or the business owners do not speak chinese, and/or the clientele do not speak english very well to communicate with the operators?
Yes perhaps, but perhaps people should think twice... when the business owner that does speak the same language treats his customers like dirt, only because he can get away with it. I couldn't believe the rudeness of the Chinese shop's owners. Worse than the waiters at Schwartz's deli in Montreal, and that's quite an accomplishment. I stopped patronizing Schwartz's because they're consistently so obnoxious.
While I definitely agree that there is too much ethnic nepotism in the community, I should say that a lot of people in Markham's insulated Chinese community don't have great English skills either and that might be an additional factor in why they were all crowding in the Chinese shops with Chinese owners. Of course, the English proficiency is its own problem, but it's not completely about giving cold shoulders and such.
As for X2_Buyer, I think we'd all agree that everyone is guilty of racism in some way or another. But personally I think the amount of racism and isolationist tendency directed at the Chinese community in this day is a lot less than the amount coming from us. But that's just my opinion, I'm not going to make anyone else agree.
That's probably a large part of it. However, there is still this attitude that a non-Chinese cannot possibly do it right. It's hard to determine where the line exists between heavy "nepotism" and light racism.
I went to a famous brand women clothes store in a high end shopping mall in the west end of GTA just two weeks' ago. When I was ready to try the top I selected on, one other white lady came after me together getting into the fitting room. The store customer representative completely ignored me but turned very friendly to the lady after me called her Maddam, told her his name and if she needed anything just let him know and so on.
Did I object at the time? I guess I could've. I did not because if I bothered I would object a lot little moments and occasions for all the people doing these to us consciously or "subconsciously", the visible minority group.
It seems the previous instance has been amplified. The Chinese community may appear to not welcome other people but for sure the visible minorities have been treated more unfairly with more severe level because of our skin color - so that there is the human equity definition set-up specifically for the group.
It happens on both sides. My GF went to a noodle shop owned by a Chinese couple. She is not Chinese. She asked for some hot sauce. They brought a tiny little bit. She asked for a bit more... and the husband of the couple running the place was going to bring it, but then the matriarch went on this long diatribe how Caucasians can't eat hot food and if she puts the hot sauce into the food it's all going to waste because she won't be able to eat it. Only Chinese eat hot food like that. My GF assured her it's fine, but she refused because she said non-Chinese don't understand. She wasn't joking either. Completely serious, and very shrill. What's worse is she started repeating the same thing to all her customers, many of whom (thankfully) were giving her a confused look, not a look of agreement. Finally, under protest, she allowed her husband to bring a tiny dab more but that was it.
I can understand if she felt insulted that putting too much hot sauce would ruin her recipe, but that wasn't it. It was basically because she thought she knew better than this dumb Caucasian woman. She was perfectly happy to give her hot sauce to other restaurant patrons.
Anyways, my GF's protest was not to give a tip, and told her why.
This is of course not a big deal in the greater scheme of things, but still it does illustrate the stupidity of racism that still does exist in Toronto.
On the lighter side, I saw this show talking about an Italian bagel maker in Montreal. It was quite a funny documentary, as they made a point of interviewing the Jewish community, including Rabbis and orthodox Jews, etc. The comments ranged from "[
jokingly] Sacrilege, it's just not right." to "Bring it on, we'll show them who's the best." to "As long as it's good, I'll go there." But I guess the difference here is everyone was able to speak the same language, so that wasn't a barrier.
