So, it seems that the powers that be in Riverside have changed a street name in their Chinatown as of today: "Wong Way" is now "Wong Street".There are so many things I can say to this, but the first one is the MOST obvious, incredulous, and a question, to boot: Someone named a street "Wong Way" in the first place?!?!?!
What makes it funnier is that naming a street "Wong" was supposed to be to HONOR a local member of the Riversidian Chinese Community. Instead, according to the news, "Members of the Chinese community felt insulted by the street name, citing that people might take it as a joke about the way members of their community pronounce certain words."
Wow, I thought the joke was pretty much that you were going the "wong way", but the fact that people are feeling personally insulted due to their culturally-affected pronounciation of "wrong"? For some reason, that really just makes it funnier, because that idea really hadn't occured to me when I first heard "Wong Way." I actually laughed out loud listening to the radio in the car. Wong Way is mostly just an eye-roller, but a group of angry Asians thinking Wong Way is an INSULT because they pronounce Wrong "Wong"?
Sometimes it amazes me - and this is really why I'm laughing - that your average Jane (me, in this case) doesn't find something bigoted until someone points out that its bigoted, and that it is something to find offensive. Then I just think it-and-they're ridiculous. But funny.
So Wong Way is now Wong Street in Riverside. First you were supposed to go the other direction, and now you're just not supposed to drive on it at all. What's the world coming to?
4 comments:
LOL!!!! IBefore I started to read your commentary I saw the picture and totally started laughing because I can totally hear an Asian pronouncing that...(no offense please) Accents are hilarious. LOL!!!
Omgosh Jason and I are seriously laughing so hard (I read your post to Jason). I agree with you, when I first saw the sign I thought it was funny because it looks like "wrong way". So funny. People get offended by the silliest things. Don't you love living in a culturally diverse area?
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I thought this was hilarious. Just the street sign alone. So of course I googled it to get the whole story and it appears there wasn't really even a chinese community that complained. Just some stupid public figure that felt it was inappopriate and wanted it changed. Who knows if this Wong guy would have even been offended and the Chinese in general. Maybe they'd actually be offended that people would assume they're offended. Kind of like how people assume handicap people can't help themselves and it offends them when someone just wants to do right by them and lend a helping hand. Maybe that's a whole new blog entry for you..
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