speakers to decide how their language is to be spoken. Just try and make the same counter-argument about Gweilo and all the same rationalizations used to condemn "Chinaman" are swept aside because, it seems, white people are not capable of understanding the subtleties of Chinese etymology/character use.....Skookum1 (talk) 14:01, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Chinaman-as-sailing-vessel

Just made a comment on Talk:Chinaman about this, which is yet another meaning/context, but posting here to notify anyone who's taking the time to read the various citations that I've completed items from R. Kipling for their general cultural/contemporary interest; I didn't do one-line citations but whole passages to give context to the usage/flavour and of course also Kipling's own attitudes and his times. There's passages on BC in specific, btw, and re "Chinamen" as contrasted to "Japanese" (not "Japs").Skookum1 20:32, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Chinaman's Hatand other geographic names

This is more about the Chinaman DAB page (which I think should be Chinaman (disambiguation) as discussed above somewhere), but because of all the geographic placenames using "Chinaman" a listing of those seems required as on other disambiguation pages given geographic and also compound usages; Mokolii used to be Chinaman's Hat, and there are three other "Chinamans Hat" locations in Idaho, Washington and Montana as well as three "Chinaman Hat" locations (not "Chinaman's Hat", though), two in Oregon, one in Texas, as well as the other Chinaman-placenames already listed (here or on the resources page, whichever); none seem article worthy, except for Chinamans Arch (no apostrophe) in Utah or Chinaman Spring somewhere on the USGS quad titled Old Faithful, so therefore in Yellowstone National Park although possibly only a subfeature listing on the Old Faithful page as it doesn't show up much on the actual topo...hmm it's in the index, but not on the topos, so must have been expunged, although many other similar names have not been; could be because it's in a national park? (the county is Teton so I'd thought it was Grand Teton Natl' Park originally) - oh, and Chinamans Dinner Dam in Montana....hmmm Chinamans Canyon in Colorado may also be article-worthy, and there's a Chinaman Trail in the Blue Mountains or Oregon which doesn't seem likely to get a htrail article via WikiProject Oregon unless there's a heritage story or featured-trail status for it (? - obscure on maps, but maybe in hiking/camping guides)...and Chinaman Cove Campground next to Canyon Ferry Dam in Montana, also obscure but y'never know maybe popular and will wind up with a local-recreation facilities article, or a mention in the Canyon Ferry Dam/Reservoir articles. Not sure how or if to list them all, but certainly some seem warranted for a listing of geographic-name usages, including the old one for Mokolii as a historical usage. These comments made here because they are in the context of ongoing usage, irrespective of condemnations/controversies, but also because much of the discussion here is relevant to content at Talk:Chinaman anyway. A note has also bee nplaced on Talk:Mokolii about possible dab'ing of the Chinaman(s) Hat placenames.Skookum1 21:37, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Just had a look at a search for "China" in the Canadian Geographical Names Database and even more cumbersome to copy-paste than the topozone one, but a few seem obviously to previously have been "Chinaman placenames" - China Nose Mountain, "China Beach, China Ridge, China Reef, the various China Lakes, maybe China Gulch and others; one I know that's not as China Head Mountain, near Lillooet, which is "head" in the sense of a "headland" although there's also a feature on this small plateau (which is what China Head is - it's usually just called China Head, "+Mountain" is the official map-name) and relates to the Chinese rancher/settler there, who was one of the main merchants in Lillooet right up until WWII (Wo Hing, who needs an article one day); it was a hog ranch and another mountain in the area gets its name, Hogback Mountain not because it's a hogback (hogsback?) but because it's where Mr. Wo used to graze his pigs (dangerous country, lots of cougar, wolves...but I suspect full-size mountain-grazed boars and sows guarding piglets might be more than able to take care of themselves, at least in one-on-one - unlike cattle...). Anyway, historical names that have been changed should also be listed; Chinaman's Peak/Ha Ling Peak isn't the only one; they all can be documented, and like Mokolii there should be a mention somewhere (on this page or the dab) of those places whose names used to contain "Chinaman". History is history, and you can't undo what things used to be called, if you're really wanting to be fully encyclopedic.Skookum1 21:48, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

More Definitions

I made a trip to the library today and searched some dictionaries, all of which said 'Chinaman' was derogatory. I did however find some alternate meanings, which are not derogatory.

From the New Partridge Dictionary of Slang: Chinaman, noun

  • 1) an addiction to heroin or another opiate (1948)
'Is getting that Chinaman off his back, too.' Jack Kerouac, Letter to Neal Cassady, P 175, December 8, 1948.
  • 2) a numbing substance put on the penis to forestall ejaculation. Trinidad & Tobago (2003)
  • 3) In politics a mentor or protector. (1973)
Chinaman (polit) - Political Sponsor. Your personal clout, your man upstairs. - Bill Reilly, Big Al's Official Guide to Chicagoese, P 21, 1982.
  • 4) An Irishman. UK, 1956
  • 5) In cricket, a left-handed bowler's leg-break to a right-handed batsman. UK, 1937
Homage to Elliss 'puss' Achong, a 1930s West Indian cricketer of Chinese ancestry.
'He batted shrewdly and creatively and his left-arm chinaman and googly bowling is improving at a pace. - The Guardian, 27th January, 2003.
  • 6) An unshorn lock on a sheep's rump. (because it resembles a pigtail) New Zealand
The cricket and politics usages here, especially seeing their examples and the origin of the cricketing term, are examples of "complimentary adaptation" as maybe with certain other uses (like that detailing/polish job if I'm right about it, a flattering compliment to Chinese cleaning skills/meticulousness); another slang cite below seems to indicate the "wily oriental" image, but then so does mandarin in its UK/Canada (/Oz/NZ?) political sense, which is another "complimentary borrowing/adaptation. Even though these have been consigned to the disambig page, they deserve mention here as "complimentary adaptation", whatever wording for that would make people happy (and not all people are obviously going to be happy about the idea of explaining such information on this page, but it would be unencylopedic not to do so....).Skookum1 00:29, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
Just to add I know I've heard and seen No. 2, the penile numbing substance; same tone as mickey finn for spiking a drink (and that's an Irish derisive n.b.)Skookum1 00:34, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
Keep in mind the penile numbing substance is called 'Chinaman' only in Trinidad & Tobago...

Zeus1234 00:41, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

It's only cited as an example from Trinidad and Tobago, but I know I've heard it here in Vancouver, although from who I can't recall; there are old links from here to Trinidad and the rest of the West Indies, though not as tightly as Toronto's and for different reasons; it may go right back to the railway/gold rush times here, when there were West Indians already here; or it may have come about independently, maybe because of something you could buy in one of nearly any BC city/town in those days - wherever there was a Chinese apothecary with who-knows-what. Just guessing as to where it came from, but I know it's used in that context in these parts. Keefer4, you ever heard it?Skookum1 00:48, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
Coulda been a guy from Toronto, given how many there are here....Skookum1 00:54, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

There are lots of examples of the words from the New partridge that I can write down if requested.

Sounds like an interesting list; please continue. One thing noted so far is the regional variation in meaning/adaptation that I was referring to before, as connotations and applications are going to vary from culture and region to culture and region, even or especially within the anglosphere; perhaps in the community Maxine Wong Kingston was raised in it was just as bad as "nigger"; it certainly wasn't in BC, and still isn't. But the list of other slang uses would be very interesting and, to me, a propos (I saw Xiner's out-take); I've heard: "have/having a chinaman" myself in the context of an overdose, or behaving as though you were anyway (prob. connected to "sick like a Chinaman", which I've also heard, which is yes derogatory but rooted somewhat in fact because of the high levels of jaundice and other poor health among early immigrants (from whatever cause). Aside from such halfway-ethnic references I know there's a few other (inanimate) things around here simply sometimes called "a chinaman", but it'll take some headscratching to remember where I've heard them (and obviously they're uncitable, but similar to those you've raised here) as they're maybe in various trades, e.g. a certain kind of knot or winch maybe in marine jargon, although I'm not saying that's it; just that kind of thing, or a certain way of tuning an engine - in fact, I know there's an automotive reference, maybe it's to a standard of detailing/meticulousness, all polished up like lacquerware/porcelain.... I know I've heard "doing a chinaman" too and it wasn't about behaving like a Chinese person, whatever it did mean (I've forgotten the context); seems to me it was up in Lillooet, where there's a lot of specialized and often arcane/antique local expressions/idioms/slang (including the continued use of "chinaman" by townspeople, including those of part-Chinese descent...and p.c. or not I know people around town, native, white, East Indian and maybe also the remaining Japanese, don't flinch on using it. That's not citable, but it is typical in some communities here; but again, the point is that it's a word that does find other uses than in reference to Chinese people, and there's probably more than the slang dictionaries can even compile, as with other kinds of slang (esp. localized stuff like in Lillooet). Skookum1 00:08, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

From Cassel's Dictionary of Slang:

  • 1) A cup of tea. Late 19th century
  • 2) An Irishman. Late 19th century
  • 3) In dice, a 5. Australia, 1900s
  • 4) Withdrawal from narcotic use, US, 1930s.
  • 5) A farthing (like the stereotyped Chinese, the coin is small). 1940s-1950s
  • 6) One who has political influence, thus 'have a chinaman,' to have political influence. [the image of the 'wily oriental,' now derog] 1970sZeus1234 23:41, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Parallel arguments re Native American

There's actually a whole page North American native name controversy (think I've got that name right; maybe Native American name controversy, but I found the following points as summarized by User:Kevin Myers on Talk:Indian Wars in the section titled "Naming"; there is no equivalent poll here but the context of the debate is related to the points summarized below in a sometimes-similar discussion (see the "controversy" article; I'll probably have to fix its title as that was by memory).

  • By the most recent poll I've seen (here), American Indians prefer "American Indian" to "Native American." Indeed, browse through the popular newspaper Indian Country Today and you'll see that American Indian journalists regularly refer to their brethren as "Indians." Yet you say that we should not use "Indian" because "some people consider this word to be offensive." Which people?
  • If most American Indians do indeed prefer "Indian" or "American Indian" to "Native American," would that make a difference in your opinion?
  • You write "White historians ... are still largely ignorant of the points of view of various Native American peoples on the events." Which historians? Do you have a reference for this sweeping statement?

I've heard much the same thing said, over and over, on CBC radio and in its documentaries and in newspaper/magazine writeups about the same situation re historians and Asians in BC, and also First Nations. As a result, all we have are shows about them, often largely talking about how there haven't been any shows/exposure for them, and how "this one" is going to make a difference, and what historians there are from before the politically correct period are blanket-dismissed and only the rejigged versions of history are welcome. I'd venture that Asian historians, and Asian North American historians, are also at least guilty of the same about non-Asian North Americans and their society and culture, or for that matter concerning European history and culture. Perspective is always a two-way street, as a certain First Nations Wikipedian Keefer4 and I know of has been now-patiently learning through actually talking to some of the enemy and finding out why they think/say what they do, instead of just howling at them as if they were some kind of monster (the usual p.c./protest movement tactics for confronting different realities). I actually think Hong's learned quite a bit in the course of what's gone in in what is now not a content dispute but a content development discussion (Uncle G's "contributions" notwithstanding) and an exploration of the culture-history of the word (hopefully more than myself and Keefer4 are keeping the resources page on their watchlists, as it continues to grow). The comparison of the Native American name controversy with this one is not meant as a snipe, just a matter-of-fact reality about the politics of language; in which this word is, evidently from the citations overleaf, an important part, albeit rather more symbolic than having anything to actually do with etymology as such; more to do with shifting contexts and cultures/values over time and place. Like it or not, this word is part of North American culture, and because perhaps it's more non-Asians who have used it, there should also be some other templates than the Asian American one already in place; the US and Canada WPs don't seem right, but there might be something suitable (in order to attract others than just from the one WP adn the perspectives that might be expected from there - though not necessarily expected, as I think we've already seen in the characters discussion). Thought about WPBC but that's not right either....Skookum1 02:34, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

What I've "learnt" is that all this blind guessing about the offensive nature of the term is quickly becoming irrelevant without sources that actually discuss its offensive nature. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 04:09, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

You're equivocating. Citations of "both" (all) kinds of usage are emerging, including more books that use the title to address the issue of discrimination; I would have thought you would have been happy about that. And yes, without sources that actually discuss its offensive nature in the 19th Century, you can't presume to claim in the weight of mounting and overwhelming evidence that it was offensive in the 19th Century. You only have statements from 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s people who condemn the term but, to my knowledge, not one of them discusses WHY the term is offensive. Especially when many people THEN and many people STILL NOW do not think it is offensive, although they may not use it. There is evidence (Orwell) the tide against the word's acceptability as the generic word for a Chinese person (even a female, quite often, in fact) seems to have been turning in the 1930s - but even as late as 1954 a mainstream dictionary of English usage says it is the more common usage for small numbers of people, with "Chinese" tending to be reserved. But it is long after that that Maxine Hong whatsername equated the word with "nigger" (the equivalent tone, at worst, might be "coloured") and you have all the hysterics and diversions and deflections and non sequiturs from guys like Uncle G, and of course a couple of curve balls thrown by you that, sadly for you, bounced right back (will you answer me about those issues with the characters or not?). Anyway, none of this is irrelevant - it's all highly irrelevant; what's irrelevant are any of the objections you're raising. And in the case of the logic you've just field, you've raised the point that there are in fact a lot of sources in a certain time period which use it as the main word for a Chinese person, and NONE in that time period which say it is offensive. Yes, it became offensive, and became (to some people only) hotly offensive (like Maxine and Uncle G) but the full range of meanings, and the evolution of the various adaptations (as well as the separate china trade meanings, which you'll note in OED include one that's given as the primary meaning...); all this is a "history of a word article". That it contains a lot of facts inconvenient to the faction that wants to think like Maxine Wong and rant and scream about, instead of be rational and try and document the word and its history....as with Gweilo. Whatever. A friend just arrived so I'm going to go deal with real-world conversation. You're tying yourself in knots, Hong, and trying to change topics, trying to insist on irrelevance only to render yourself more and more irrelevant in the process. You're just digging the hole deeper; it was you who asked for citations about inoffensiveness vs offensivenesss, after all. You can have your cake and eat it too. But you have to eat all of it, if you're going to be polite.Skookum1 06:24, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

  • And I'm repeating for the nth time - my preferred version of the intro, and really of the entire article itself, would not say that it was offensive, period - regardless of what time period; and not as a blanket statement. Not unless sources can be provided to actually back that up, that is. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 08:53, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I've stated no opinion on whether I consider the word offensive. Please do not invent arguments and then attribute them to other editors. Other editors are asking you not to put words into their mouths too, I notice. Uncle G 16:51, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
Please learn how to indent yourself, so you don't seem to be Hong. But don't be coy, we all know your agenda - there's no way you can pretend that, since you think "chink" and "chinaman" are the same word/meaning, that you don't have an opinion on whether you consider the word offensive. Your aggressiveness on the merge template - added in the middle of an edit war - and your support for the merge, and the specious arguments you've used invoking Wiki rules while not really having a clue how they're supposed to be applied......don't be disingenuous. You already look sillier than Hong as it is.Skookum1 17:55, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, actually, you CAN pretend that, because you just did; you stated no opinion, but actions speak louder than words. You're being obstructionist, as you were when you placed the Merge tag, and here by denying you hold a position we all know you hold, and which is the only reason you showed up on this page (to add that merge tag so your own incorrect perception of "chink=chinaman" is what Wikipedia has to live by. Well, you're wrong, and you're making a public fool of yourself.Skookum1 18:13, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, gee, if you'd said that a week a ago, then we wouldn't have had to quibble about qualifying "offensive" with either "usually", "often", "sometimes". I can deal with the latest text that Xiner did on Chinaman in the wake of me taking out "offensive" (which IMO shouldn't have still been there), so now it mentions that it was common usage but is now often derogatory, that's fine for that page. And yes, sources that actually discuss its offensive nature would be helpful; denunciations and condemnations are not discussions or studies; they're political tracts; if there's a sociolinguistics paper or anything else out there on the history of the word and its origins and how it became derisive, and there may be (it may be in some of those ones that use it in their titles), that's great; but so far all there is are wild-eyed claims by types like Maxine W. Kingston and Uncle G., and no actual rational discussion. I could hold a press conference and loudly scream that "honky" or even "Caucasian" are negative words with incorrect and demeaning histories, and scream and rant at Ted Turner and Jerry Seinfeld too; that doesn't mean I'd be write. I'd get a lot of news copy, and if I were from the right group I could get the NAACP to cluck their tongues and approve, too. But I still wouldn't be right, and there still wouldn't be citations proving the emotional position I'd taken. Because you can't prove emotions - you can only act them out (if you do, many don't). And perceptions based in what someone thinks another people is meaning by a word fall into the category of "emotions" as well as, by definition, being incredibly subjective.Skookum1 18:37, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

  • I said this four days ago, and I've repeated it many many times. You are the only one here that haven't understood that I don't want the article to state in a blanket statement that the word is offensive. Look at my numerous responses to you where I said, "my preferred version does not say that the word is offensive, period." Everybody else seemed to have readily understood what I've said. And the fact that Asian American organisations objected to this term is a fact. If you manage to hold a conference on the offensiveness of "honky" and prominent figures participated, then by all means, add that tidbit into the article about the word "honky". Heck, I'd do it myself. That's completely irrelevant to this discussion. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 19:40, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

The Chinaman blogsite

Not sure who this guy is, but it's clearly his choice of personal nickname (even though his surname appears to be Olmstead...). But it's another instance of a North American person using the word as a self-referential nickname; presumably he's part-Chinese (or not?).Skookum1 19:57, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Quotes from Bo Yang

Found a speech by Bo Yang about his book given at Ohio University and it's interestingly self-critical of Chinese culture, which is why "Ugly Chinaman" is featured in the title, as he explores the negative images/behaviours of the Chinese vs. other groups. "Ugly Chinaman" occurs as the paradigm repeatedly, but sometimes he uses "Chinaman" or "Chinamen" in standalone contexts:

  • Chinese people are notorious for quarrelling and squabbling among themselves. A Japanese person all by himself is no better than a pig, but three Japanese together are as awesome as a dragon. The Japanese people's ability to co-operate makes them nearly invincible, and in neither commerce nor war can the Chinese ever dream of competing with them. If three Japanese people in the same business are in Taipei together, they will take turns making sales. Chinese businessmen in the same situation would act like perfect Ugly Chinamen. If Li is selling something for $50, Ma will offer it for $40; if Li lowers the price to $30, Ma will cut it to $20. Every Chinaman is a dragon in his own right.
  • Chinese people simply don't understand the importance of cooperation. But if you tell a Chinaman he doesn't understand, he will sit down and write a book just for you entitled "The Importance of Co-operation".
  • Those of you who live in the United States know that the people who harass Chinese people the most are other Chinese, not Yankees. It takes a Chinaman to betray a Chinaman; only a Chinaman would have a good reason to frame or slander another Chinaman.

The rest of the paper contains similar contents, either using "Chinese" or "Ugly Chinaman". Evidently this work by Bo Yang is not a critique of the discrimination/colonialist experience but of the traits of Chinese culture/personality which give rise to the "Ugly Chinaman" image; he makes also reference to the Ugly American and Ugly Japanese.Skookum1 20:07, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Just to note the above-cited link - still in use as a ref - from U.ofT. is no longer functional; there are no other online accounts of the book's contents that I have been able to find.....Skookum1 (talk) 17:36, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

What exactly does everyone want?

There are too many asides here to follow and I think that we should start with the basic issues first. So I'm going to put up Xiner's previous compromise edit and please say what your objections are to this edit. I would like for us to figure out what should be in the opening and what should not be there. Thanks everyone. Xiner's edit:

"Chinaman" is an archaic term that refers to a Chinese man. It was at one time a standard English term similar to Dutchman or Welshman, and was not defined as offensive by the Webster's Dictionary of 1913. However, modern dictionaries do find it as offensive, and controversies have arisen even when it is used without an intent to offend." --JGGardiner 23:18, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I was actually fairly happy with Xiner's terse phrasing on what is now the formally-named disambig page in the wake of my (yet again) taking out "offensive and derogatory" planted by our little "nameless" crusader against us "fascists" (that would appear to be a personal attack on all of us; I suggest a sockpuppet inquiry/report as it's clear this person is another Wikipedian and not an idle visitor. Anyway, this was Xiner's "fix":

Chinaman (racial term), an outdated term used to refer to a Chinese man, now often derogatory.

I don't like "archaic" vs "outdated" as it's not fully archaic; "largely outdated" would be even better, considering its use in political essays to represent the stereotype either of white discrimination or, as in Bo Yang and Paul Wong's work, to epitomize the Chinese person/culture/image/archetype in general (to whatever end); it should also be noted that it was sometimes also used to describe women, usually in the singular (examples can be found, of course...). And on the tails of the phrase:

It was at one time a standard English term similar to Dutchman or Welshman and was used in official contexts such as censuses, death records as well as in general journalistic and literary use. It was not defined as offensive by the Webster's Dictionary of 1913 and as late as 1956 ["as late as" may be POV?] remained in standard English usage [here quote Fowler's]. Modern dictionaries usually define it as derogatory or offensive, but it has a wide range of adapted/derived uses from porcelain figurines, political backers and in cricketing slang. Controveries have arisen even when it is used without an intent to offend, with some claiming it is as vulgar as "chink" or "nigger", but it remains a common feature of Asian-American/Canadian political and social writing as an archetype/image and also features in title of other literature such as plays and in song titles, and in names adopted by artists and others of Asian descent in North America. An identical word is used in a different context, without any reference to Chinese persons but to China, and generally only heard in the United Kingdom and mostly archaic in usage, and can refer to a dealer in chinaware, or a 18th-19th Century ship engaged in the china trade. Skookum1

That's largely a summary of the disambig page, but it's important to give an idea of the penetration of the term into other areas of culture/life/language, despite the protestations of those who seemingly want to ban the term outright (and here, as we have seen, to even ban its history so the latter-day judgement has no challenge from the truth/evidence). Other than the Webster's and Fowler's, wherever it fits in I think the Orwell quote is important to demonstrate the era in which it began to become acceptable in publishing, even though it remained in Fowler's (as well as newspaper styleguides, as per various archives into the '60s). I know that's long but it has to lay out everything - so as to not be POV. The next passages/section after that, modelling this on Gweilo and other similar word-history/culture pages, should be the etymology of the word and a sampling of some of the earlier uses and variations, including the derisive compound forms (John Chinaman, Chinky Chinky Chinaman, Ugly Chinaman etc - "Chin Chin Chinaman" is a song title and popularized chinoiserie in the '20s and maybe where Chinky chinky chinaman came from, but wasn't written to be derisive - no more than Limehouse Blues, which was written about London's Chinatown Limehouse in the same period. On the other hand, that same decade saw the book Dr. Fu Manchu and the Evil Chinaman, which maybe was like Bo Yang's book, or maybe it was an anti-Chinese tract in the guise of a Sherlockian murder mystery; I haven't looked at it yet...But yes, let's collaborate on a draft intro, and then on the structure of the page and we'll all pick good examples of all the usages to illustrate the word's hisory. I'd say it's also important to get it protected once the new copy/intro is in place, at least semi-protected to keep out IP address users and new account-SPAs from ravaging it once we've got it all somewhere it's actually credible....Skookum1 00:23, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

This is what I prefer:

Chinaman is an outdated term that refers to a Chinese man. At one time a casual English term similar to Dutchman and Welshman, it was not defined as offensive by the Webster's Dictionary of 1913. Today, Asian American organisations and others have objected to the use of the term as offensive, and it has been defined as such by current dictionaries. However, the term has been used without a stated intent to offend or knowledge of its offensive nature.

It's to-the-point and clear. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 01:38, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

We could do a lot worse than that intro for now. Incorporating some of the other stuff Skookum mentioned above prominently in the article too, of course. I still think we're eventually going to find some type of news piece or archival document which advises the term as offensive beyond dictionaries.. but that will take time. Later.--Keefer4 | Talk 02:13, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. And I'm going to work on a section for "Usage" or "Historic usage" in the next few days. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 02:17, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
Fowler's is just as credible a ref, and more recent, than the 1913 Websters; I see no reason why it shouldn't be mentioned instead; to "counterbalance" it could be a phrase that George Orwell wrote about having to change his drafts over in 1937, etc. but if it's a dictionary def. then one of "English usage" is a lot more pertinent anyway than a mere definition, esp. one without examples; whatever it's date; that it happens to be 1956 is a side issue.Skookum1 02:32, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

In addition to the model of the Gweilo and similar articles the aforementioned Native American name controversy includes layout considerations, and a range of coverage of material and viewpoints (most uncited albeit) that may prove useful for "design" here.Skookum1 03:14, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Neither Keefer nor I appreciated having this stuff put "out of sight, out of mind", although for the reasons of sheer volume we agree with the practicality of it, especially as those pages continue to grow. There's a lot of important material there which newcomers to this debate, such as David Levy and others, may not have noticed beforehand, and which others here have denounced as "irrelevant" and called us "fascists" and such for talking about. Whatever; here's the link to the amassed citations/usages and other resources, which I'm re-posting here because the original notice, low-key as it was, is now archived and semi-invisible. No doubt there are some who would prefer that it was invisible, but that's just not the case; so there's a link on the Talk:Chinaman (disambiguation) page to this debate page, also.Skookum1 00:31, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Am I missing something here? When was the word "fascist" ever thrown around? Did "Four Point Kid" say that? Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 23:46, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
Look at the edit history; it was 4.236.111.5 (3 contributions only, mar 28, also NYC) in this edit (on the right).Skookum1 00:31, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
Alright, but I would appreciate it if you point the finger at the one person that's responsible. Nobody else here called anybody a fascist, to the best of my knowledge. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 03:10, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
Both you and "he" called all the evidence/material you don't like irrelevant; the sentence continued from there even there was only the one "fascists" denunciation; perhaps more careful syntax would have been "and which others here have denounced as "irrelevant" and one who called us 'fascists'...." if that would have made you happier; I'm not sure if the other "irrelevant" comments were by 4.zero.zero or Uncle G. Skookum1 03:41, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
Correction, I said that your blind guessing about the offensive nature of the term is irrelevant, and I said that whether or not you personally hold a conference on the word "honky" is also irrelevant. I never said any evidence or material are irrelevant. Please don't put words in my mouth. Thanks. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 07:04, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
There is no "blind guessing", and it's not me that wants to talk about only the offensive aspects of the term and its history; - what there is, is the evidence such as the Fowler's and the 1913 Webster's establishing hte validity of the historical usages that you were denouncing as being uncitable, or at best uncited. Now they're cited, and the issues do not have to do with the term's well-established offensiveness in some quarters/contexts, but with the many non-derogatory ways it was used and the non-derogatory secondary applications (well, in the case of the cricketing term it turns it out may have been derogatory in context to start with, although now it's "just a term"). It also has to do with the dynamics of why/when it came to be/is perceived as derogatory offensive; we can't do original research but we can point to Orwell's letter as well as the counter-example Fowler's, and we can show examples of census and court docket records and snippets of passages by notable literary/historical writers/people - to show examples of its varying usage in different contexts (which was my point about NA Name Controversy, i.e. the different modes of using it should all be explored, including the latter-day one attempting to equate it to nigger, kike, etc. and also its use by Bo Yang, Paul Wong, Frank Chin and other artists/writers of either Chinese-American/Canadian origin or non-Chinese in ethnicity as in the case of Mamet and Frayn. All are different kinds of usage, even though the "it's always offensive" crowd can't come to grips with that and nobody else seems to be paying attention to them; especially when you look at the way Bo Yang embraced the term to make it his own critique's vehicle, instead of a critique on white colonialism/domination as political essays using it/on it have largely been before. There is no "blind guessing" in the relevance of any of this, or with any of it having to do with it being "offensive". There was no blind guessing about any of this; the variety and range of types of usages and possible citations are standard fare if you've read any early North American history in sources, as it's common knowledge it was the standard word for a (usually male) person from China and that people did and do use it casually, no matter what the political correct lobby or Asian-American politicos scream into the media, or how many dictionaries acknowlede that the term is now "offensive" - but those dictionary definitions don't seem to embrace all the other wide range of its meanins. The Slang dictionaries do, as does Fowler's, and there's no "blind guessing" in any of this. The "blind guessing" going on is you trying to figure out how to backpedal; I'm not the one who wants to talk about the offensive nature of the word; as you may recall, I've been the one trying to establish, and document, all the ways in which it is not offensive, as well as bibilgraphical materials embracing point of view. What have you beeing doing? Asking circular, evasive questions and picking apart things instead of contributing to debate; when are you going to answer my questions about the character-renderings? Do you care in the slightest that 4.x.x. has been launching personal attacks, or are you only concerned about those when you allege that I do them? C'mon, Hong, the rest of us are trying to work with you here; stop posting comments critical of the other editors and what you SAY their positions are, so you can criticize them for positions they don't even hold (like me trying to estalbish the offensiveness of the word - ?!); why not just work with the material and be a good Wikipedian instead of a dissembler?Skookum1 07:45, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Curious how you spent you energy here attacking me re my comments about 4.x.x's nastiness, intsead of attacking him for being rude/incivil etc as well as defiant of the consensus; you don't seem to say much back to him; in this case, given your prior invocation of the Wikipedia principles so loudly, I would have expected you to lead the charge. But instead of dealing with him you pick apart what you think I said, reword it so it seems I said something you want me to have said, and criticize me. Instead of him. What's with that anyway? See No. 2 in the Bo Yang section, maybe...although this is a bit more twisted than the kind of thing Bo Yang is talking about, which in fact I do recognize all too well.Skookum1 07:48, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

And instead of "attacking back" why don't you take this on the chin and either answer questions instead of moving their meanings around, and also work on the aspects of the article you now admit are needed. And you might also pay attention to Chickenmonkey about not needing cites on disambiguation pages, which blows your former position there - so hard held to and ruthlessly applied - completely out of the water. I'm not going to be the one to take out the cites; I suggest it's your place to tidy up after yourself, instead of defraying here in so many ways; you said you were going to write the historical usages section, and I'm curious to see what you'll come up with; out of courtesy I've been waiting for you to begin, but it seems you're more interested in defending yourself from being too closely associated with 4.x.x. . . . while also avoiding criticizing him. Just work on the article, Hong, and crop the cultural and personal paranoia, OK? WE're all trying to work with you for a change; why not respect that?Skookum1

All I'm saying is that you accuse those that actually did the deed, and don't put words in my mouth. That's all. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 15:23, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
Oh, for Pete's sake, Hong. I didn't put words in YOUR mouth, you put them in mine; you do it all the time; as here AGAIN with imputing I said you'd called us racists; that's not the syntax of my sentence at all; I wasn't being specific as to who made which allegation and that's standard English. I really do wonder about your eomprehension skills, seriously, but then I think it's just more defraying tactic; you're looking for persecution, looking for insults, always have been throughout this; while making them right and left, as you just have here, by insulting my intelligence as to what it is you say I said that I DIDN'T say, and as above where you're now pretending that it's me that's obsessed with the "offensive" position and that it's you that's been in support of the inclusion of the historical usages. Would you please give your head a shake? If you're trying to confuse the conversation (lots of which you've tried to rule out of order, at least you did before) adn, you're only makin yourself look confused and none of the rest of us are fooled. New visitors to this page might be misled by your ongoing circumnambulating, but the rest of us know you too well to not be able to see right through you. Here yet again, you've tried to turn this into a criticism of me, but YOU are the one who's always screaming about Wikipedia guidelines and principles; have YOU filed a sock report or a WP/ANI something-or-other on 4.x.x because of his abuses, and his hostility/inanity/obstructionism around here? What about an invocation of WP:Civil against the little blighter? No, you haven't; you're just concerned with how YOU look and with what you think you're been called, or what to pretend you've been called. Have you removed the citation footnotes from the disambig page you insisted on but turn out to be not in Wiki format principles? Have you answered my questions about the Chinese renderins of Chinaman and what they EXACTLY mean? Have you begun compiling those historical instances and situations that will go in the historical usages section? No, all you've done is quibble about what you CLAIM you've been called, which you haven't been called. I don't think you realize quite how ridiculous you're making yourself look to anyone who's been following this (well, except for 4.x.x and Uncle G - you're probably their hero or something). So get on with it - fix the pages, work on the content, read through the citations/examples and LEARN SOMETHING. Stop trying to cover your own back; it's too late for that now.Skookum1 20:44, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
You said that I called evidence and materials I didn't like irrelevant. That's not what I did. What I called irrelevant was your guesswork on the offensiveness of the term. And specifically, when I did that, I was responding to your making this term a parrallel to the Native American naming controversy. That was your own personal opinion, with no sources that place these two issues as parallel, and not admissible to the article itself. Other comments include your frequent writing of about 2000 words "wondering" why so-and-so used the word "Chinaman". Another thing I called irrelevant is the possibility of you personally holding a conference on the word "honky". This article is not about that word, so whether or not you hold a conference on it is also irrelevant. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 00:21, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I was suggesting the structure and range of the article, which explores all angles and is meant to; there are no parallels re derisives although there are parallels concerning conflicting sensitivities. YOu seem to want to find fault with everything, instead of doing something proactive. And as for my ability to write and greater length (and make more sense) than yourself, stop whining; those emendations were necessary in context; not a context you care about, and which you overtly tried to shove under the carpet until thwarted by the others around here. Are you going to actually try and be helpful or are you here just to complain about what other people have said; "why" doesn't have to be in the ariticle about those sources; but the sources legitimately do and despite all yuour protestations they are highly relevant; readers of Wikipedia themselves can make up their minds whether the usages conform to Maxine Wong Kingston's raving and ranting about the word being like "nigger" and "kike". Sure, we'll have her quote her; but we'll also have examples that intelligent readers can read for themselves and decide whether she's a nutbar or not; which is my opinion, to be sure, and it won't be on the article page. But lots of examples that will clearly stand outside and beyond her ridiculous condemnation, which is not proof of offensiveness, but again proof that some people need to find thins offensive, and will fabricate realities to complement their emotions. Nothing here is irelevant Hong - except your continuous wheedling trying to put fault on others for things they either haven't even done or which you have misinterpreted or misunderstood; smarten up and get down to work. Have you removed those citations from the disambig page you demanded be placed there as if you were WikiGod? Have you tried to help those of who don't speak Chinese what the issues with the Chinese characters used to convey the term are? I know I'd translate Norwegian or Icelandic for you if you asked, as best I could anyway, or French or Spanish depending.....so why are you being so cagey with your own language? It's a simple question; you have been misdirecting the conversation with this lastest exchange instead of being useful in the slightest. What's up? Why not improve the article, and work with the others here, instead of complaining if someone dresses you down (at length) for being continuously redundant, evasive, misdirecting, and worse. You hvae great creds on your userpage, so you know how to work on articles; if you don't have anything left to contribute to this article then you should ask yourself what you're doing here. Either be helpful, or.....stick around and continue to be evasive and make yourself look foolish; it's sorta entertaining, in fact....but I really wish you'd learn to read things straight, instead of reading into them whatever it is you need in order to find a counterattack/attack.Skookum1 00:35, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

And as for your nonsensical whine about my JOKE about a conference on Honky, when the hell are you going to get a sense of humour? Got anything else to complain about that has nothing to do with anything - it was a sarcastic joke, fer chrissake. And if you didn't get the point of the sarcasm, I can't help you; you're on your own if you have no sense of humour in this world. High and dry. Learn what's important in the world, Hong, and learn to treat others with respect; they may learn you're worth being treated with respect in return.Skookum1 00:35, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Merge discussion for English language names for Chinese people

The merge debate is at Talk:English language names for Chinese people, which was created Mar 31 by Uncle G in an attempt to foist another hostile merger on this page. Much is uncited and all is heavily POV - hey Hong, it's full of weasel words, you should go after it with your clippers - and what there is cited is all from one side of the ballpark. Because it replicates words already on List of ethnic slurs I placed a merge template for that also, which makes a lot more sense. My own vote, obvious enough, is already there - Chinaman has other meanings than Chinese people, it's that simple. Uncle G just can't stand it, and obviously needs to somehow get his way; so he started another page and disingenuously placed a merge template here, but not on it, and didn't bother launching a merge discussion despite seeing fit to place the template (did he do that with the Chink merger, too?). Whatever; this childishness is getting obnoxious and I'll be looking through WP/ANI to find out what kind of rules govern general contrariness and "trying to pull end runs" on situations when, ahem, you've realized you're not gonna get your way, despite all the posturing in the world that everybody else is wrong. Sorry, Uncle G. We'll just have to see what the clan on Talk:List of ethnic slurs has to say about all this, huh?Skookum1 05:00, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Very good. You do that. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 15:02, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I did, Hong. Thanks for being - or trying to be - patronizing about it. Do you have anything useful to do here today? Taking out "some" again? Gee, there are other instances of "some" on the page - why don't you take them out TOO. And better yet, speaking of weasel words, why don't you dress down Uncle G for his weasel-creation of the garbage article he's gone and created. Yeah, we'll see what the crowd at list of ethnic slurs has to say, and be on the lookout for our own weasel words; you specialize in them, as we all know from nearly every post of yours on this page.Skookum1 17:28, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
Oh, and you're going to be a good little Wikipedian and vote on the merge proposals, right? I'm curious to see if you'll distance yourself from Uncle G (as you would be well advised to do) or if you'll line up right alongside him. Funny how he hasn't voted himself, even though he put the new merge template in place, huh? And what's with you? You're here patrolling for "weasel words" but you still can't answer straight questions, and turn them back on people like you think it makes you seem intelligent/principled, but frankly it doesn't. Is taking out "some" going to be your entire contribution to improving this article today? Or maybe you're having a hard time about the English language names for Chinese people because its ranting about white derisives for Chinese people resonates with you and you like it, even though you know it's POV as hell? Or are you just going to sit on the sidelines, say "I'm not involved, Uncle G is your guys problem - oh, but here, I found another weasel word in a context I don't like." Most of all, Hong, when the day is over, I want you to ask yourself "what did I do today that I'm proud of". Hopefully sticking up for the Uncle G's mergist and utterly racialist agenda won't be one of them.Skookum1 17:38, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
And did you read Bo Yang yet? I know it's probably not available in Hong Kong, where it might be outlawed as it is in Taiwan and the PRC proper, but a summary is online here, in the form of a speech given by Bo Yang at Ohio U. You should read it - you might learn something about yourself.Skookum1 17:41, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

"Letter of the Chinamen", 1852

This famous letter from California in 1852 was penned in eloquent, polished English, and throughout the authors, all Chinese, continuously use the word "Chinamen" throughout, including to refer to themselves. A sample passage follows, and is very telling in the obvious non-derisive nature of the pre-modern usage/attitudes towards this term. I propose that this passage be used on the main page as an illustration of 19th Century usage of the term by Chinese themselves, vs. how it was used by other writers such as Twain, Kipling and others.Skookum1 06:19, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

New-York Times / June 5, 1852
THE CHINESE IN CALIFORNIA.
LETTER OF THE CHINAMEN TO HIS EXCELLENCY, GOV. BIGLER.
San Francisco, Thursday, April 29, 1852.
We do not think much about your politics, but we believe you are mistaken in supposing no Chinaman has ever yet applied to be naturalized, or has acquired a domicil in the United States except here. There is a Chinaman now in San Francisco who is said to be a naturalized citizen, and to have a free white American wife. He wears the American dress, and is considered a man of respectability. And there are, or were lately, we are informed, Chinamen residing in Boston, New York, and New Orleans. If the privileges of your laws are open to us, some of us will, doubtless, acquire your habits, your language, your ideas, your feelings, your morals, your forms, and become citizens of your country; — many have already adopted your religion in their own; — and we will be good citizens. There are very good Chinamen now in the country, and a better class, will, if allowed, come hereafter — men of learning and of wealth, bringing their families with them.
Your most humble servants,
HAB-WA, LONG ACHICK; SAM WO & CO., TON WO & CO.
For the Chinamen in California.
Now, if there's someone here who can tell us why those usages are derisive we're all ears.Skookum1 06:19, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
Cite was this website —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Skookum1 (talk • contribs) 07:31, 2 April 2007 (UTC).
I was under the impression that the argument was whether the word was offensive in the present, not whether it was in the past. It's quite obvious it wasn't always offensive... look at the dictionaries.Zeus1234 18:09, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
No, the argument spun off the whole notion that it was ever not derisive, which none of HGQ, Uncle G or 4-point-blithering could handle, although it seems that Hong has since recanted and is posing with the "I never said it was only offensive" crowd. That it was ever used in non-derisive contexts Hong foolishly insisted I prove by citing works which said that; so much easier to cite works using it, but even then he averred that he coudn't say or cite that such quotes as the one above needed to be produced in order for such a statement to be in the article; well, easy to do, as non-offensive uses were by FAR more common than the offensive use; no doubt overtime Chinese decided to be offended by the word, but the notion that it's offensive is almost entirely held by some Asian American/Canadian politicos like Maxine Wong Kingston and Jenny Kwan, who like so many have gone into hysterics over have been somewhat pathetic given the weight of evidence against their position (including use by contemporary authors of Asian descent), and the hardline position is that it was always offensive. In UseNet, though it's not citable, I can dig up a long-ago echo of Hong/Uncle G maintaining that it "was invented by white people to abuse Chinese people with" - that might even be not from UseNet but actually from when it was all the rage in the newspapers here and one of the Chinese politicos spouted it. Which caused all the rest of us to look sideways at each other and say "are these guys for real?". The issue with what Chinese characters are used to render "Chinaman" (vs. "Chinese person") has to do with the notion that the word has been mis-portrayed in Chinese, as if it did have a nasty etymology (which of course it obviously doesn't). Bo Yang didn'g use the characters than Hong says are used to render "Chinaman", he used the ones for "Chiense person" and added "ugly", and "Chinaman" was his choice or his editor's choice for the title ("The Ugly Chinese Person" just isn't as catchy I guess). Point is that there's been a lot of misrepresentation of this word and why and how white people and other non-Chinese have used it and continue to use it, and that cageyness such as Hong saying, effectively (by not answering), "well, we write it this way but I'm not going to tell you what the characters mean because you're not one of us". Funny to compare the thorough discussion of Chiense characters on Gweilo, which again I'll note is an English-language article on a word that's only marginally in English. Back to the context of your question and my original answer - the introduction of materials discussing the non-derisive usages has been forestalled because of all the mumbledy-peg being played on this page by HQG, Uncle G et al; now that we've assembled the cites let's start using them; maybe Uncle G can find another merge template to amuse himself with.....Skookum1 18:29, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
And re the dictionaries, the non-offensive definitions were always there, but HQG didn't want to mention them and only begrudgingly went for the 1913 one (still hasn't gone for the 1956 one); it was because some dictionaries said it was offensive, while others did not, that we began our little savaging over "some" as an alleged weasel word; Hong wanted to pretend that because modern dictionaries said it was offensive, that's all that mattered; dictionaries that didn't say it was offensive weren't address in his preferred syntax, which attempted to make it seem like it was a final judgement on this word, and he stacked up dictionary cites on the disambig (where they dont' belong) to "prove" his case (like all good propagandists, he did so by leaving out conflicting information); including the weasel phrase "at least four dictionaries" as if "at least" was some kind of valid qualifier instead of obviously POV-tainted as it is. Hong only wanted to go with the dictionaries which agree with his prejudices.Skookum1 18:35, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
Well, I guess I totally missed something then. I was always under the impression that you were trying to argue that the word isnt really that offensive, evne today. It's totally obvious the word only became offensive as early as the 60s (and was possibly unnofensive until the 80s), in fact, the 1974 OED doesn't list the term as offensive. You should try and systhezies all your research into a paragraph to show that the word only became offensive later on. That would show Hong!Zeus1234 18:50, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
All that's exactly what he's claimed is uncitable, and that any cites I've produced (of the hundreds so far....) are "irrelevant". yeah, uh-huh, and increasingly so is he....Skookum1 19:09, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
The real problem is that the only real way to prove this is by looking at dictionary definitions, or finding a direct quote of someone who is Asian saying the word is not offensive. Anything else would, unfortunately fall under original research. I think this is one instance in which original research should be allowed!Zeus1234 20:37, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
This is why doing lexicography in the wrong project, as Skookum1 is doing, is the wrong approach. I keep saying this, in the hopes that editors will realize how to properly write encyclopaedia articles: You should not be looking at simple dictionaries as sources, and you should not be doing direct analyses of the usages of a word. There are non-dictionary sources out there that have done these analyses, treating all of these various words en bloc. I cited one earlier on this very talk page. It's used as a source for English language names for Chinese people where it discusses whether the name "Chinaman" has been used without racialist intent. The very thing that you want to write is provided along with a source that has done the research and presented the argument. There was no need to perform any lexicography or original research. Please write your articles properly, stop being lexicographers and start being encyclopaedists. The place to do lexicography is over there. Uncle G 21:40, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Please pay attention, Skookum. The version that I left the article at on March 22[6] - my last edit before the article was protected, had never said the term was always offensive. And I have pointed this out over and over again in this Talk page, but it took you about a week to actually get it. Also, none of your sources have actually discussed whether or not the word was offensive in the past. You have only shown casual usage in the past. Which is why the article should remain neutral on stating whether or not it was considered offensive in the past. There are no sources to support that claim either way. After all this time, you still do not seem to understand what I'm saying. Your 2000th source on where the word appeared in the newspaper or in a census in the late 1800s do not discuss whether or not the term was considered offensive. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 15:20, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh, so it's OK to include quotations and press release materials that the term is offensive ("considered offensive") but it's NOT include to include "casual usages" or any reference to their existence???? You're talking like a censor, Hong, and you still haven't answered basic questions around here. The usage above is clearly not "casual" use but in a context and time when this word was clearly not offensive but rather the standard word for a Chinese person. To pretend that that didnt' exist because a "cite" can't be found to state that it wasn't offensive, while you're perfectly happy to have post-1990s materials that say it is......geez, I mean give your head a shake, man.Skookum1 15:54, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
I feel like I'm having deja vu here. My preferred intro specifically attributes that Asian American organisations consider it offensive. This is backed up by several sources. It doesn't say in a broad statement that the term is offensive. I already said this a week and a half ago, and have subsequently repeated this same thing to you over and over and over again. Please pay attention. Do you not understand the difference at all? Now are there sources that say specifically so-and-so consider the word not offensive in its historical usage? I even purposely stayed neutral on the offensiveness of the term in its historical usage in my March 22 edit because there are no sources that discuss offensiveness in historical usage. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 17:07, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
Deja Vu? As if you were the only one., You still haven't dealt with the Fowler's definition, which in MY preferred version would also be in the introductory paragraph, i.e. that in 1956 it was defined as the standard usage for small numbers, with "Chinese" used only for large numbers and, of course, adjectivally. Counterpoised to that could be the ref to James Joyce in the '30s being expected by his editors to remove it from his new editions. The preferred intro will also state clearly (instead of in wheedling fashion like on Uncle G's page) that the Chinese themselves used it without derisive connotation (esp. in the sample above but in countless others as well, as you know by now) and that its use in newspapers, literature and in government documents was widespread and cannot be shown to have been offensive (except in the "John Chinaman" combination form - seems to me there's a Wiktionary entry on John Chinaman, in fact, or somewhere in WikiWorld I came across it in the last few days). And as far as sources who "discuss offensiveness in historical usage", that honour belongs to the rabid ravings of Maxine Wong Kingston and other po-mo rant-and-cant ethno-ideologues, who maintain (loudly) that it's ALWAYS been offensive. And because you STILL haven't acknowledged its existence, my reply to your question:
Now are there sources that say specifically so-and-so consider the word not offensive in its historical usage?
I'll spell it out in caps for you so you don't miss it this time: FOWLER'S DICTIONARY OF ENGLISH USAGE, 1956. How many times do I have to point you towards it before you acknowledge its existence.?????????????????????17:20, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
That's a dictionary definition, and we can include that. And here's a correction - Fowler's does not say it's not offensive. But I'm talking about your objection that Asian American organisations consider the term offensive. I'm talking about your continued misconception that the article states broadly that the term is simply offensive. I'm talking about your inability to understand the difference between evidence of casual usage and evidence of a discussion on offensiveness. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 17:28, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
"Fowler's does not say it's not offensive." - Hong, please see the Wikipedia essay you love pointing to so much: WP:Weasel words. Fowler's gives NO indication that it was offensive in 1956; but you're suggesting that it still could have been. Well, I'll tell you what, if the editors of Fowler's thought it was even somewhat offensive, they would have stated that.Skookum1 17:33, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
You really still don't understand what WP:Weasel words is talking about, do you? Anyway, I've edited the article to say that it was not defined as offensive by "past dictionaries", and have included both the old Webster and Fowler's dictionaries as sources. But by all means, don't let that stop your ranting and soapboxing. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 17:51, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
You know Hong, you're not the only one with the right to invoke and interpret Wiki guidelines and principles. And your position here is clearly "weasel logic" - the pretense that because it's not stated that something was not offensive it still might have been is just speculative, weaseling garbage like so much else you've fielded here.Skookum1 19:18, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
WP:Weasel words hardly need much "interpretation". It gives clear examples of usage of the words "some", "many", "most", etc. The same kind of usage that I've tried to prevent you from using. Furthermore, I've never said, and neither does my preferred version of the text say, that "it still might have been" offensive. Please desist in your hysteria. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 19:27, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
I don't care what the guidelines define Weasel WORDS as, what you've field is WEASEL LOGIC. Weaseling is weaseling, and you're weaseling.Skookum1 19:30, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
I beg to differ. I'm reflecting what verifiable evidence we have, instead of reflecting editor opinion, like you so want to do. Even your friend Keefer agreed with my preferred version of the intro (something you've probably also missed). And I don't remember your other friend Zeus complaining about it either. You seem to be alone in your crusade here. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 19:34, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
Instead of fighting each other here, work together for consensus. Skookum, why don't you post your favored version of whatever it is your are complaining about, and then we can compare it to the currect version.Zeus1234 19:46, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

You're right, Zeus1234; I'm bored of, if anything, arguing with Hong and Uncle G. But for today so far I've had my time/energy eaten up by the AFD. For a rare day in this most-rainy spring (we've had record rainfalls - 27 out of 31 days in March....) it's actually sunny outside so I'm going to go play music and forget about Wikipedia and remember what the world is for....i.e. so I'll get to writing what I think the article should be later on tonight or tomororwl, and to get it done I'll try and ignore the ongoing inanity at the AFD or any misdrirective/weasel arguments fielded here.Skookum1 20:05, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Merges vs. AFD on Uncle G's pet page

Well, turns out you don't have to wait for a merge discussion to end in order to start an AFD. See the AFD page for this article and join in the fun...(Wen Hsing is my hero!).Skookum1 04:03, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Cats?

What happened to the categories for this page? Were there ever any? I didn't notice them being deleted, but other than the merge categeory, this has no other categories. Now, why is that exactly? I know, I could have put some in but fighting the dissembling/defraying here and at the AFD has been taken up a lot of time/attention. Seems to me there are number of cats that might apply here.....Skookum1 04:48, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

You happened to the categories. Remember to close your "ref" tags next time you add one in. It blew away the rest of the article because you didn't close it. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 08:01, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
OK, didn't realize, kinda wondered if I hadn't closed an inline comment which has happened before (but I always caught it). Didn't think to look for an unclosed link; not being all that good with template-type arrangements is why on a lot of pages I post on the talkpage and other users migrate the cites for me; I got spoiled thanks to some helpful folks at the BC Wikiproject, and only recently have learned the ref tag and how to use it, and so forget to close it...(I'm used to footnotes that haveo only one "end")..Skookum1 08:50, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Enclyclopedia ... heh ...

This is an editorial not an article. The editorialist who crafted this obviously thinks that Chinaman is an insulting term. It sort of reminds me of the black people who were offended by the term "niggardly". Your ignorance does not make a term offensive. But what the hey. You're having fun ... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.100.207.219 (talk) 19:50, 9 May 2007 (UTC).

Seinfeld

Wasn't it J. Peterman who said 'chinaman's nightcap' ? I mean, his dialogue is always designed to be archaic, especially in this episode, since he was going on safari... the pastime of out-of-date old people who use words like chinaman. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.72.21.221 (talk • contribs) 2007-05-20 04:45:00

Declaration of the Chinamen of California, 1854 (58?)

What happened to the mention of this, which is much more relevant than the thing about the Japanese general which has appeared of late; this is the first time I've looked at this page since vacating myself from Wikipedia and it seems to me that the selection of examples now given is a POV-selection, avoiding the neutral and positive usages and also it's highly US-focussed. POVism is going to be a major problem with this and similar pages in the long run, largely because of "selective evidence" and the careful use/omission of various words and contexts; as in the case of the Mark Twain item which when originally mentioned here was explicitly commented upon as not being a negative usage; until my reinsertion here today it sounded like Twain was using it negatively. Focussing on "John Chinaman" is as pointless, also, as focussing on "John Bull" in a discussion of "Bull". As in b.s. Skookum1 here, not logged in as I'm on my cousin's computer. HQG I doubt this was your doing, and I thought we'd come to an understanding on working on a fair presentation of this page; I see all the edits "since" and don't have time to review them all or where they're coming from. Other than the POV-selections/contexts issue, I'm also concerned as elsewhere throughout Wikipedia that there is a focus on contexts in the United States or regarding US history/culture, as if only US history/culture were relevant in Wikipedia; a parallel problem exists on Kanaka where the negative Australasian context had primacy, so it's not only a US problem. I'll be back with more, maybe this week, on various topics that I've found out about through my journeys through BC's backcountry/goldfields, but I don't have time to "police" this page as it apparently STILL needs doing. Don't anyone pretend to neutrality of purpose if the result isn't neutral in content or tone; what's been reshaped here is now favouring the latter-day prejudices concerning this term, rather than embracing its WHOLE history. Other expressions from an older time, e.g. Chinnish and so on, should also be mentioned by-the-way, and etymology vs. acquired context should also be discussed, specifically the "deliberate perjoration" of this term by latter-day "intellectuals" and policos. - Skookum1, at the moment in beautiful Oliver, British Columbia.75.153.69.205 02:36, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Twain and HQG's "weasel words"

Given your fondness for the phrase "weasel words" it's rather trite (and presumptuous) of you to say: No source to say it was "decidedly positive". And it was more probably used in a negative way as a literary tool.) Read Twain, Hong, as others around here have; his essay extols the virtues of "Chinamen" and was written in a time when most non-Chinese users of the term used the term in a non-derisive or not deliberately derisive way; the derisive form was "John Chinaman" as anybody without a pickle up their ass can realize upon reading any source from the period in a non-prejudicial fashion; in the same way that the Chinamen of California did, albeit years before Twain's own opus on them. "It was more probably used in a negative wayu as a literary tool" is entirely a subjective interpretation of yours and uses the blatantly "weasel word" PROBABLY. Who are YOU to make such a judgement on Mark Twain? Who was nowhere near as much a pompous bigot as such as you pretend not to be. Not trying to inflame our old flamewar, buddy, just asking you to give your head a shake and have a look at your own prejudices before accusing Twain of any; I can just see Twain rolling his eyes, or rather scrunching his eyebrows and puffing on his cigar, in response to your presumption about what he was saying and why/how he was saying it. "A literary tool" indeed; the only tool around here ain't Twain, that's for sure....Skookum1 04:56, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Please actually read the article. It doesn't say whether Twain's use of "Chinaman" is positive or negative. That's the difference between my comment and your edit. I may think it is used in a negative way as a literary tool, but I'm not going to put that in the article without any sources backing that up. You actually inserted that it's "decidedly positive". Why? Because you think it is? I'm not sure how many times I've asked you to read Wikipedia:No original research. It discusses how we should avoid inserting our own personal interpretations of sources, something that you tried to do with your edit. Honestly, I know you're not a newbie to Wikipedia. It doesn't take much to understand the concepts in Wikipedia:No original research. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 06:09, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
"The sky is blue" is not original research, and neither is the observation that Twain's use of the term is in a positive sense. NOT saying that it is is obfuscation, wheedling and WEASELING. Read Twain, Hong. And look at the sky. When it's blue, that is. No doubt it's a few other colours on a daily basis. But at least somewhere up there it's blue. Your assumed position that "probably" it was "negative used as a literary tool" is, to me, just a position taken in order to presume that there is a neutral position about Twain's usage. It's not, and your pretense - used in an edit rationale if not in an article - that it could be anything but reminds me of Bo Yang's comment about what an Ugly Chinaman (excuse me, an "Ugly Chinese person" to use the literal translation of Bo's original Chinese-language term) does when you tell him he's wrong; he goes and writes a book on how to negotiate which he insists you read. In your case, you shoudl read Twain and see the light, instead of pretending that his writing could be anything other than presenting the Chinese in a VERY positive light. But tell me also - why did you allow the deletion of the Declaration of the Chinamen of California from this article? That document, like Twain's writing, uses the term in its pure-generic sense, and without a hint of being a "literary tool" or "probably" anything that suits your prejudicial tastes. If you didn't take it out yourself, you should have put it back in when someone else took it out. And the way Twain here is included here reminds me all too well of Uncle G's manipulation of text in the infamous English language names for Chinese people article; slicing non-negative contexts in with negative contexts as if the latter applied to all, instead of making a distinction. Apparnetly making a distinction is "original research" to you. 'The sky is red, the sky is blue, I know all too well what's wrong with you".Skookum1 06:34, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
Read Diffuse sky radiation, there are actually sources to explain why the sky is blue. Look man, providing sources and not inserting editors' personal opinions are some very fundamental basics of Wikipedia. This is something you've just got to learn to work with, especially on controversial topics. Reflecting reliable sources is what Wikipedia is all about. It's not all about reflecting Skookum1's personal point of view. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 14:38, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

It is even more decidedly not about the careful selection/ommission/misportrayal of evidentiary material in order to support the POV agendas of post-modern ideological/ethnic biases such as the one the calculated ommissions and misrepresentations that are habitual for you and others are so clearly all about. "The sky is blue" does not need a citation of why the sky appears blue, as it is axiomatically blue by simple observation. Similarly the one and manner of Twain's writing on "Chinamen" is intelligible by simple observation/reading and needs no citation to say it's positive or negative (although you can no doubt find lots of 1990 sources maintaining that ANY historical use of the term is negative, but those are "subjective findings" and not valid citations, being POV in origin). And furthermore, oh weasely one, why don't you answer the question about the Declaration of the Chinamen of San Francisco and why it's been taken out of the article?Skookum1 02:49, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't remember a "Declaration of the Chinamen of San Francisco" ever being in the article. Can you show me in the article history where it was?
It doesn't matter what you think is axiomatically true. If Diffuse sky radiation doesn't have sources on the sky being blue, you can bet that an editor would come along to either request sources or insert sources. And there is nothing axiomatically true about how Twain used the word "Chinaman", so this "sky is blue" rhetoric is pointless. Furthermore, Wikipedia has never been about adding information on the simple basis that an editor thinks the information is "axiomatically" true or correct. Wikipedia is about reflecting reliable sources. How many times must I repeat this before you understand? Please read Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 03:01, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
Well, I do remember posting it; it's not in my resources list related to this page and it's not in the AFD on Uncle G's pet now-deleted article; it must have been on the talkpage for that article, now also deleted; my bad for not making sure it was in the list and/or also in this article; I know I cited it in the deleted article for sure. I tried to google it this week but I must have the title slightly wrong, couldn't find it even though there's more than one webpage which quotes it. IIRC the date was 1854 and it was a letter from the "Chinamen of San Francisco" to the Governor of California about their desire/ability to be good citizens and was written in very good English as a demonstration of naturalization. I thought you'd remember it yourself; maybe someone else can find it. Main gist is that the examples overleaf all tend to the negative side and that's not fair esp. re the 19th Century, esp. considering the many citations where Chinese themselves use it without shame; similarly as above the equation of John Chinaman as though it were the same in tone is out-of-context but I don't have time to argue. This is my last set of posts before heading off on the road again and recusing myself from Wikipedia, although I may log in during my journey across the country when I get the time. Just open your mind, Hong, and try and be fair; don't look at everything surgically, and don't assume denigration when none is intended. Anyway, back to packing and investigating bus schedules; next posts may be anywhere from Nelson BC through Saskatoon through Montreal all the way out to Halifax and St. John's by the end of summer, then beyond. I'd meant to do some writeups on BC's various historical ghosttowns that aren't on the List of Chinatowns or Chinatown pages (e.g. Duncan, Nanaimo, and the many Cariboo and Omineca ghost towns which either had Chinatowns/China Alleys or were dominantly Chinese, but I don't have time. It's an interesting bit of BC history, Hong; some time when you're so inclined you should investigate them; it may change your attitudes towards BC and BC history considerably.Skookum1 15:12, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
Not sure if this is the same thing - [7] - but it's similar. It was a letter that a Chinese guy sent to the Governor of California, in which he refers to himself as a "Chinaman". I've added it to the article. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 18:49, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Question

How come I've never heard of a Chinawoman, only a Chinaman? Just curious. 68.36.214.143 18:27, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Can't remember off the top of my head any usage of "Chinawoman", but "Chinaman" is probably more common because when the word gained popular usage, an overwhelming most of the Chinese people in U.S. were men; there were travel and immigration restrictions placed specifically on Chinese women in order to prevent the forming of a substantial population of Chinese that would have American citizenship. The 14th Amendment in 1868 granted citizenship to anybody who was born on U.S. soil. The Supreme Court upheld it in United States v. Wong Kim Ark in 1898. So if the politicians wanted to prevent a population of Chinese with American citizenship, they had to prevent Chinese from being born on U.S. soil - which means no Chinese women, or hardly any, were allowed to immigrate to the U.S. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 19:37, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
Chinaman had been established as a term since the early 1800's; the late-date 1898 legislation is irrelevant to the discussion. Same as post facto legislation about Chinatowns in SF or Seattle, long after they'd been established by the Chinese themselvesSkookum1
Because this is a talkpage there's no need to call for a citation of that last interpretation of the purpose of US laws in question. You especially should be wary of any interpolations of motive and intent you care to ascribe to US laws, i.e. that this was the reason for the exclusion of Chinese women. At least, by way of citation (were this an article instead of a talkpage) a quote from a period politician or news columnist establishing this among the motivation for such legislation. But it doesn't really bear up anyway, given that 90% and more of those of all ethnic groups on the frontier were male, not just the Chinese, and also isn't relevant to the pre-eminence of chinaman vs. chinawoman. Dutchman (meaning German, mostly, in those days) similarly was not genderized (Dutchwoman) although you might see, for a lady of the polite classes, Englishwoman or Frenchwoman etc. It's all fine and dandy for you to claim cause and effect on these hypoethetical motives of US legislation, but where's your proof? "Well, we know white people were all racist so this must have been the reason" ain't good enough. It's like the long-deleted claim on the Chinatown page that Chinatowns were created by legislation forcing the concentration of Chinese people; yet nobody could come up with actual laws or policies which did any of that; myth is one thing, reality is another, and here it strikes me that you're just inventing/creating more. So here's a hard fact for you, gleaned from readings in Chinese Canadian history as to why Chinese women were few in the colony-cum-province of BC - emigration of Chinese women from China was barred by China; this was to ensure the return of imperial subjects as well as for other reasons. What Chinese women came were either from the relatively wealthy classes (who could bribe/fee their way past the emigration regs) or on the, er, bottom end of the rung, as prostitutes probably brought in by trading vessels, or smuggled in by the Chinese businessmen who were the core of the economy in the frontier cities. There may have been specific laws prohibiting the immigration of Chinese women to California, but there were NONE in regard to British Columbia, or subsequently to Canada, i.e. that were gender-specific. The gender-specific regs were China's alone FWIU. My turn to provide the cite, perhaps. But it always strikes me how ready types like you are to complaint about the harshness of white laws and attitudes, but there's a big difference between a Head Tax and the old death penalty exacted on foreigners in pre-Opium War China, or the low pay of Chinese engagees vs the massacre of non-Chbinese during the Taiping and Boxer Rebellions....similarly here, with your readiness not only to condemn US laws, but then to interpose a harsh judgements as to the motivations. And then FURTHER to claim (and it's only a claim) that these putative laws existed for the demographic-strategy reasons you're pointing towards. Which, given your track record with false claims, really need a citation. Even if this is only a talkpage. And THEN you can also find a citation that that's the reason that Chinawoman is far less common than Chinaman/men. I've heard it, rarely only, and usually used in a more polite context, i.e. not in a derisive sense, as Chinaman indeed can be (but isn't always, despite your pretense that, again, you know the motives of all white speakers the same as you know the motives for theoretical US laws....).Skookum1 21:04, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
Found a quote from one of your posts above, Hong:
"Furthermore, Wikipedia has never been about adding information on the simple basis that an editor thinks the information is "axiomatically" true or correct."
Yet that's exactly what you have done in this example, ignoring China's own anti-female-emigration law while pointing a typically knee-jerk allegation against a racist American law, which you don't even cite the statute for, and imputing that this is the reason why "chinawoman" is not as common. This may be "axiomatically true or correct" to you, but again it reminds me of the previous allegations (by you and others) that there were restrictions/laws that "forced Chinese into Chinatowns" (said laws did not exist) or that Chinese were "forced" to open laundromats and restaurants. What is "axiomatically true and correct" in Chinese-biased versions of history doesn't seem to wash out across the board, whether it has to do with Tibet or with the history of North America or, in this case, the history of English itself. For the sake of your own face, I suggest you either cite the particular US laws that restricted Chinese females from entering the US (you won't find one for Canada...) or acknowledge that it was Qing China's own regulations which were the primary reason few Chinese women (other than prostitutes and rich men's wives) were able to join the men in North America. Myself, I don't think you have the cojones to admit you're wrong, or to acknowledge that China's own racist and sexist laws had any fault in China's own history. It's all the white man's fault, huh?Skookum1 17:22, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

What the hell? Relax! Take a deep breath. Yes, there is evidence that US politicians at the time (but not all) did not want Chinese women to enter the US, but as far as I'm concerned, that's irrelevant to this article. Just like about 95% of what you've written in response is irrelevant. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 16:44, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

What's totally irrelevant - and WRONG - was the answer you gave about "chinawoman", and telling me to relax when you've said something so baldly bigoted and assumptive, while now continuing to ignore the fact of the matter - that it was Chinese emigration laws, not US laws - that account for the relative lack of Chinese women "in the colonies" (the Cariboo Chinese referred to British Columbia as the "Colonies of T'ang" (and if you don't believe me search for an academic paper by that title at sfu.ca or ubc.ca)). "..evidence that US politicians at the time (but not all) did not want Chinese women to enter the US" is a LONG way from there actually being legislation preventing that, as you first claimed. Why can't you ever admit that you are wrong about something and RECANT?? Your line "as far as I'm concerned that's irrelevant to the article" is also irrelevant; the reason you even made this SILLY claim was the off-article response about "chinawoman", and the completely spurious link YOU made between the small numbers of Chinese women in North America vs the number of men (similarly in the Old West, men were over 80% of the population in ALL races except aboriginal peoples, often higher than 90 or even 95%). And furthermore, the term "chinaman" was also common in the Orient, where there were lots of Chinese women (obviously), and may have been coined there. Your willingness to tar white people, politicians or otherwise, is really noxious, Hong. The issue isn't my response being irrelevant, as it's very relevant to the silly reply you gave, which ITSELF was more than 95% IRrelevant (it was completely irrelevant, in fact), to the article. "Relax", Hong, and humbly accept that you've made a complete and utterly a-factual response yourself. "As far as I'm concerned", you're in the habit of pontificating on things you just don't really know about......Skookum1 18:06, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Why was the Seinfeld episode offensive?

They used the word specifically in a racist context, spoken by a racist person, to identify him as racist. Well, I guess not so much racist as old-fashioned. Peterman is supposed to be this ridiculously outmoded old fogey who actually goes on safari and has other outdated standards and practices. It wasn't glorified whatsoever, any more than a KKK member saying 'nigger', so why was it offensive? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.122.63.142 (talk) 21:21, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

In FACT, I can think of another time the word 'chinaman' was used. When Jerry asked the postman if he knew where a chinese place was, since he was a postman, and the guy happened to be Chinese, and he got all offended thinking that's why he asked, and the postman starts doing a stereotypical Chinese accent saying "Oh me light honolabre Chinaman, know all Chinese lestalaunt." as if to mock Jerry... Nobody complained about that one I bet. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.122.63.142 (talk) 21:29, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
No worries. The article does not say that it was racist. The article says that Maxine Hong Kingston and MANAA say it's racist. Perhaps you could email them and ask why they think it's racist. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 21:49, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Unbalanced examples

While the following paragraph is very good:

Legal documents such as the Geary Act of 1892, which barred the entry of Chinese people to the United States, referred to Chinese people both as "Chinese persons" or "Chinamen".[10] In addition to legal documents, the term "Chinaman" was also used in court. Roy Bean, appointed as a judge in the state of Texas in the late 1800s, used the term in one of his rulings. Commenting on the case of an Irishman killing a Chinese worker, after browsing through a law book, he said, "Gentlemen, I find the law very explicit on murdering your fellow man, but there's nothing here about killing a Chinaman. Case dismissed."[11]

...It has no more casual example, i.e. the much more common usage where a derisive context was not implied (note that the sentence would retain its meaning with the word "Chinese" substituted); surely this is not a representative example of the typical usage of this term in court. E.g. "they went down to the store and got two shovels from the Chinaman there" as is also a common context in historical/diaristic accounts. As elsewhere, this single-example negative-example game is played elsewhere on this page.Skookum1 (talk) 20:14, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Also:

Compared to terms such as Englishman, Scotsman, and Frenchman, "Chinaman" differs in that the noun, "China", is used as the stem instead of the adjective, "Chinese".

Somewhere there's a paper or two on this compound, i.e. from an etymological viewpoint; on the one hand the latter-day political pretense is that this different stem is what makes the word derisive (!) but the more obvious point is that pidgin Chinese-English chinee is the root, i.e. Chineseman, pronounced Chineeman, contracted to Chinaman; we don't have formal vowel harmony like in Turkish, but we also have sounds like that -eesema- that aren't possible for Chinese speakers unless very experienced in English (especially in those days). Anyway, while it's good this passage is here, it seems only half-written; some comment on the differing views of this etymology and the (to me, false) pretense that the different stem is implicitly derisive, should not go unmentioned.Skookum1 (talk) 20:14, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Origin and Etymology section

I added the section heading as the first paragraph was floating all by itself there, spouting a typical claim about why the word is offensive, when there's no actual proof that such a formation is offensive or intended that way, especially given the alternate "easier path" of the pidgin vowel-shortening; there's even some issue as to whether it was white people who "invented" the word or if it was in fact a result of English pidgin as spoken by Chinese themselves. I put in the alternate information....if "you" are going to dispute it as uncited, so is the claim made in the first sentence that the formation is implicitly derisive (I'm a native English speaker who speaks 3-4 languages and has studied several more, and don't see why China vs Chinese in the formation makes f**all difference). If there are formal studies on the etymology of this word - which there probably aren't given its politicization in recent decades and therefore "taboo" in academia - then they could/should be cited; the old alternates like "Chinnish" should maybe also be mentioned in passing. No doubt if "we" had adopted it into English, it would be condemned as derisive now because it's not written/pronounced some other way. The word may have acquired offensive/derisive tones (mostlyi because there's people who like being offended), but there's no way to show it was created that way; simply alleging that it is because the word formation doesn't click with Frenchman and Scotsman (actually the proper usage is "Scot", without the "-man") is paranoid nonsense. But there's enough people to repeat this myth to try and make it true that it keeps on surfacing; it remains uncitable; unlike early usages of Chinaman, which (once dug up) will all be in general or neutral contexts, or as with Asing and Ha Ling, obvioius examples of Chinese people using it in a positive sense and without thought that later Chinese would see it as derisive......Skookum1 (talk) 18:43, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Hey Mr. Native English speaker - please read this English article correctly before you edit it for your emotionally-charged reasons. The article never claimed it as matter-of-fact offensive before you started editing it.[8] It said that current dictionaries define it as offensive, and that Asian American groups consider it offensive, both of these claims are backed by sources. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 19:49, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
ME emotionally charged? As if the rantings of those trying to "prove" that this word is and always was offensive (including Maxine and the various orgs) weren't emotional; that's the point of this objection about the Frenchman/Englishman thing; it's purely emotional, unsubstantiated by any linguistics proof; it's like saying that "German" is offensive because it resembles "Germ"; the further point is that the Englishman/Frenchman comparison, if it's anything, is original research unless cited as part of the justifications by one of the p.c.-bandwagons/warparties, and then it's still not a proof it's only a claim. For now, unless a history of East Asian English pidgins can dig up some details, my own assertions that it's from Chinee+man are also OR; but they're much more likely to be proven, and aren't about emotion. Unlike the easily-offended politicos who've made this a shameless lexical witchhunt, my objections are about fact, not political agendas. I made the point about being a native English speaker because, as such, I see no reason at all why an irregular derivation of the ethnonym is automatically and "obviously" derisive (as has been claimed, and can probably be cited); ie.. what can be cited is that this claim is made; it cannot be cited that this claim is TRUE. "Other origins" still figure large in the equation, provided it's an open-ended equation; according to the p.c. universe, it's a closed book. Theirs.Skookum1 (talk) 22:38, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

removal of fact by Hong Qi Gong

HGQ took this out:

The new name was chosen in honour of the railroad labourer who scaled the peak's 2,408 metre-high summit in 1896 to win a $50 bet, but who himself had named the mountain "Chinaman's Peak"[citation needed] to commemorate all his fellow Chinese railway labourers.[1][2]
  1. ^ "Ha Ling Peak (Chinamans Peak) Alberta". Bivouac.com. Retrieved 2007-04-29.
  2. ^ "World News Briefs; Alberta's New Name For Peak in Rockies". The New York Times. 1998-07-09. Retrieved 2007-03-20. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

This was covered in Canadian press coverage of the name change, and as I recall was in the Canmore, AB and Calgary papers, from which it was repeated in national-circulation media of the same chain where I read it, and I know I read it; I don't have access to these papers' archives. It was Ha Ling who chose the name. An uncomfortable fact, but a fact nonetheless; if I ever find a proper cite for it (Bivouac.com's story is not ref'd either, but Bivouac should not be relied on for historical materials anyway, just geographic data). I know that the main reason HGQ took it out is he's been hostile to the notion that Chinese people readily used the term without taint of derogation or irony. He may not like it, but it's the case. I'll also be back when I dig up the Letter of the Chinamen of San Francisco from 1850s California....it was in the Archive of California or another section of the Bancroft Collection at Berkeley; another item that HGQ didn't like; the focus on this article continues to portray 19th C. usage in negative terms, which remains POV.Skookum1 (talk) 15:49, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

No response after six months? I haven't taken the time to look up the California "letter"; its old link was on the deleted Talk:English language names for Chinese people I guess, but it's not like it's mythical (Norman Asing's letter from 1852 is similar, but it's not hte same one). Teh Ha Ling story I might be able to do something about if I was in Calgary or Canmore but I'm far from there right now......and this article still has a heavy POV taint in the selection of evidence and in the wording/tone; e.g. the only mention of legal language is a negative one, yet its usage in legal contexts was largely NOT pejorative, it was simply the most-common-usage of the time. I'll try and find some neutral examples but I think it's disigenuous to pretend that this article isn't POV when NPOV comment is wantonly deleted because it doesn't fit the POV standard some authors of this article are trying to maintain in force.Skookum1 (talk) 17:47, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

New section (not mine)

The new section just added, though uncited, is a common comparative made about this word in debates about it; it's slightly wrong in that "Frenchman, "Irishman" and "Scotchman" (though not so much "Scotsman"), also "Dutchman", can and are used in derisive contexts. The "Chineseman" comparison if there at all should make some mention of consonant-shifting and vowel shortening in pidgin usage (the final "-eez" being difficult esp. when followed by another consnant, and the "-ee" in the resultant "Chinee" being shortened to "-a"). It would be nice if all this were citable in an actual etymology paper or some such, maybe in some William Safire column or the like somewhere; most academic "analyses" of this word are actually tracts and highly POV in their evaluation of it and its origin.Skookum1 (talk) 17:43, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Appropriate Wiki editorial behaviour is not to simply delete unwanted materials, but to repost them here for discussion and possible later citation. Since Hong Qi Gong, who removed the first part of teh following bit twice, and my own emendment to it once, did not see fit to do so, so in the interests of further research here is what Hong decided was not fit for public eyes (despite so much else in the article that isn't cited....):

There are several equivalent words for people of other countries. Unlike “Chinaman”, they are not considered at all offensive and are in common use; often associated with pride in one’s country, though they are often used in derogatory contexts. These include:

There are several equivalent words for people of other countries. Unlike “Chinaman”, they are not considered at all offensive and are in common use; often associated with pride in one’s country, though they are often used in derogatory contexts. These include:

“Chinaman”, however, does differ slightly from the above in that it might also be used to refer to race, whereas all the above cannot as they are not names of races. Another slight difference from the above is that “Chinaman” prefixes “man” with the name of the country, rather than the people of the country (the precise equivalent would therefore be “Chineseman”). The same analysis is not applied to the similar construction "Chinatown" (vs. "Chinesetown") which is not considered similarly derogatory.

Other than the last sentence, which I admit to be of my own "invention" - though obvious enough - the other comments are citable and are out there; I wouldn't be surprised to find the specious argument "Chinaman is racist because it's not Chineseman" in Maxine Hong Kingston, but I nkow for sure that eithr Victor Yukmun Wong or Jenny Kwan in British Columbia have made that exact same argument, adn more than once; old, old news items quoted in soc.culture.canada may include press citations of the "Chinaman controversy" as it went down in BC in the early '90s.....Skookum1 (talk) 00:14, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Misleading/judgmental "logics"

One of the reamining POV problems with this article, as with most Chinese-North America history articles, is the skewed presentation of information and sources so as to shore up the prejudiced view of this word that is now so fashionable among "intellectuals". Emma Woo Louie, thankfully, is not one of those people and her explication of why the census usages of "Chinaman" were not racist should stand out loud and clear for those of you who want to browbeat us otherwise; the same can be shown in terms of court/legal usage and I'll find a cite for that (browsign Judge Begbie and others looking for a good'un....). No doubt this will not suffice for "those who need to be offended". Fine, if hyou need to be offended, please line up on the left...."balanaced" coverage of the history of the term, rather than exampels pulled to underscore Maxine Hong Kingston's paranoid rants and others like hers, is all out there; but it's so easy for those who want to underpin the "Chinaman has always been a racist term" lie simply be re-jgging contexts of discusssing exmaples out of context. Another set of examples that's clearly presented in a POV fashion is later in the same section:

Washington's attorney general, in his argument, stated that Japanese people could not fit into American society because assimilation was not possible for "the Negro, the Indian and the Chinaman".[14] The Japanese admiral Tōgō Heihachirō, during his training in England in the 1870s, was called "Johnny Chinaman" by his British comrades.[15]

To me, the first sentence could easily be interpreted - and in a full quotation might be revealed to mean/imply - "assimilation was not possible for the Negro, the Indian and the Chinaman"..."and so we must assume also about the Japanese". By 1922, true, people in North America knew what a Japanese was as distinct from a Chinese, but in 1870 this wan'st exactly the case; even at Sandhurst or wherever it was that Togo was a student; it's clear that his classmates, themselves of noble birth for the most part, would not idly concdcot a derisive/derogatory name for school comrade in anything but the most jovial terms; especially given his rank (outstripping all of them except for other imperial princes....). But also in 1870 Japan had only just barely come into public view - one reason Togo was "out there", i.e. in gaijin lands - and the physical and cultural similarities (to Western eyes), as well as China's own claim that Japan was a subject/vassal state - perhaps more help explain that personal nickname more than any need to judge all white people negatively can. Pretense and posturing is so much part of latter-day criticism of "the evils of the white past" that I submit that not only are many "reliable sources" not reliable at all, rather heavily skewed and biased and full of false information and "pat judgmeents", but when Wikipedians attempt to "knit" and edit/neutralize source materials in such a way as to udnerscore POV beliefs and prejudices it's a big disappointment about human nature. I think both of the examples cited have been taken out of context and mis-represented, eiether by editors here or - and perhaps more likely - in the fabrications and hysterics of latter-day ethnopoliticos......which are passed off as "fact" and "reliable sources" when they're actually just POV rants with bad logics and faulty use of primary sources.....Skookum1 (talk) 00:05, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

First Nations/Native American languages

So far I've managed to establish that "Cbhinaman" in adapted/mutated form is the word for a Chinese person in a number of Pacific Northwest native languages (with cites). Where would be the best place to put such information? It does belong, as well as the point that no Chinese political organization has govne after the native peoples insisiting that they change their languages to suit modern Chinese tastes (and even THAT is probably citable).....Skookum1 (talk) 00:05, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

US centric article

If 'Chinaman' is mainly an American expression (I have no idea) I think that should be clarified in the first paragraph. Otherwise all the references to 'Chinese Americans' seem strangely US-centric (why would they be particularly relevant?). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.170.225.130 (talk) 09:37, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

They're particularly relevant because it's mostly in the US that there were political hysterics and a lot of hot air; in CAnada the hot air was briefly screamed, then government and media meekly changed over all the placenames, with accompanying justifications that century-and-a-half old names honouring early Chinese were "offensive" to Chinese oganizations comprised mostly of new immigrants; not much press coverage, as explained below, so what press coverage and other cites there are tend to be in the US; I don't think there was much stink made about the word in either Australia or the UK (where "china man" can stil refer to a dealer in porcelain, adn is in fact the name of a store).Skookum1 (talk) 16:04, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
Agreed. The US is pretty much the only western country with a significant population of Chinese immigrants to encounter "discrimination and injustice". I don't pretend to be an expert as far as I know mostly everywhere else it's just another neutral nationality+man compound (And Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman walk into a bar anyone?). The OED definition is simply "a native of China". Is this just a case of America exporting its cultural baggage vis-a-vis minorities to the rest of the world? Correct me if I'm wrong. I'm curious as to what the alternative term is though. --—Joseph RoeTk•Cb, 21:06, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
Well, unlike other national demonyms, "Chinese" cannot be used alone in the singular, i.e. "There was a Chinese standing on the corner" vs. "There was a Frenchman standing on the corner". In fact, in some North American contexts the former phrase would refer to a Chinese take-out and would be describing the urban landscape; "chinese man/woman" has to be used, or "Chinese person/people". You'll see uses of "a Chinese" in some older literary writing I've seen, maybe Durrell or Graham Greene or someone like that, but it's not very common and also (now) somewhat not acceptable as "objectifying" the person on their ethnicity...an argument which isn't used for German, Norwegian or Italian; note the difference between Spaniard and Spanish; one is for the person, the other is an adjecdive (or the language). The Fowler's Dictionary of English Usage (Handbook of English Usage?)" in the cites, publ. 1956, stated that "Chinaman" was used for the individual or small numbers of Chinese people, with "the Chinese" meaning in large groups or at the national/cultural level, and could also mean the language, butotherwise "Chinese" was the adjective - Chinese people, Chinese language, Chinese art. "the Chinese people", yes, but "there were three Chinamen working a claim in the upper part of the valley" as typical of various historical/newspaper usages, without perjoration - although the modern line on that is that ignorance was no excuse......now as for the rationale as to why it's derisive, or proclaimed to be, is that because it's not "Chineseman" but pidgin-like, either China+man or Chinee+man, shortened (which seems to be the "natural origin" of the term, especially given the phonological difficulty of the sound "-ese" to native Chinese speakers); otherwise, they claim, "Chinaman"'s equivalents should be "Franceman", "Germanyman", "Russiaman" (actually "Dutchman" was used to mean Germans - "Deutsch"_+man) and is similarly "folk" in origin. As you note, a lot of the vitriol has come from non-native speakers of English; comedian Mark Britten, whose stage name is "the Chinaman", says some people want to be offended, and newcomers have made a big deal, but for mosst North American Chinese it's no big deal and if anything it's accepted as a joke, or a shrug, and often a self-reference (that's not citable but from an email or two with him). Myself, I come originally from BC's backcountry and knew all kinds of people, especially of a generation more from the frontier time, when Chinese were common in BC's small towns and mining districts (many towns 30% and up for decades), who just used it as a word for their neighbours, who also used it (i.e. the Chinese themselves), as part of the local lingo; without malice unless, as with the discussion of gweilo vs sei gweil which you'll find on Talk:Gweilo, there was an adjective added "damned Chinaman", "old Chinaman"......but you'd also hear, "Oriental gentleman", "Chinese gentleman" for the succesful merchants (who were often also ranchers, supplying their stores with their own meat and produce...and "Celestial" was used as a polite term, though also for that word you'll see on Celestial (follow the dab to "derisive word for Chinese people" or whatever it most likely says). In Vancouver, also, it became a standard word for a Chinese house servant/personal assistant/valet gardener/guard, and well-paid as such (on the city's West Side they were de rigeur in society households....) - "My dear, I hear you got a new Chinaman...I hear he's a marvel" may grate to modern Chinese-American/Canadian ears but the context was complimentary....and said in all innocence, and used by the servant himself. Times have changed, sensitivities have been sharpened, words have been politicized, history rewritten; note that we do not have the right to decide what our language means, but on Talk:Gweilo it's clear that the position is that non-Chinese are not capable or qualified about deciding the meaning and spelling of that word (which is far more vicious in origin and also actually used as a perjorative...but the excuses that get made for....sheesh). Anyway, that's summarizing a complex answer, and not meant as a rant, just laying out the positions; my own line is that "politically correct language is inherently POV" - it's advancing a point of view - and that it's a form of newspeak are meant to change the way people think, to change the language and culture by rigging the lexicon; POV by design, replacing whole concepts with other concepts...... To me it's clear the politicos of the '80s who made a stink about this were doing so without understanding the history of the term in North American history (first they'd have to understand North American history....), or even who used it and how, they just shot off about being discriminated against and treated differently and took on what was largely an archaic word and demonized it; note that 1500-1800 there were lots of other words for what we're now required to call a Chinese person; from 1800-1950 or so the most common, easily, was "Chinaman"; now, by agitation and legislation, that's now a no-no; my own bet is that if "Chinese" had been the most common term, IT would now be in the political-cultural manual of ethnoracial sensitivity no-no's. As i recall from somone's writeup about it, maybe in Fowler's, "chinese" was used for porcelain, tea, furniture and other objects; it would have sounded wrong to use it on a person; and the parallel word "Chinaman" had already evolved, for use describing individual persons and groups up to a certain number (Fowler's gives a number range). Oh, one other complaint is taht it's used to include other East Asians, and yes that's true, especially among older folks; but the one I knew was 1/8 of everything, including Chinese and Japanese and three varieties of local natives, and Norwegian and Irish - and she (not he) described herself, laughingly, as "an old chinaman"......re women in general, in the old pre-influx days in Vancouver, Chinese corner grocery stores ere institutions in all local neighbourhoods, and I remember while my aunt would refer to the woman running the store as "that old chinaman" (and not meaning it nicely) the more normal usage was "the Chinese lady" vs her husband "the Chinaman"; none of this is citable, partly because it's analysis, and as personal recollection/knowledge it's out of bounds in terms of article inclusion; it's just I know of lots of sources and usages which defy the pronouncements of the politicos; but there are few in-print criticism of the politicos, and it's only taht we can cite/add.....sufficde to say this article and certain related discussions have a long history; look for Bo Yang somewhere in the talkpage above, or in its archive, if there is one.......oh, about the US0-only stuff yes, I agree; Canadian citations are harder to come by, other than specifics of which placenames were wiped off the map and a brief flurry of denunciations from certain politicos....I've looked from time to time but there's not much on the web that's cite-usable, most of it's UseNet, whatever news coverage was being referred to in some discussions is not available; cf. Jenny Kwan, Victor Yukmun Wong, Ray Leung, can't remember who else; except that the Hon. David Lam downplayed it, stressing harmony as he always did....but as often in politicized environments, it's not usually the voices of moderation and common sense that get airtime as the strident and confrontational.....Bo Yang has an interesting line about something to do with that, "if you tell [a Chinese person] he's wrong about something, he will go and write a 50 page essay on the importance of conciliation and demand that you read it".....the phrase in square brackets is my substitution, I'll leave you to find his usage, which is in the title of the book that's from....Skookum1 (talk) 03:38, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
And it's not the US exporting its cultural baggage, it's clearly China that's doing that....and the US and Canada doing what they can to keep the trade ties functioning by kowtowing to every demand concerning "humiliation" of the Chinese; their own humiliation they seem unconcerned by.....such is the mark of a vassal state indebted to its empire...Skookum1 (talk) 16:07, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Oriental

Are the people who, out of the blue, declared Chinaman to be offensive the exact same people who, out of the blue, declared Oriental to be offensive, when neither word — Chinaman or Oriental — was in regular use as a pejorative?
Is this in fact a case like Canuck, which has never been negative in Canada, but apparently was used in that fashion in New England where it referred to immigrant factory labourers from Quebec?
Did a merely minor local phenomenon get expanded outward to encompass the rest of us?
I'm a half century old. I heard "Chinaman" used last week. I'm still waiting to hear someone, anyone, use it as a pejorative.

This article is notable for the lack of concrete examples of misuse of the term. It includes some wild assertions, and a lot of counterexamples.

In 2009, the term sounds quaint and old-fashioned. Rather than negative. There were offensive terms for Chinese. This term was not among them.
I distinctly remember when I first heard that Chinaman was "offensive". It was at the office in 1986 when a friend of mine informed me of this "fact".
I found it irksome then to be informed by a non-native speaker as to which words are taboo in my first language. We were carefully schooled as children on which words were good and which were bad, and Chinaman was never discouraged.
Varlaam (talk) 19:35, 14 November 2009 (UTC) (in Toronto)

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