I certainly never claimed that whatever offense this figure may have caused is somehow equivalent to the horrors of WWII Germany, I was making the point that it is the link with HISTORY that makes people feel uncomfortable or feel that something is inappropriate. For a long time in the USA Asians were caricatured in the media with receding hairlines, sometimes bucktooth, but generally for Asian men assexualised and/or made into an example of an evil exotic menace, also including when Japanese Americans were sent to internment camps during WWII.

Mister Wong’s appearance is disturbingly reminiscent of the type of assexualised ‘nerd’ type stereotyping that occurred which was associated with a time when Asians in America did not have the same property or civil rights as white Americans. It smacks of the ignorance of the time that an Asian or Black or Jewish person could actually have the same rights let alone the same diversity within their own racial/ethnic groups that ‘white’ people do. Interestingly a white person never has to define themselves as white in countries like America and Australia as they are the ‘norm’, the ‘happy medium’, yet if a person is anything other than white this extra definition seems to need to be added to it. This is why a cartoon of a ‘white person’ is not taken as offense because no one actually believes that there is a stereotypical look for a white person because we can appreciate the huge genetic diversity within this group.

Nicole sees a man who seems kind and clever; I have travelled in China and on occasion see men who may possibly resemble a de-caricatured version of Mister Wong (if I use my imagination) and some of them have turned out to be kind and/or clever and others haven’t. It seems so childish from my Australian point of view to draw such a strange conclusion of principles of kindness and cleverness from the image of Mister Wong for me, but that is probably because I live in Sydney where there are many Asians around and I can actually differentiate between them and most of them don’t actually look like this overweight, balding nerdish fellow, and those that do are not necessarily kind and.or clever

I actually don’t really understand what Oliver is talking about half the time because he seems to be so convinced that I’m going to attack everything he says, which I’m actually not. If this was such an open-minded discussion he wouldn’t need to use such an inflammatory tone; for example: “Now, do you want to claim that the fact that they used a stylized version of their chief economist’s face a discrimination of people of Chinese ancestry, just because with his suit, his receding hairline and his, in the stylized version, rather yellowish skintone, he looks a bit like the old logo?” I don’t even understand his point in saying this, because I’m not trying to claim half the things he seems to think I am. And yes, I will be discriminatory in my next point; that perhaps it’s not wise to argue with someone who is not only stubborn but clearly doesn’t share the same native language (mine is English).

By the way, where you say my argument is supposedly ‘destroyed’ and shows evidence of my discrimination against Germany; yes I have made an assumption based on the majority of German responses I’ve seen on the net about this issue that perhaps their views (i.e. the same as yours) is somehow representative of the broader majority of German cultural views. If you are a minority in Germany on this view, then I apologise. But hypothetical, if your views do represent the majority then I feel I can make that claim that Germany – or rather, the majority of German society – must be behind as citizens in the world, in terms of THIS issue. And that would be of no ones fault, because Germany simply does not have the ethnic and racial diversity that some of the English speaking non-European countries such as Australia or the USA, and hence lacks the general cultural awareness that others might.

I hate to think I may have implied that somehow the USA is in front of Germany as a citizen of the world because if anything the USA would be behind as a citizen of the world with their poor record on most things not the least, of the environment, support of renewable energy resources, separation of religion from political issues, etc, which clearly Germany would be ahead of on many of these fronts.

Phew, I’m scared to push the send button because on Oliver’s track record there’s sure to be some more potentially nonsensical and overreacting comments from him at least.

What truly destroys your credibility, however, is something else: You claim to argue against discrimination, but at the same time use a huge brush to paint not just one or the other German but “Germany” as “behind as citizens of the world”. What, please, is that other than discrimination? Funnily enough, you say so even when addressing people who have lived on another continent and work in an overseas company.

Your suggestion that my argument about Chinese-Americans has something to do with race=country beliefs boggles the mind. I referred to the size of the population. It is totally irrelevant whether that population is connected to any race, country, or other characteristic. If you believe that a company strives to please everyone, I cannot call your ideas anything else but naive. It’s not their job to please everyone. It’s their job to generate money. And as long as stepping on someone’s toes doesn’t hurt business, they have no obligation of caring. All the more one should be thankful if they actually care enough. I certainly couldn’t see that in Ernie and Janko’s responses, or those of others irate about the logo.

Most importantly, however, I never shot down anyone else’s experience. Quite the contrary. The key point, however, is that experience is something very subjective and applies to noone else but oneself. The person who does the discrimination is the one applying such experience to everyone and his granny, regardless of whether they have a sound basis for doing so or not. The point to keep in mind is that simply because I make an association with something doesn’t mean that anyone else actually does. Thus, it is false to claim that I am dismissing anyone’s experience. I am warning against using it as the sole applicable ledger in judging people, especially people one doesn’t know. It’s using a screwdriver to drive in a nail, and in the end, it is, itself, discrimination. What it is, essentially, in the present case is using a logo as a Rorschach test, and as such, if anything at all, is more telling of the personality of those who see something specific in it, than those who made it.

Want to know my association with the old logo? A while ago, instead of this photo http://www.ftd.de/wirtschaftswunder/imgs/fricke_.jpg
the Financial Times Germany used a somewhat stylized version. It bore a cunning resemblance to the old logo. Now, do you want to claim that the fact that they used a stylized version of their chief economist’s face a discrimination of people of Chinese ancestry, just because with his suit, his receding hairline and his, in the stylized version, rather yellowish skintone, he looks a bit like the old logo?

How unfortunate that this desire can’t be extended to all readers and the author herself. It seems that Nicole, Oliver and Klaus are so assured of their own moral compasses that they can’t accept that perhaps it really is a 2 way street: the figure offended some Asian AND non-Asian Americans due to American history so if a company is going global it is probably not wise or respectful to continue with this figure. But at the same time said Asian Americans should appreciate that it wasn’t purposely perpetrated, but rather fostered through a less culturally and ethinically diverse upbringing and society.

Racism has a huge and fluid spectrum, and is far from objective, so it’s not useful to use the lack of offense taken by some Asian parties as evidence that the other Asian parties are overreacting. Just because the former group may not be offended, this should not lessen or diminish the feelings of the latter group. If we really did consider everyone to be equal, that is.

Things do not have to be on such an obtuse and extreme of Ku Klux Klan mob lynching of African Americans or the Holocaust atrocities in Nazi Germany to still be racial discrimination.

As mentioned before, the actual figure is a bit disturbing to many in countries such as the USA and Australia because it is reminiscent of a very culturally backward and ignorant time in our country’s histories, but also bemusing because it reflects how behind Germany is in some aspects such as this one, as ‘citizens of the world’.

Just as a Jewish person may be offended by a proud neo-Nazi hand salute, so may a non-Jewish German person even though that action does not directly discriminate against them. As an Australian I am offended by that even though I am neither Jewish or German and have no direct links or experience with Nazi history. I am offended because I am ‘human’ and those that suffered were ‘human’ and those that would be directly offended by that now are also ‘human’ and I believe that we are all significant.

And for Oliver saying that as Chinese-Americans are a nearly insignificant part of the market for a company going global, it really drives home to me how much the race = country beliefs are ingrained in European countries as opposed to ‘new countries’ like my own, Australia. I can easily imagine that in the USA a Chinese American has as much right to feel undiscriminated as a non-Chinese American, because they are American first and foremost. And a non-Chinese American can also be offended even though it does not directly offend them because they are both Americans and human beings.

Yes people can get too sensitive and people can be splitting hairs and definitions of racism or what should be interpreted as such but it always pays to be attempt to be, as best possible, considerate of everyone’s feelings whether you understand them or not, because often things like bullying can start small and insignificant and unintended to be discrimination or offense but unchecked can become easily become all those things.

I’m not saying that you have to be treading on eggshells in order not to offend, because I have noticed that there is a bit of over-the-top PC-ness in the USA which has actually sometimes resulted in more tolerance as opposed to acceptance, and less communication occurring as a consequence. But rather I am suggesting that both parties would be wise to not shoot down the other’s experience so quickly. I noticed that Ernie actually seemed to be trying very hard to be even-handed in his responses but Oliver was quite adamant to dismiss Ernie and Janko’s views immediately.

You do realize that Lucky Luke is set in America, and poking fun at stereotypes found in Westerns?

>To prove my point I referenced two cultures that folks in Germany are far more sensitive about and questioned whether the Mister Wong folks would have used caricatures of representatives of those cultures. I still hope they wouldn’t. And in that case they shouldn’t have done so with other cultures either.

No, you referenced things that went way beyond a cartoonish representations, you used a specific name, even.

>Ohh, what stereotypes, you might ask? Again, I recommend reading before writing. In my first comment I said “the stereotype of the quiet, always friendly and helpful servant”. Like a guy that is smiling while his back is bent. Familiar picture?

Yes, but not in our context, alas. It seems more an issue of seeing things -jumping to conclusions, it’s called.

>Mashable.com has 175000 RSS subscribers, so companies should listen to anything that makes for some serious discussion over there.

Subscribers don’t necessarily share the idea that this issue is worth the ruckuss, and it’s very bad style to claim to speak for some “silent majorities”.

>Remind me to take you to Monterey Park if you ever make it to Los Angeles so you can get familiar with this nearly insignificant part of the market. :)

Thanks, but I’ve been to LA. May I remind you that the latest numbers of the US census are a bit more sensible to use in a discussion? Asian Americans pose 4.3% of the US population. And for Mr. Wong, only that part is relevant that actually uses the internet in such a regular fashion that the service is of interest. Which leaves us with what? Asians may pose a majority in Monterey Park, but that’s far from posing a majority in several states, as Hispanics do.

>But again, my point was that this isn’t simply about Asian-American sensitivities, because the same kind of stereotypes exist in Europe as well. And that a company should be extra-sensitive about poking fun at other people, especially when it comes to their branding strategy. I’d think this would be a no brainer. But I guess I can’t help you if you really can’t comprehend that.

The point here is the “poking fun” part. You’re claiming that someone is treated in such a fashion. More, you’re claiming that it is done in a negative fashion.

I also get the impression that you don’t follow branding issues too much. Mitsubishi’s Pajero was relabelled practically exclusively in countries with a significant spanish-speaking population, and likely only because the Spanish-Speaking world is quite significant, and thus the losses with an inappropriate name would be significant and a relabelling had to happen anyway for spanish-speaking countries. Spanish is spoken by about 5% of the population of the world, which is a bit more than the not-quite 5% of the US market that Asian-Americans pose. Your “no-brainer” is none. Companies take care about things that pose a SIGNIFICANT threat to their bottom line. Example: The fact that Anheuser-Busch/Budweiser is considered a piss-poor brew by just about 95% of Germans doesn’t faze the company the least. Their performance in Germany is insignificant compared to overall sales, and even if only 90% of Germans would stay away from it, their bottom line wouldn’t be influenced on a global scale in such a way that it would be worth the hassle. Compare to Guinness: They sell quite a lot in Germany, and because they know that plenty a German still insists on the beer purity regulations, and before the EU stepped in, they were mandatory to call something beer, the stuff that Guinness used to export to Germany was brewed according to German beer purity regulations. In one case, it makes an influence on the bottom line, in the other, it doesn’t. You can find Irish pubs all over Germany, whereas Budweiser exists practically exclusively within eyesight of US barracks or in specialty pubs which pride themselves in having beer from all over the world (even if they don’t sell a bottle a month of a specific brand).

It seems you can’t see that what you (or Ernie) is doing here is far from fighting stereotypes, but rather promoting them. No stereotypes of ethnic minorities, but those of the people who expect the rest of the world to behave according to their expectations.

I work at the subsidiary of a japanese company. We’re not expected to bow. Not to our superiors, not even to the Japanese CEO. Rather, he is very open and ready to shake-hands. We have very flat hierarchies and while of course the European employees take care not to step on anyone’s toes too much, at the same time, the Japanese employees realize that you have to give as well as take and that internationally, you have to compromise. This -the readiness to compromise- is totally absent from your side of the discussion. Kai removed the character, period, not just for his US presence but altogether, and still it is depicted as if that was the most obvious thing to do and not a sign of goodwill of any kind. If you think you’re propagating cross-cultural understanding in such a fashion, you’re sorely mistaken. You’re doing the precise opposite.

Then I said that these stereotypes – even though they do exist – aren’t as openly discussed, mostly due to the fact that there are fewer Asians, especially in Germany. That also means fewer people who would call bullshit on this stuff, and more people being less sensitive.

To prove my point I referenced two cultures that folks in Germany are far more sensitive about and questioned whether the Mister Wong folks would have used caricatures of representatives of those cultures. I still hope they wouldn’t. And in that case they shouldn’t have done so with other cultures either.

Ohh, what stereotypes, you might ask? Again, I recommend reading before writing. In my first comment I said “the stereotype of the quiet, always friendly and helpful servant”. Like a guy that is smiling while his back is bent. Familiar picture?

Just a few more things:

> As for “markets being conversations”, I think you should check your numbers a bit.
> A handful of bloggers getting all riled up and spewing venom isn’t “the market talking”.

Mashable.com has 175000 RSS subscribers, so companies should listen to anything that makes for some serious discussion over there.

> “You demand that others should research on chinese-American sensitivities, despite the fact that for a > company going global, they are a nearly insignificant part of the market.”

Remind me to take you to Monterey Park if you ever make it to Los Angeles so you can get familiar with this nearly insignificant part of the market. :)

But again, my point was that this isn’t simply about Asian-American sensitivities, because the same kind of stereotypes exist in Europe as well. And that a company should be extra-sensitive about poking fun at other people, especially when it comes to their branding strategy. I’d think this would be a no brainer. But I guess I can’t help you if you really can’t comprehend that.

you have to decide: Either Lucky Luke is an example for your argument — then Iznogoud is as well — or it isn’t. What you’re currently doing is dodging and weaseling as best as you can and refusing to stand behind your own arguments.

The same with the Jew example: You provided a scenario, I debunked the scenario for three reasons, you pick out ONE of them and try to make a case out of it. If you don’t have the guts to stand by your points, then, alas, a discussion with you is patently impossible.

I also note that once more, you throw vapour of “certain stereotypes”, but are still unable to specify them.

As for “markets being conversations”, I think you should check your numbers a bit. A handful of bloggers getting all riled up and spewing venom isn’t “the market talking”. This isn’t an issue of “bottom line being more important than logo”, but of a company going the extra mile. Unfortunately, true to your complete lack of sense of proportion, instead of recognizing that, you suggest that instead of courtesy, this was something proscribed by natural law. And this is the basic point why your side fails to convince: You show a total lack of sense of proportion and expect goodwill from everyone while failing to show any yourself. Your criticism is entirely destructive, devoid of any constructive suggestions. You demand that others should research on chinese-American sensitivities, despite the fact that for a company going global, they are a nearly insignificant part of the market, while at the same time, you yourself are unwilling to do research of your own. Neither do you care about cultural sensitivities of anyone else, nor did you have any idea what you were saying when you proclaimed “facts” such as “people should make fun of themselves first” which you weasel out of with the next draw of your breath because you have to realise they cannot be upheld. You never meant it anyway.

You’re incapable of supporting your position with solid arguments, no you’re incapable of supporting your position, period. You’re throwing vaporware at us, non-arguments that you never had the intention to actually stand behind. Lucky Luke was evidence, then suddenly it isn’t. People should make fun of themselves first, but when they do, it suddenly isn’t an argument either. Plain and simply: You’re ranting for ranting’s sake. You’re just seeking for something to get riled up about.

1. Company decides that it would be a great idea to use a stereotypical Chinese guy for their branding.

2. Company wants to expand to the US market.

3. US bloggers object to the stereotypical Chinese guy.

4. Company decides that the US market is more important to their bottom line than their logo.

Sounds like a good example for the old mantra of markets being conversations to me, doesn’t it?

Alas, Iznogoud: It’s a work of art that establishes a context in which it operates and explains itself. You can’t compare that to company branding either: Mister Wong isn’t developing a character and in turn using this character to poke fun at stereotypes. Mister Wong is offering a service branded by a character that in this case expresses certain stereotypes.

Regarding the Jew example: So it would be okay to use the character if I didn’t know that it is a negative depiction? Or should I maybe do some research and see how other people feel about it?

Your following example is highly misleading: First, it uses a name that will immediately, by anyone worldwide, be associated with one specific person. Second, it uses a field of business that both historically is associated with the group alluded to AND even today has a very ambiguous reputation. Second, you use a graphic depiction that is intentionally -not accidentally- drawn as being a negative depiction.

As for “sticking to making fun of yourself first”, I call you dishonest. “first” implies that there is a “then you can”. But that is not at all what you argue. You argue “not ever”. And you are obviously quite ignorant of the fact that -as taz points out- we not only have stereotypes of ourselves, we have no problem poking fun at the stereotypes of us and/or simply answer being made fun of by making fun of the others in return. At least among the internet generation, no German will get furious if taz addresses him as a Piefke. He’ll laught and call taz something else in return. More: Many a German hase no hesitation of humorously referring to themselves as a “Boche” in France, or as “Kraut” in an english-speaking environment (as in “Yeah, yeah, I know, the stupid Kraut screwed up again”). Why? Because that’s the best way to take the edge out of an insult: Don’t treat it as one and make fun of it instead.

This, I think, is the main issue: You speak of “ethnicity whose sensitivities you don’t understand” but the main objection seems to come not from Asians, but from asian-Americans, as Ernie points out above in the specific context of connotations caused by American media. This, however, is not “an ethnicity”, but a rather small fraction of one that has lived in a specific sociocultural context. Sorry to say, but it reeks of misguided overcompensation for discrimination suffered.