Discussion Chinese novel and racism

Discussion in 'Novel Discussion' started by gegehehe8686, Dec 31, 2020.

  1. gegehehe8686

    gegehehe8686 Active Member

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    I just dropped I Am A Prodigy due to nationalism/racism and need to vent. I've got nothing against patriotism but I loathe when an author shows off their nationalism/racism.

    I just can't stand when an author (almost always Chinese) starts telling me how all members of this race or that race all share these awful traits. I understand you don't like your neighbors. You've spent 5000 years being assholes to each other. Hating each other is normal. But don't use that as an excuse for lazy writing!

    To some degree, done correctly, characters can be racist. Plenty of real people are racist so there's a degree of realism. But there's a huge difference between adding some realism to your writing and being a racist yourself. It leads to unpleasant, poor quality writing. So frustrating when an otherwise enjoyable story has this bullcrap.
     
  2. NothingIsEternal

    NothingIsEternal Active Member

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    Your are right, a lot of chiniese novel are have Nationalism/Rascim, but for real pepole read them and author don't stop cause they still make money of it. And you know whit the gouvernement of modern china its pretty normal to have author that got brainwash from ther youth. But, it's still very laughable and I can't figure out how he thinks because at the level of Narcissism they're at the top of the basket.

    Btw, if you see Modern World (Marital Arts) in tags you have a lot of chance to get Nationalism.


    - Happy New Years 2021
     
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  3. remy911

    remy911 ┗|`o′|┛ Staff Member

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    On a slight tangent, I get a kick reading about how the Americans are usually the bad guys in almost every Chinese or Korean novel. Japanese novels seem to be mixed, maybe cause Japanese are always the bad guys in Chinese and Korean novels too... :blobrofl:
     
  4. 222222

    222222 12121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212

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    Totally agree. Hate it when author makes Country Z or City A the bad guy.

    Just because the country is named after a letter and isn’t an actual country in reality, doesn’t make it less racist.
     
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  5. yorozuyaginchan

    yorozuyaginchan Well-Known Member

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    There was a novel where the MC, a student who is also a cultivator kills multiple civilians in an airport in Japan and feels proud because he feels he's gotten revenge for the war crimes Japan committed during WW2.

    Another novel, where the MC states that Indian soldiers played all kinds of tricks to try to take over Chinese territory when it's the reverse in real life.

    Another novel shows hordes of mindless demonic beasts attacking a territory speaking Japanese.

    So I hate novels that show racism in the name of showing nationalism.
     
  6. Lazriser

    Lazriser Well-Known Member

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    Get on with the program, even JP and KR do this.
     
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  7. Bloodysin28

    Bloodysin28 The victim of true evil that is reality

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    What did u expect from a country worse than nazi germany.
     
  8. ToastedRossi

    ToastedRossi Well-Known Member

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    所谓商品,就是德国人发明,美国人制造,日本人小型化,中国人山寨,韩国人写文章证明起源于韩国。
    "When it comes to consumer goods, it can be said that they are invented by Germans, built by Americans, modified by Japanese, copied by Chinese, and somewhere Koreans are writing that it originated in Korea"

    This quote is mostly a joke, but I think it goes a long way to showing how Chinese racism works. They are generally broad stereotypes take a grain of truth and blow it up to be fully representative of everyone in a demographic. Yes, it can be very frustrating to read but it seems to be more born out of ignorance than out of malice. Chinese people tend to be pretty insular so the only exposure they tend to have to other cultures is either the news or through films (mostly Chinese and Hollywood). Better educated authors do this a lot less so you'd have better luck sticking with the better writers.

    Interestingly, the Americans are actually the friendliest nationality in the book I'm currently reading. Of course it takes place during the 1910s so that only makes sense but it really does depend on what you read.
     
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  9. gary0044187

    gary0044187 Well-Known Member

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    I mean, by now the gross nationalism/racism has almost become a meme. people don't even require evidence of it now because most people have seen it enough to start just letting them all blend in as kinda expected. by now if I actually ran into a story where the author didn't make people of other countries out to be automatic enemies, I would be surprised. what's weird is how the chinese companies that are hosting these stories don't realize it might not be a good idea to share this bigoted writing from their countrymen. especially when some of these stories include acts of genocide, mass rape, and more and the author makes the perpetrator out as a great patriotic hero.
     
  10. Nightow1

    Nightow1 Well-Known Member

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    They ain't that bad. Yet. Remember, racism can work both ways.

    In a more nuanced view of history, if not for a disasterous foreign policy, Hitler would probably have been hailed as the best leader Germany got. If not for his foreign "adventures", he turned their economy around, rebuilt their military, got back lands lost to France and more or less united the country. If he did not go bother other countries, he would have been called a hero.
     
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  11. gary0044187

    gary0044187 Well-Known Member

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    are we ignoring all the people he had murdered even before he started sending them all to camps?
     
  12. Thousandswords

    Thousandswords SWORD OF PENETRATION

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    Read history... you'll know why
     
  13. TiggerBane

    TiggerBane Always asleep yep yep yep| Canidae lover

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    Yes we would. What we wouldn't ignore is the outstanding debt.

    Also everyone knows that Chinese novels can't be racist silly op. They aren't white after all. /s
     
  14. Killgore

    Killgore Barely existing

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    I once had read a novel where the author kept talking about how Huaxia was the best nation in the world and all of the people from Huaxia are the world leaders and how they are at the top followed by talking down on the country by their looks and how everyone prefers people from Huaxia cuz they are most beautiful..Immediately dropped it.

    Then I realised that a lot of novels have racism but some of them are very subtle. It's just like when people talk about cultivation and tries to justify the righteous side when both are in the wrong.

    And if the main character went abroad then he would be bullied by the foreigners, only to give a massive face-slapping back but I have also read novels where they are friends with foreigners.

    I just close one eye and read and if it gets too horrible, then just drop.
     
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  15. Khatulistiwa

    Khatulistiwa An Egg Eternal

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    Fang Yuan from Reverend Insanity once praised Western Civilization as the biggest contributor of the advancement of modern world, then i heard the novel got banned by Chinese's Government
     
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  16. Epythymy

    Epythymy Well-Known Member

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    I don't know why lots of people complain about it. It's not like you need to take it seriously.

    Personally, I find it hilarious most of the time. Not a humiliation on personal level, but a bigger picture described in most of the novels, especially in Koreans. It's fucking fun to see how, one way or another, Korea will become a supreme, #1 country in the world. Korean authors sure know how to dream big.
     
  17. aShinyVaporeon

    aShinyVaporeon Well-Known Member

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    I heard it was more because Fang Yuan promoted anarchy. In any case it was a very unique piece of work, that alone is probably not the reason it got banned.

    A lot of CN & KR novels really hate Japan...I've read some CNs where the MC will get along with Japanese or American characters, but so far every KR seems to hate Japan. Well, there are a lot of CN fanfics/derivatives of JP media, so it makes sense that not all CN authors would hate Japan. Dunno about Korea though. Could be that I haven't read enough.
    And I guess I haven't read enough JP novels, all the ones I read don't have the MC interact with foreigners.

    Personal opinion: If a country/empire/whatever isn't specifically named to be Japan, China, the US, Korea, etc., then I try to judge it without looking at the countries IRL, even if they really resemble each other. So I'll just pass judgements on it as if it was completely fictional. You gotta have some level of suspension of disbelief with this kind of fiction.
    A lot of people are over-sensitive to nationalism...I think, unless it turns into racism/countryism territory, where they are judged guilty simply due to their nationality/ethnicity/sins of their ancestors, I can brush it over. (well, unless it gets reaaaally bad.)
     
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  18. Feng Tian

    Feng Tian Well-Known Member

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    His good economic policies were mostly just implemented by the previous government (its not like those guys were incompetent) or build on hyper inflation, aka worthles. Even without agressive wars he would be responsible for millions of deaths. The only way he would be remembered positively would be winning WW 2, because the winners write history. To this day the vast majority of germans are fucking glad they lost that war, and that the US wasn't the bunch of militaristic assholes (talking only about the governments here) focused purely on economic gain they are now. This "nuanced" world view you speak of is the exact way nazi propaganda works, pretending that there is anything salvageable done by them as a collective

    In regards to asia: The grievances there are still quite severe. Europe overcame its past of (constant) warfare against each other, which is quite surprising given the latest one was WW 2, but in asia its a bit different. Japan never formerly apologized for its outright crimes against humanity, which were arguably on par with the atrocities of the nazis, and the historic tensions between japan, korea and china are no joke to begin with. There is no effort to bury the past as something to be remembered but never repeated.
    For example:
    Germanies Grundgesetz (basic law) is one of the most humanistic constitutions on the planet, as it is one of the youngest among the western nations and was created with the horrors of WW 2 still being quite recent. Naturally free speech is considered very important in it. But there is one exception to it: Holocaust denial. And that one ain't a minor offense. It can, in the more severe cases, get you into prison, and should you do it as teacher your job is gone for good.
    Now on the other hand the japanese government... well. Those who wish to see one of the most fucked up deeds in history can google japanese war crimes, and particulary the Nanjing massacre. The latter in particular can match just about any nazi germany atrocity in quality. Now, if Japan acted like Germany and formaly apologized and actually had a culture of rememberance around it the neighbours might just be a tiny little bit less salty about it. But they didn't. Instead the prime minister goes on record calling the rape victims (its also known as the mass rape of Nanjing) comfort women, and this happens in the 21st century still. Oh, and because raping basically any "woman" between like 13 and 45 was forbidden by their rules and laws the victims were also murdered (killing civillians wasn't quite as outlawed). Can you guys imagine just how the other nations feel about this?

    All in all that shit ain't surprising me at all, and since most of these novels are of shit quality and have lazy authors it only gets worse. As someone else said: The lower the quality of the novel, the more likely bland stereotypes are to appear.
     
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  19. Hamski

    Hamski Well-Known Member

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    What I find the weirdest is the racism in VR and immersive game novels. A lot of the time, the characters look different than they do IRL, everyone speaks the same language and understands each other, and nobody really pays attention to nationality. Then, all of a sudden here comes the tournament arc, and now everyone's country matters. The country isn't even relevant in the game, why would you do a competition that way? Why not just have guild competitions or in-game country alignments? Or perhaps faction competitions? There are so many other options but they always go with outside world countries to tout and dream of the author's country becoming number 1. It's just weird to me.
     
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  20. c.decora

    c.decora Holy Cardinal, Ascended Mouse

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    XD Cue Overlord.