Richmond, B.C., considers banning Chinese-only signage

[Doug]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

the libertarian perspective always emerges in a cloud of exasperation, like, "if only these busybodies would get out of the way we would really soar."

it makes you wonder, though, why human history has seen to many of these busybodies occupying positions of centrality for so many thousands of years. perhaps, to use libertarian terminology, they actually satisfy a "need in the market" for identity and continuity that extends beyond the circumstances available to rational economic actors.

perhaps the people who want an untrammeled, unhindered society of rational actors are actually a minority, or representatives of a relatively small post-enlightenment trend.

The post national state is a recent and ascendant innovation. If it is counter to human nature, why has it succeeded? The busybodies are in terminal decline.

[GlassCity]

Originally Posted by saffronleaf

Being born in Canada is a privilege, as well; a privilege granted out of sheer luck. When a newcomer chooses Canada as his or her home, Canada is also privileged.

I think newcomers should be treated as equals. They need not feel indebted to the host society. They need not feel pressured to act in a certain manner in order to please the natives who mercifully bestowed this privilege upon them. I view the relationship between newcomers and natives more equally.

Props to you for splitting everything into proper quotes hahah

It's true that being born in Canada is a privilege, but I don't see how we don't treat immigrants as equals. Obviously there's hardships in getting a job, and experiencing racism but that's not really something that government can do much about. For all intents and purposes as far as legal rights and opportunities go, immigrants are in fact equal. I don't see how asking them to join our culture is wrong; if anything it's an attempt to include them, one that many choose to ignore.

I don't mean to make it sound that I feel that they should be "indebted" to the host society, but there has to be some level of give and take. One can't expect to come to a different place and have your life stay exactly the same. Like I mentioned in my previous post, I feel that Canada does a lot to make immigrants feel welcome. But immigrants also have to meet Canada halfway. Some adjustment should go without saying, and I feel that the reason many immigrants don't respect that is because they have this view of Canada as a pushover nation that doesn't value its own culture as much as it values trying to look as accepting as possible to the rest of the world.

That's a very paternalistic sort of view toward immigration. It's like saying "be happy we letcha in, now do as we say."

I wouldn't say it that crudely, but that's basically how I see it. Whenever an individual comes to an established environment whether that be a club, an office or a country, they should abide by what's already in place, not try and make everybody else go out of their way to make way for them.

[Doug]

Originally Posted by matthew6

What about foreign language tattoos? I have a right as a Canadian to know what is written on someone's arm.

How about Indian rock pictographs? Perhaps the government can install translations.

Street art?

It never ends!

Soon enough you'll be able to take a picture of any writing and an app will translate it.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by saffronleaf

When a newcomer chooses Canada as his or her home, Canada is also privileged.

That's not true. If it were true, there would be no immigration quotas or any type of selection whatsoever.

All first world countries have at least some restrictions on immigration.

And when you say it's sheer luck, it's not completely true either. For example, my ancestors have labored for Canada, fought for Canada, paid taxes for Canada, and among other good reasons, they were doing it for their children too. This country did not come to exist magically out of thin air. It was built by its people.

I think newcomers should be treated as equals. They need not feel indebted to the host society. They need not feel pressured to act in a certain manner in order to please the natives who mercifully bestowed this privilege upon them. I view the relationship between newcomers and natives more equally.

More or less disagree. What the "host society" is at the moment is the result of building efforts over many generations by the people of that "host society" and if it decides to open its doors to you, it's somewhat of a privilege. It's not a right to be able to go anywhere one wants and get to fully enjoy the fruits of what others have built over there.

For example, one of my uni friends has been living in Switzerland for years now. He happens to like it there. But this Switzerland of the 21st century that he happens to like... is the result of the collective efforts of generations of past and present Swiss people. They kinda have a collective say in who gets in and under which terms. It's absolutely crazy to think otherwise... IMO...

We have at least a couple examples on this forum and in this very thread. Does kool maudit feel like he can shit on the traditional Danish way of doing things because his own, whatever it is, is just as legitimate right there in their own country? Or does he feel like somewhat of a guest in an already existing society, that was built by others, but opened its doors to him, as a newcomer?

This "when in Rome, the onus is on the Romans to adapt to you" logic seems absolutely nuts to me and I wager it would also seem so to most people of this world. Is this really what you grew up with in suburban GTA?

[lio45]

Originally Posted by saffronleaf

It would certainly be burdensome.

- Inspectors would need to spend additional time on certain applications.
- Rejected applicants will presumably have administrative avenues for appealing their rejections. Administrative tribunals must be set up, or existing administrative tribunals will need to do more work.
- Lawyers must be hired by both the government and the private party; or existing lawyers serving the government must do more work.
- Upon exhausting administrative remedies, courts must get involved.
- Complications will arise as to the application of the law. Should businesses that have names in roman letters that mean nothing have a translation? (E.g., IKEA or NOKIA or Zellers or Google or whatever may be meaningless; should they have English signs providing an explanation of the contents contained in the store?) What about businesses without any words and simply images or logos? Where does one draw the line between a image / logo vs. text? What about images with letters present on them? What about verifying that the English translation is consistent with the meaning of the non-English text on the sign? The government may need to hire translators, and certainly debates could arise in deciphering the accurate purport of the non-English text. Things like idioms and colloquialisms could further exacerbate that issue; perhaps a euphemism is being used to advertise handjobs, for example.

You're trying your best to make it sound complicated, but in real life it would be quite simple.

Any (non-grandfathered) business with signage full of Chinese characters would get fines high enough to cover the extra expenses of delivering (and managing to collect) said fine, so the taxpayers of Richmond would actually be better off in the end. ("Worst case" for the city's coffers, if everyone complies, they'll be exactly where they'd have been financially without this rule...)

And it's quite simple. The rule could be, for example, if there are two words or Asian characters or more on the sign, there has to also be an English word on it.

So, your questions, in bold, answered, under "my" proposal (I have no idea what the Richmond city council is considering, but at first sight I think this would work decent) :

Should businesses that have names in roman letters that mean nothing have a translation?

No. IKEA or NOKIA or Zellers or Google would be fine as the only words on signs.

Should they have English signs providing an explanation of the contents contained in the store?

No.

What about businesses without any words and simply images or logos?

They'd be fine.

Where does one draw the line between a image / logo vs. text?

Two or more words that are in an official dictionary; two or more characters that are officially accepted symbols of an Asian language.

Less than that, it's considered an image / logo.

So if a stubborn Chinese businessperson manages to have a sign with only one character on it, it's going to be considered acceptable, that single character being kind of a logo in itself.


What about images with letters present on them?

Fine as long as there are only one or less Asian character or word.

If there's text, whether it's plain text or text on an image doesn't change anything: it's still text.


What about verifying that the English translation is consistent with the meaning of the non-English text on the sign?

No need to.

There's no advantage to putting a bogus English word on a sign compared to putting a correctly descriptive one if you're forced to put one.

An insurance company might have a sign full of Chinese characters at the moment, and under the new rule, they'd have to put, say, the word "insurance" below all the info displayed in Chinese on their sign. But if instead of the word "insurance" they choose to put the word "restaurant" or "tea salon", it's their problem.

The only possible cases I can envision in which it could be advantageous to trick people, completely different rules and enforcement apply anyway, and those are already existing and presumably already enforced, so the one-English-word rule needn't concern itself about that at all.



The government may need to hire translators, and certainly debates could arise in deciphering the accurate purport of the non-English text.

I am pretty sure that the City of Richmond would not need to hire new outside personnel in order to manage to decipher Chinese.

[casper]

Originally Posted by lio45

You're trying your best to make it sound complicated, but in real life it would be quite simple.

Any (non-grandfathered) business with signage full of Chinese characters would get fines high enough to cover the extra expenses of delivering (and managing to collect) said fine, so the taxpayers of Richmond would actually be better off in the end. ("Worst case" for the city's coffers, if everyone complies, they'll be exactly where they'd have been financially without this rule...)

And it's quite simple. The rule could be, for example, if there are two words or Asian characters or more on the sign, there has to also be an English word on it.

So, your questions, in bold, answered, under "my" proposal (I have no idea what the Richmond city council is considering, but at first sight I think this would work decent) :

Should businesses that have names in roman letters that mean nothing have a translation?

No. IKEA or NOKIA or Zellers or Google would be fine as the only words on signs.

Should they have English signs providing an explanation of the contents contained in the store?

No.

What about businesses without any words and simply images or logos?

They'd be fine.

Where does one draw the line between a image / logo vs. text?

Two or more words that are in an official dictionary; two or more characters that are officially accepted symbols of an Asian language.

Less than that, it's considered an image / logo.

So if a stubborn Chinese businessperson manages to have a sign with only one character on it, it's going to be considered acceptable, that single character being kind of a logo in itself.


What about images with letters present on them?

Fine as long as there are only one or less Asian character or word.

If there's text, whether it's plain text or text on an image doesn't change anything: it's still text.


What about verifying that the English translation is consistent with the meaning of the non-English text on the sign?

No need to.

There's no advantage to putting a bogus English word on a sign compared to putting a correctly descriptive one if you're forced to put one.

An insurance company might have a sign full of Chinese characters at the moment, and under the new rule, they'd have to put, say, the word "insurance" below all the info displayed in Chinese on their sign. But if instead of the word "insurance" they choose to put the word "restaurant" or "tea salon", it's their problem.

The only possible cases I can envision in which it could be advantageous to trick people, completely different rules and enforcement apply anyway, and those are already existing and presumably already enforced, so the one-English-word rule needn't concern itself about that at all.



The government may need to hire translators, and certainly debates could arise in deciphering the accurate purport of the non-English text.

I am pretty sure that the City of Richmond would not need to hire new outside personnel in order to manage to decipher Chinese.

More and more business are moving to digital signage. You have temporary signs that up in store windows for sales.

What would be simpler is to have the municipality stay out of telling people how to advertise their business and let the free market do its job.

If I am running a business the last thing I want to do is have some municipal employee review my advertising strategy. You normally hire advertising agencies to do that activity not city staffers.

What would be good, is if the municipal government reallocated the salaries it was planning to spend on the sign police and given it to the health inspections and used the money to increase food safety inspections.

[RyLucky]

Originally Posted by Policy Wonk

The difference is languages that are widely spoken internationally were pretty accessible culturally speaking either historically in terms of literature or more modern forms of popular culture. More plainly there is a strong hook to learn English for one's personal amusement or education.

Chinese culture doesn't quite enjoy the same hook. There aren't vast fields of knowledge or mainstream genres of popular culture one is shut out of by not knowing Chinese.

It was Greek, then Latin, the French, and now English. Why not Chinese next? (i'm just posing the question. Personally, I'd like if English or some anglo-hybrid was the endpoint if there needs to be one). English only really took off 20 years ago with the fall of the USSR, Scandinavia joining the EU, globalization, etc. It's the world's second language; the language of knowledge, authority, and business. Who knows what the future will bring...

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by saffronleaf

I think newcomers should be treated as equals. They need not feel indebted to the host society. They need not feel pressured to act in a certain manner in order to please the natives who mercifully bestowed this privilege upon them. I view the relationship between newcomers and natives more equally.

.

They are treated as equals. As they should.

But their languages and cultures are not. That's why you don't and won't have publicly-funded schools that teach in Punjabi, and by and large the only religiously-inspired statutory holidays we have are Christian-inspired ones.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Is it? I thought the issue came from a couple of Anglos petitioning the City to act on Chinese-only signs.

True, but what I am referring is the response of certain Anglo-Canadians to the whole story and therefore to those Anglo-Canadians who'd like to see English required on signs.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by saffronleaf

I'd much rather learn Mandarin or Spanish than French.

Of course you would!

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by saffronleaf

This idea that the burden of adaptation and accommodation should be borne by the newcomers to society is something you typically hear among a significant number of Quebecois, and the right wing parties of Old World continental European nation states.

.

This makes it sound like I said it was solely on the newcomers. It is shared of course, but it's more demanding on the newcomers for obvious reasons. That's an unavoidable part of immigration, is it not?

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by lio45

First, I'm not saying they should. I'm saying I can understand the reasons behind such an idea.

Second, not everyone living in New World Anglo realm agrees that it's a culture-free blank state. IIRC (forgive me if I'm misquoting) Metro-One earlier in this thread was a bit pissed that the Chinese seemed to think BCers should be thankful for them bringing [their] culture to a place that before them was devoid of any. GlassCity also seems to think that today's BC isn't a blank slate for the Chinese to come and paint it the way they see fit.

So, yes, there are people (plenty of them, I suspect) in the New World Anglo realm that would think more like the people of the Old World.

It's the only 'realm' out there where your views, Doug's views, etc. are reasonably popular, but they're still by no means THAT dominating over there.

I think the New World Anglo realm (at least in the extremely self-effacing form we are discussing) is basically limited to a certain portion of the Anglo-Canadian population. Places like Australia and even the U.S. aren't nearly as self-effacing as this segment of Anglo-Canada is. In fact they are more like Quebec to be honest.

The idea that Australia might be a Mandarin-speaking country in 100 years is not something that is so lightheartedly discussed down under as it seems to be in some circles in Anglo-Canada.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by saffronleaf

This idea that the burden of adaptation and accommodation should be borne by the newcomers to society is something you typically hear among a significant number of Quebecois, and the right wing parties of Old World continental European nation states.

It smacks of desperation to subject vulnerable individuals to intolerance in order to salvage the remnants of a dying culture.

So anyplace that does not implement the view your prefer is a dying culture?

Funny, but those cultures you see as dying are those I'd wager on surviving a lot longer than that of Anglo-Canada. This is not something I am wishing for, but it does seem to be a possible end result of the self-effacing ideology.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by lio45

This "when in Rome, the onus is on the Romans to adapt to you" logic seems absolutely nuts to me and I wager it would also seem so to most people of this world. Is this really what you grew up with in suburban GTA?

Ethnic immigrant enclaves that are too strong and hermetic also can lead to undesirable things like ''white flight'' (for lack of a better term) and our various groups living in silos. I am not sure we really want that and it's astonishing that we have so many people here that are advocating so strongly for something that might lead us down that path - in 2014.

[yaletown_fella]

Originally Posted by GlassCity

It's true that being born in Canada is a privilege, but I don't see how we don't treat immigrants as equals. Obviously there's hardships in getting a job, and experiencing racism but that's not really something that government can do much about. \

Im not a political expert but I think being born in Canada is only a cultural privilege.

In major metropolitan areas (from what I've seen), the most economically privileged would be recent immigrant mainland Chinese. Unlike the earlier wave of Hong Kong immigrants, most of these newcomers are not looking for a job, but, rather looking to park money or do business/serve the wealthiest immigrant community in Canada. Most recent immigrant mainlanders, from what Ive seen, dont do business/joint ventures outside their communit(y/ies)

[Martin Mtl]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I think the New World Anglo realm (at least in the extremely self-effacing form we are discussing) is basically limited to a certain portion of the Anglo-Canadian population. Places like Australia and even the U.S. aren't nearly as self-effacing as this segment of Anglo-Canada is. In fact they are more like Quebec to be honest.

The idea that Australia might be a Mandarin-speaking country in 100 years is not something that is so lightheartedly discussed down under as it seems to be in some circles in Anglo-Canada.

Maybe it's because English Canada lacks a strong identity and multiculturalism became their defacto new identity. You don't get that in the US for sure.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by Martin Mtl

Maybe it's because English Canada lacks a strong identity and multiculturalism became their defacto new identity. You don't get that in the US for sure.

Myth! My Canadian is just fine, and very strong, merci beaucoup!

[Doug]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I think the New World Anglo realm (at least in the extremely self-effacing form we are discussing) is basically limited to a certain portion of the Anglo-Canadian population. Places like Australia and even the U.S. aren't nearly as self-effacing as this segment of Anglo-Canada is. In fact they are more like Quebec to be honest.

The idea that Australia might be a Mandarin-speaking country in 100 years is not something that is so lightheartedly discussed down under as it seems to be in some circles in Anglo-Canada.

You are making the assumption that Anglo-Canada even exists. It doesn't despite considerable government resources thrown at the ideal. Much has been written about English Canada as a failed nation.

I live in Australia. The Asian influence is growing at least as fast as it is in Canada. I doubt many people think Australia, or Canada for that matter, will become Mandarin speaking simply because globalization will continue to pull the entire world towards English, which is the unchallenged language of commerce and technology. As long as the US remains such an overwhelming innovative force, nothing will change that.

[Doug]

*

[saffronleaf]

Originally Posted by Acajack

They are treated as equals. As they should.

But their languages and cultures are not. That's why you don't and won't have publicly-funded schools that teach in Punjabi, and by and large the only religiously-inspired statutory holidays we have are Christian-inspired ones.

That doesn't make it right. When it comes to statutory holidays, I think the government should mandate that employers provide a certain number of religious days off (maybe, for example, 5). You can use those 5 however you see fit, and it would be in addition to whatever vacation / sickness programs your employer already provides. No need to declare your religion or anything like that, and atheists can also use it however they see fit.

Secular statutory holidays can remain in tact, such as Canada Day or whatever else.