Lincoln Tan: Let's lighten up and learn to laugh at ourselves

Some Asians, particularly some Chinese in New Zealand, have become so uptight they have lost the ability to laugh at themselves.

They fail to see the humour in two articles published by student magazines lampooning Chairman Mao or poking fun at the Chinese.

I am sure the Chinese do have a sense of humour - one only has to look at the box-office successes of movies made by Jackie Chan and Stephen Chow to realise the Chinese love a good laugh - as long as it's not directed at leaders like Mao.

I thought the controversy over a student magazine publishing a picture of Mao's head superimposed on a woman's body was over - but then up popped an email asking me to "stand up for us Chinese" and "take on" the editor of Massey University's Satellite magazine from the Albany campus.

His crime? For saying in an editorial he thinks no one was to be blamed for two recent articles poking fun at the Chinese, published in Salient and Chaff, student magazines of Victoria and Massey (Palmerston North) Universities respectively.

At the height of the drama two months ago when the articles were first published, students protested, demanded a public apology and called for the sacking of the editors.

Even Race Relations Commissioner Joris De Bres said student magazines should be more responsible.

In the Herald he said, "Asian people are amongst those who face the most discrimination in New Zealand. Student media should be careful they don't unwittingly add to this alienation, even if they have seemingly innocuous or satirical motives."

By jumping on to the side of the ethnic minority, which I guess was the politically correct thing to do, De Bres was doing ethnic minorities no favour if they wanted to integrate into the New Zealand way of life.

I was hoping he would stand up for the right of free speech and expression by the student magazines, rather than joining in the call to suppress them.

One of the reasons I moved to New Zealand was to enjoy this freedom, which many of us would find difficult to practise back home.

When I first read the Salient editorial and saw Chaff's photoshop image of Chairman Mao on a woman's body I just laughed.

Both were so blatantly politically incorrect that any discerning reader would be able to see the irony and humour in them, rather than some subversive racist message.

On the Mao saga, Massey's international students officer, Priyanca Radhakrishnan, quoted on the university's website, said international students were "already in unfamiliar territory; the last thing you need is people making light of something you hold sacred."

Granted I am not from China - something I am so often reminded of when I comment on Chinese issues.

I come from Singapore, a country that holds its leaders in high regard. Singapore's most revered political leader is probably Lee Kuan Yew, the country's first Prime Minister.

After his son, Lee Hsien Loong, the present PM, commented that their party's recent election success was because of support from the younger voters, a photoshop image of LKY on the body of controversial rapper Eminem started circulating.

The email, entitled "PAP's [People's Action Party] trump card", was forwarded to me by several people. I looked at the image and laughed.

What's the big deal? True, it seemed disrespectful and politically incorrect, but being politically incorrect is funny. It makes for good cartoons and good humour.

Protesting against magazines publishing articles seemingly anti-Asian is not unique to New Zealand.

In 2004, when an American men's magazine Details printed the headlines "Gay or Asian?" above the picture of an urban Asian male, carrying a Louis Vuitton satchel and wearing a Dolce & Gabbana suede jacket, with a pair of sunglasses stuck in his hair, it too received hell.

Lobby groups in the United States, ranging from the Asian Media Watchdog to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation called for blood - demanding a public apology and asking the magazine to end the career of the writer in question, Whitney McNally.

An online petition drive amassed more than 25,000 signatures and led to demonstrations outside the magazine's office.

David Ng, a writer for New York weekly The Village Voice, wrote: "Asian groups can object all they want (and they are) but, for most people, it's merely more evidence that Asians are PC killjoys unable to withstand a good-natured jab."

Often, stereotyping and cultural generalisations are a result of ignorance, and I do not believe it is because of ill-intent on the part of most editors or writers.

Calling on Asian media to "take them on", running to our respective embassies and seeking the help of the Race Relations Commissioner when the slightest anti-Asian comments appear in any publication does little to foster better understanding.

Correcting their misconceptions, and breaking out of the stereotypes, would be far more effective.

It also pays to be a little more thick-skinned, considering how the internet and blogs are increasing in popularity.

Kiwi Asian blogger Tze Ming Mok likened people who participated in internet discussion forums to radio talkback callers.

I see them more like modern-day toilet-wall scribblers.

Since starting this column, it has been said that I am "unworthy to smell Chinese feet" (who is the worthy one?), and I've been called a dog (who will be the tree trunk for me to mark my territory?). As long as it's not defamatory, we should just learn to laugh it off.

On one of Chaff's earlier covers, Opposition leader Don Brash was pictured with a Maori moko. No one bayed for blood then.

A colleague, originally from China, laughed at a cartoon mocking Winston Peters in the Herald last week.

It is easy to laugh at other people. But New Zealand would be a much more pleasant place to live in if we could learn to laugh at ourselves a bit more.