Ocker & Moondoong, Apologies for the overly-eager post, it was never my intention to abuse anyone. Being an Asian Chinese, i refuse to sit back and let others criticise our way of life or culture. Fair enough if its an opinion, but not if the whole intention was to humiliate and severely criticise another party without offering a solution.
M/Doong, let me clarify: none of my comments were racially charged. FYI, i'm guilty of acting like the "typical aussie male" all the time especially during Beer O' Clock and i see nothing wrong with that. You have to realize that there is a vast difference between CULTURE and RACE.
You said: "It may come as a surprise to you, to learn that depending on where you came from, it was probably the same Western countries you hold in such low regard that saved your existence in World War 2"
Comments like that are, IMHO, baseless and naive. It doesn't take a genius to realise that the ones 'saving' the poor helpless 3rd world country (like where i come from, right??) are the ones who started it in the first place. Enough said.
You call SE Asia a sh!thole but i wonder if you've actually spent any real time there. Obviously i'm not refering to those week-long trips to Bali, Phuket, Pattaya or Penang. Did you grow up there? Were you schooled there? Did you make any life-long friends there? I'm guessing the answer is NO!. So what position are you in to refer to SE Asia as being the equivalent of an anus? Even i who have lived there for 20+ yrs have no right to make comments like that.
You went on to say the following: "The environmental degredation, overcrowding, restrictions on personal freedoms, racism and corruption in SE Asia is endemic and therefore on that basis I deem it to be generally a sh!thole." - Mate, where do you come from? This happens everywhere and unfortunately Australia is not exempted. If you care so much about those virtues, why don't you do something about it rather than complain? There is a well-known Chinese saying loosely translated like this: "An arrogant man constantly searches for the tiniest flea on his neighbour's back while forgetting the elephant standing next to himself" But then again, you'd probably conclude that the statement is plain stupid because everyone knows that fleas aren't easy to spot and elephants smell bad so it doesn't sound logical that one should stand so close to a human. Besides, we Chinese are backward so we why listen to us in the first place. Would you not agree???
Enough said, I've diverged so far from the original topic that I'm almost sounding like you. In any case, all i ask is that you have more respect for others and hopefully you'll think of us poor, dirty, corrupted, opportunistic, oppressed Chinese the next time you down a Crownie on your beach chair. Cheers, mate!
