Exactly how 'Chinese' is 'Chinese Speed-dating'?

Publicity photo for the home page of 'www.chinesespeeddates.co.uk'

As part of the UK speed-dating phenomena, since 03-May-2010 'www.chinesespeeddates.co.uk' takes place in the financial capital of the U.K, London, where for £20 and a total of 1hr 30 minutes, ethnic British Chinese city workers with working backgrounds such as Medicine, Engineering, Accountancy, and Law are given the opportunity to meet their potential ethnic Chinese spouse.

Exhibit A:

'Chinesespeeddates.co.uk'

One such event that regularly advertises on the British Born Chinese Facebook page is Chinese Speed Dates which describes itself as the following:

 "Chinese Speed Dates host stylish and trendy speed dating events for people with, or interested in meeting people, with an Chinese or oriental background."

From the above description, the actual event makes little sense - if 'Chinese Speed Dates' is aimed at Chinese, it should read ' for ethnic Chinese people only'. 

On the other hand, if the purpose is open invitation to white, black, brown, males and 'anyone' who wants to meet ethnic Chinese,  the obvious question is 'why'?

Above Image from the contact page .of the

 'Chinese Speed Dates' website

    Image from the 'Book now' page- Spot the 2 white males and one white female.

Concernedly, one wonders whether events like 'Chinese Speed Dates' run by web domain owner Brighton-based businesswoman Sutmung Cheung , presumably a white-washed British Chinese female, are deliberately designed to encourage interracial dating between ethnic Chinese.

Exhibit B:

'Chinesespeeddating.co.uk'

Here's  another similar event that takes place monthly at the Jewel Bar, Piccadilly Circus, London. Whilst it appears to be a 'free' event, as you can see from a selection of reviews, dated December 2011, from the following ethnic Chinese males, males are not allowed to find out their' matches' until they pay for it.

Lee:

'As for the girls, some very pretty, some interesting to chat to, and some both. All friendly and pleasant, but whether they 'tick' you is another story. It is difficult to win someone over in 4 minutes, and after the speeddating there was no mingling time as we were kicked out for the next age group to come in.

Overall, speed dating is good, but I have been to ones that are much better organised. You might argue this one was free, but its not really - its free to see how many girls said yes, but you cant find out whether they're the ones you liked - it doesnt give you your matches until you pay the 20 quid. And you cant contact each other til you've paid, either.'

<3:

'Four minutes, of course, goes by quickly in ...um...four minutes...so I ditch routine profiling (asking about jobs, hobbies, any prison record, etc.) in favour of cutting straight to the chase with insightful questions such as "Why so cute but single?", "Chinese or British Food?" and "I'm prepared to lie about how we met". Poor things. How can they resist my charm offensive?

I speak to some lovely ladies but there's a minority who seem to have a hard time accepting that they are at a speed dating event. Unfortunately, there are no ladders available for them to get over themselves, so they're stuck in ambivalence, reciting the "I'm just here because my friend asked me to come" speech. I'm sure it's just as boring for them to watch my eyes roll as it is for me to listen to this.'

Wan Lee:

'Beware Chinese Speed Dating is not for the faint hearted, you will see how two-faced some of these girls actually are, they may be pretty, smile and sound as if they are interested in you, but the next day when you get your results you will see that you are on their reject list, and they don't even want to be a friend at least?!

However a good experience as it is free, but don't forget to read the small print! ;)'

Knowing how segregated and dispersed Chinese are in Britain, gaping lack of tradition the majority of British Chinese have retained in their own culture such as 'arranged marriage', the deliberate British media mismatching and non-representation of ethnic Chinese couples; in the heart of the cosmopolitan capital, where a considerably higher concentration of Chinese diaspora exists than anywhere else in the UK,  it's shocking that not one canny ethnic Chinese businessman/woman has yet organized an ethnic 'Chinese only' dating event.

And with Chinese speed-dating clearly designed to attract Chinese women to find non-Chinese multi-racial partners...Chinese males, who are viewed only as a reluctant inclusion at such events, maybe ought to look elsewhere, for their ethnic Chinese female date.

Whilst most single females have no problem dating a non-Chinese, at  multiculturally designed events such as 'Chinese Speed-dating', what alternatives are there for  ethnic Chinese males who are serious about finding a Chinese female partner?

China’s Success Creates Further Racism For BBC's and China Nationals Living In The West

In Britain, there is no question that ethnic minorities are slowly finding their voices. Afro Caribbean Black people, African Black people, Indians and Pakistanis form sizable groups, all quite well established and more importantly proud of their individual status and also part of an ethnic group with its own culture.

Amidst all this, ethnic Chinese seem to form fragmented communities punctuated by Chinese supermarkets dotted around large cities where once a week or month, Chinese people may come together to do their shopping specific to their personal needs.

Dig deeper and it’s very evident that many younger Chinese are no longer going to these places to shop and more and more have merged into the host nation’s culture. This is natural of course, after all, we are all living in Britain and will form friendship with people indigenous to this country.

Please see below an article about our history, a study done in London 2009 to help find out the changing needs of the Chinese community within London. I’m sure many can recognise and relate to the findings:


Many cultures that have formed in Britain, the ethnic minorities that have grown strong in political power and religion tend to all have been part of the British empire. Yet China, no stranger to foreigners pillaging its treasures can still argue it had never officially been colonised. It’s this one single fact that I believe determines our struggle to gain acceptance and even respect.

The simple matter is many Chinese nationals enter this country quickly work their way up the social ladder through education or hard work. You compare this with other ethnic groups, and will quickly see that we can work our way up the ranks in job titles or in earning power. This is mimicked across all western developed countries too. A study in June 2012 conducted in America showed precisely how Asian Americans rose quickly up the ranks in a short space of time compared to other ethnic immigrants.


Based on these statistics alone, you would think that we would have more say and  respect, and yet Black Africans and Pakistanis can command more rights and respect which tells me two things. You need to be a victim (colonized before) or you need to show struggle to get something in life. The British love a sorry case. Both not really linked to the Chinese communities here in Britain.

Whilst we are busy integrating, China has been growing stronger. Many BBC's will have watched from far mostly disinterested in what’s happening. But unknown to many BBC's, the media in the meantime have been building a slow hate campaign against China. Only able to get away with it because of the sheer fact that the ‘challenger’ had never been colonized. The brazen press go into over-drive very often with little evidence, claiming China’s closed society as the reason for the sketchy research and potential lies.

China might be emerging and about to take on America. BBC's growing up here do not seem to form any kind of link or opinion on China. Probably thanks to our parents’ ignorant views on Mainlanders formed from decades before. I find it strange that many either are ignorant or ‘choose’ to not link or discuss things relating to China. Even this blog sometimes can be accused of failing to discuss China, which is very narrow minded since we all have a history, and it pays to understand the whys and where because in the end, to form a sub-culture or new culture, you need to have started from somewhere to get here.

Many BBC's fail to link this issue, and I believe failure to do this either comes from our upbringing because many of our parents are still riding this fake high believing it’s pre-1997 Hong Kong and being part of the empire makes them extra special. Many are ignorant towards China, almost distancing themselves, therefore creating this separation for us to believe to be true when half of the British population can’t tell China from Taiwan let alone Hong Kong. We are all Chinese to them…

Many minority groups in Britain are very interested in their history, whether vaguely or detailed. Many also have parents that have taught them to be very proud and stand up for their own rights as a minority. Chinese people living abroad tend to do the opposite. They tend to teach their kids to bury their heads and beaver away through education. I have even witnessed some telling their children to forget about their past.

What do we get in the end?  Someone who can perform in their jobs and earn a lot of money. But collectively, BBC's are possibly invisible, with no kind of culture or strong presence that speaks for the BBC's. Why? Because we have more or less adopted this country with our arms open. We do this because our parents did. We do not view this country with suspicion like other minority groups here do in Britain. The Empire thing helps to cement that suspicion. But for BBC's, we are led (falsely) to believe we are one of Britain’s specially protected regions. Simple fact is, hardly anyone knows the full difference of Hong Kong and China nowadays.

With our parents failing to teach us a full account of our own history. We blindly go about our days never asking the questions. Questions like: Why are we not looked upon with any kind of respect.  Why are we expected to take insults more readily and accept slurs at the drop of a hat.

The answer lies in China. It was never part of the empire and, now able to challenge the west on capitalism after years of manufacturing. The political powers and the media controllers are unable to contain themselves with the bitter jealousy. Even more annoying is the fact that China was not expected to rise in any shape or form, especially after communism.

BBC's in Britain can gain acceptance if they either merge themselves in British culture and clear themselves of any traces of Chinese heritage. Many BBC's are already more closely linked to British culture than Chinese culture. Quite a few play ignorant regarding anything to do with China. There are many that don’t want to discuss Falung Gong, Dalai Lama’s exile and the struggles of Uighurs’ independence etc, because they are deeply unpopular subjects for Britons rather than ourselves, possibly blurring our boundaries of BBC's and Mainland China.

My question is, by doing these things, it’s denial and turning down a chance to face head-on where we are in Britain. Why are so many highly educated staying silent on subjects that should be close to our hearts? Many ethnic minorities who are very passionate about their past, their heritage and yet, they are able to incorporate that in with their culture here in Britain. They then also enjoy the victim status awarded to them by the western nations, which Chinese nationals do not get because the Chinese are not victims but villains.

Why? Because we are not victims in the eyes of the west because we were never officially colonised. A problem for BBC's living in Britain today. Our voices are made even more weaker because we are actually viewed with suspicion.

A couple of cases proved this in America when ABC's were even accused of being spies when they were working for a computer chip company. Many of the allegations die down and you never hear from them again. Because they are unsubstantiated. Such headlines are now part of the norm because the media are normalising this image of untrustworthy Chinese people who cannot be trusted, even if they’re brought up in America. Chinese students that are highly educated are routinely accused of being spies for China if they so happen to make a tiny mistake for a computer company. If they hack, expect the police to be at their door within minutes.

Below are just some links and examples that are regularly littering the headlines and internet:

According to Sir James Dyson , ‘he thinks’ the Chinese come here to study for dubious reasons. To steal secrets for their own technology. These unchallenged claims are able to fill even the broad sheets, where one of Britain’s leading inventors  can openly accuse a whole nationality of such actions speaks volumes. Not only is it now some kind of an open secret, his claims are receiving nods from others too. He would certainly receive a reprimand very quickly if he had said Nigerians did that.


The Telegraph found time to tell us how the French intelligent service had warned how the pesky Chinese are partial to stealing information for company gain. Read the article carefully, and you soon recognise it’s an exercise to tell French companies to be more smarter since all techniques employed by the Chinese companies are perfectly within their rights. When the Chinese are smarter in business, they are spies apparently.


Finally, BBC’s highly in-depth report on ‘China’ sending thousands to developed countries to deliberately gather important data to help its development. They reluctantly accept that some are just rich families who want their children to do well, so choose to study abroad, but note, the general tone is Chinese only get to where they are because they are cheats and spies. China can’t get to where they are through merit, it has to be something sinister and nasty. More slanderous news reporting.


In the end, it means we as an ethnic group can be despised rather than admired. So for those that bury their heads, merging in with the host nation’s culture, thinking Britain will accept them, I think not. Not until the day China collapse, we will never have a sympathetic voice or able to draw government money to help with the Chinese communities because we are not one of Britain’s victims. Even more damaging, we may be witnessing a new-wave of racism directed at us, more intolerant and more blatant. All because of China’s ability to stand up without the hand-out and help of the west.

We as BBC's must admit this. Until we open our eyes and accept this, we will never have a fair voice. We need to rise up and fill the internet with pages of the media hatred and unjust reporting going on daily. We need to wake up from the comfortable surroundings and understand that if we believed in equality as the western education taught us, we need to look closer for equality.

If we don’t start now, in a decade’s time, we may be seeing full-on hatred. People from the streets, our colleagues and neighbours could one day turn against us, all because of our failure to speak up and say how we feel and utilise our knowledge of our rights and demand respect and fair reporting. It’s time for BBC's to fight back, show pride in ourselves and our ethnicity here and in China.

(By Guest Blogger- BBCNewAgenda is a British Born Chinese Female living in the UK)

Do BBC's Occupy A Lonely On-line Condition?

From the rabid idiotic posturing of the British Born Chinese Facebook page, to mundane mother-at-home  forum tips on how to save money, on-line culture for BBC's is a trivial way of passing time, and anything but a potent force of critical or creative intellectualism.

But when it comes to on-line blogging, a real chance for our geographically dispersed ethnic group to voice opinions that can help shape our unique social identity, it is an opportunity, that is regrettably squandered...

That said, in my opinion, here are the top 5 blogs that epitomize the loner state of BBC on-line social identity.

Sitting comfortably? Let us commence:

            TOP OF THE BBC LONER BLOGS 

...comfortably gliding into 5th place is....

5:  BBC Expat Living in Macau

 http://bbcexpat.blogspot.co.uk/

For many BBC and ethnic Chinese males, technology is an obsession.It's almost as if the incessant fascination with society's latest fad gadget is there to occupy the dull hollow void of their own ethnic social identity.

A random blog found whilst perusing profiles of the British Chinese On-line forum, the murmurings of the self declared 'BBC Expat Living in Macau' are of a classic BBC techie-geek nature. To date, the blog's one article on gadgets - yes, to be precise, Setting-up Data for Smart phones (Android)/i Phones in Macao, and a rambling article about his honeymoon in Macao, which he has deleted, since the original writing of this article. But the proof is below.

4: Mr Andy Lo

http://opinionscount1987.blogspot.co.uk/

Mr. Lo has been a follower of this blog since the very beginning. However it's dubious as to whether he has ever commented on BBC Zeitgeist. And upon closer inspection of his on-line self musings,  it's not hard to see why he probably wouldn't... he's a football obsessive.

3: Almost Witty 

http://www.almostwitty.com/

Whilst dull pictures of architecture and tediously geeky technology related articles, are the norm here, 'Almost Witty' describes himself as:

"a reluctantly thirty-something father in London mildly obsessed by the web, film, comedy, media, pop/digital culture, people and randomness."

'Almost Witty' is a perfect example of a middle-class white-washed comfortably apolitical BBC in social identity denial. Convenient also, is how this pathetically musing BBC works for that Sinophobic white-centric institution, also known as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

One of the most commented articles was giving Hong Kong government 'handout advice'.Yes, that classic pacifier of  British Chinese political activism, and avoidance of racial and ethnic accountability...'money talk'.

2: ChroniclesOfXepher

http://chroniclesofxepher.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/august-austerity.html

In his 'about' section, the Chronicles Of Xepher cringe-worthily describes himself as a:

 'God fearing, mother loving, British born Chinese procrastinator extraordinaire with a slightly melancholic outlook of life looking for a bit more direction and self control.'

As the self-absorbed maestro of procrastination and melancholy shares with us, his blog is indeed a platform to mainly archive his long standing hobby' And what a boring platform it is.

Like many on-line BBC's, this nerdy collector of 'Wraith Lords', 'Dark Elder Helions', and lead miniatures apparently has no interest in his ethnic Chinese social identity and like many on-line BBC's, despite having a creative hobby, ultimately holds interest in becoming yet another a cypher for white geek culture.

and at the number one spot we have...

1: Biancarosa

http://beancah.blogspot.co.uk/

From the tiny peace sign embedded next to her URL to the neatly arranged ' wacky but only in acceptable portions' passport-size photo duck-lip collective on the top right hand of her home page, Biancarosa Cheung or 'Beancah' as she fondly appears to like to be known as, is a:

 'British Born Chinese daydreamer since Nov'1992 , studying Economics at University and enjoys the miscellaneous things in life'

With 49 members, Biancarosa deserves the number one spot for being the ultimate cool little BBC girl , with her pretty little blog perched comfortably in the narcissistic 20-something corner of the Internet cyberspace. Indeed, one need look no further for piteous, but perfectly cake-moulded girly self- indulgent insipidness, than her September entry entitled 'Goodbye September' that shares with us her 'September goal list'

1. Cook a 3 course meal from scratch

2. Blog at least every other day

3. Write a handwritten letter to someone

4. Learn new skills on Photoshop

5. Give my parents a call once a week 

Ho hum. So far, so overachieving 'Model Minority'. Is there even the slightest modicum of interest found within the pathetic warbling of this goal-keeping bore? Perusing her other posts we can find other similar banal entries such as 'Back to School' 'Outfits for university and college' '32 questions to get to know her' 'Beauty and non-beauty' and 'Hello Canterbury'  ( presumably a reference to the University she currently attends).

Yes, yet another BBC spoilt by her hard-working, but illiterate FOB parents who have scrimped and saved for her British Chinese white-washing assimilation dream come true, it wouldn't be an over-generalization to assume that in a few year's time, we can admire Biancarosa the Canterbury-educated graduate, having successfully passed the school of white-washing with flying colours, parading the echelons of the City Of London with her stereotypical self-effacing, but comfortably high-earning white male professional, in arm.

Knowing how BBC's have little culture to talk about, it would in some ways be more logical for these same BBC bloggers to take up that challenge.

Instead of recognizing this, however, these BBC bloggers choose only to share the misunderstood predicament of their consumer lifestyle than take time to share and discuss our social predicament.

Like certain BBC Facebook pages, many of these loner blogs have 'friends' that have not commented in ages. 

No doubt, the first typical defensive BBC knee jerk reaction would be to remark ' Are you trying to make out this is a competition'? Typically, missing the point.

From the above cross-section of examples, we can see BBC blogs are vapid exercises of consumer-led tedium rather than of creative or social relevance.

With that said , it's time to... 

Cue the music

If we exclusively choose to endorse characteristics of a navel-gazing pathetic on-line loner, it's no wonder BBC's don't have a defined ethnic social identity. And if blogs are the best way for BBC's to share their thoughts with others on-line, why not choose to share a common value, rather than drivelling out of self-interest? 

PSY Gangnam Style

PSY Gangnam Style made history as the first East Asian pop single to make it to number one in the Official UK Top 40 Singles Chart over the weekend.

Gangnam Style Youtube Video has attracted 3billion hits worldwide

Whilst naive British East Asians jump for joy that another East Asian FOB cultural craze has taken off in Britain, The Guardian's Arwa Mahdawi in her article 'Whats So Funny About Gangnam Style' explains Gangnam Style success in the west and hits home the reality of media representation of East Asian men in British society...

'South Korean Park Jae-sang ("Psy" for short) is promoting upmarket frocks and luxury fridges is somewhat ironic, considering Gangnam Style's lampooning of the rampant consumerism that pervades what has been described as South Korea's Beverly Hills. The song's lyrics, for example, poke fun at soybean-paste girls who eat cheaply in private so that they can afford to drink mocha frappe lattes in public. Of course, this social commentary is largely lost on non-Korean speakers who don't know their kimchi from their Kim Lee; it's hardly Gangnam Style's political message that is behind its success in the west.'

'Gangnam Style is just an over-the-top video where a fat man does a comical dance and sings repetitive lyrics that don't make sense to most of us. Which basically describes every Flo Rida song ever. This is partly the point of the video, which parodies not just cultural mores specific to South Korea, but cultural excesses easily recognisable to western viewers. Gangnam Style's lyrics may be in Korean, but its visuals are in clear American.'

'The last time the west laughed so uproariously at a Korean singer was when an animated Kim Jong-il bewailed how "ronery" he was in the film Team America, and how nobody took him "serirousry". The puppet had a point: popular western media doesn't tend to take east Asian men seriously – even when they're brutal dictators. The stereotype of a portly, non-threatening Charlie Chan-type who speaks "comical" English is still very much alive, apparent in everything from hungry Kim Jong-un memes to Abercrombie and Fitch T-shirts. And it's hard to escape the uncomfortable feeling that this stereotype is contributing something to the laughter around Gangnam Style.'

Other Article:  UK X Factor Representation of East Asian Men