The Tokyo Olympics has been taking a lot of my attention now that it’s finally arrived, and I’m glad it seems to be running well, with few health issues even though Tokyo outside of the Olympics is suffering from an increase in Covid-19 infections. I hope the competition can continue, and that the Paralympics in several weeks can also be...
As I write this, the “2020” Tokyo Olympic Games are just two weeks away. It’s the second time the summer games have been held in Japan. I was a kid living in Japan when Tokyo hosted its first Olympics, from October 10-24, 1964. It was a big deal for all Japanese, and for me and my family – a Hawaii-born Nisei...
Asian Americans (and Asians around the world) should be up in arms about this. Yet another "official" photo has been found, of an Olympic team posing with its members pulling back their eyes to make them slanted. This time it's four members of the Argentine Women's Soccer Team, mocking their Chinese hosts in a photo in a national sports magazine....
OK, I had to post these two photos, in which Spanish athletes mock Chinese by pulling back their eyes to make them slanty -- ha ha ha.
The first is a posed shot of of the Spanish Olympic basketball team. It was used in an ad in a Spanish newspaper, which calls into question not only the photographer, athletes and team management's judgment, but also the national newspaper's staff and management. The second photo is of the Spanish tennis team, celebrating after defeating the Chinese to go on to the Fed Cup finals earlier this year.
Man, I haven't seen that done since I was in grade school -- in the mid-1960s, when the expression was "enhanced" by the person sticking out his (or her, apparently) buck teeth and speaking in a heavy, phony Asian accent, saying crap like "ah-so!" and "herro, I solly, no tickee no laundoree."
You'd think we'd moved past that kind of third-grade cruelty by now, but nope. Not in Spain, anyway.
What were they thinking? Are racial mocking stereotypes acceptable in Spain where they're frowned upon here? Do Chinese athletes go around finding ways to mock Spanish athletes?
These photos disgust me.
