Alt+Escape: Ching Chong Beautiful
- Thread starter John Funk
- Start date
If anyone watches Takeshi's Castle, watch the British version with dubbing from Craig Charles. It's better than MXC/MXE.
I was just about to say that, but then that started from Clive James doing Endurance back in the 80's.BobisOnlyBob said:
The Japanese really are a weird bunch. Not like us sensible Brits...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ching_chong
Are you really this insensitive?
Just to clarify, this is equivalent to naming your Southern themed Flash game "N***er Lovely".
Making me even more angry, this story was the FIRST thing I read on Christmas morning. Thanks, Escapist, for filling my holiday with racism.
Are you really this insensitive?
Just to clarify, this is equivalent to naming your Southern themed Flash game "N***er Lovely".
Making me even more angry, this story was the FIRST thing I read on Christmas morning. Thanks, Escapist, for filling my holiday with racism.
No. I won't "cool down", mainly because I'M not the uncool one.HK_01 said:
It's a racial slur, it offends me, and I'm going to say so. Calmly. I'm also offended that you seem to read any disagreement as "not cool". I'm rational and presenting coherent arguments that this is a racist title and should not be on the front page of an international magazine on a major holiday. What isn't cool is being told to not voice your objections to racism. So, concern taken for what it is, but, please, don't tell me how I should be expressing my genuine disagreement with promoting this title. I don't tell you anything of the sort.
I'm not saying you have no point, your post just seemed a bit...heated/angry(hence me saying "cool down"). Also, I read the Wikipedia article and it didn't seem all that bad and didn't seem to justify such a strong reaction. Correct me if I'm wrong.SaintWaldo said:
oh man, I loved this goddamn game. Played it a couple weeks ago and beating it was actually really difficult. I felt some accomplishment when I got to the end and beat it.
A game is always good when you can have that feeling at the end of it
A game is always good when you can have that feeling at the end of it
When you read that Wikipedia article, what part of "ethnic slur" didn't strike you as justifying a strong reaction?HK_01 said:
Thank you Waldo. Big props to you for standing up and pointing out how racist the title of this game is. It is offensive and your reaction is definitely justified. I'm pretty disappointed that Escapist would be so desperate for material over holiday period that they would even stoop to promoting a game with such a title. I usually come to escapist just to watch zero punctuation but the completely inappropriate title of the article made click on it. Thank you escapist for reminding me why i never read the articles here.
As someone who is part-Chinese I do find this game as not a very prudent choice for The Escapist to highlight. I'd definitely stop short of saying "I'm offended" (racial epithets make up easily over half of my CD collection after all) but I wonder if it's the best choice especially given how many young people visit this site. "Ching-Chong" is a reference to Chinese people, but the game is parodying a type of TV show that is Japanese and actually has nothing to do with China. I guess to the American who made this game, that's not an important distinction for him, because in his eyes Asians are obviously all the same. I interpret this as being very racist, even if he didn't have any actual racist intent in making the game. It's a shame that he had to taint his game with a stupid and unfunny name like this because I actually don't mind the gameplay concept and some of the other humour in the game is reasonably clever.
I realise that The Escapist and a lot of gamers in general are obsessed with Japanese culture (although I can't work out why, it seems very random to me) so I guess something that both references Japenese culture and is a computer game was irresistible to them as it helps them to magnify this (artificial) link. The fact that the article writer was willing to gloss over a little bit of inconvenient racism, because the article subject matter was just that tempting, makes the Escapist look amateurish. I think that The Escapist can find better things to write articles about than what some racist kid did on Newgrounds.
I realise that The Escapist and a lot of gamers in general are obsessed with Japanese culture (although I can't work out why, it seems very random to me) so I guess something that both references Japenese culture and is a computer game was irresistible to them as it helps them to magnify this (artificial) link. The fact that the article writer was willing to gloss over a little bit of inconvenient racism, because the article subject matter was just that tempting, makes the Escapist look amateurish. I think that The Escapist can find better things to write articles about than what some racist kid did on Newgrounds.
It was not a racial slur I was familiar with, and given that it was featured prominently on several other browser gaming sites, contains significantly higher production values than a bunch of other browser games, was actually recommended to us by several readers, and is simply an enjoyable game, that was why it was chosen.
You're always welcome to submit your Alt+Escape ideas via PM or email, and if you have a suggestion for a replacement I'd be happy to facilitate it - it was never our intention to offend.
You're always welcome to submit your Alt+Escape ideas via PM or email, and if you have a suggestion for a replacement I'd be happy to facilitate it - it was never our intention to offend.
Okay, how about this: You tell me what's so offensive about it. From what I understand, it merely mocks how Chinese sounds to Europeans. What's so bad about that? Nobody seems to care when the French language, for example, is mocked, and it is mocked quite often. Same thing about Russian or pretty much any other language I can think of. All of them have been made fun of, but it's never been perceived as offensive, at least not in Switzerland, Germany or Austria or for that matter the rest of Europe(as far as I know).SaintWaldo said:
Edit: I probably won't be able to respond until the 10.01 because I'm going on vacation!!
Edit 2: Wikipedia just told me that "Kraut" is a so-called ethnic slur for Germans. I don't mind that term, in fact, I think hardly any German would react so strongly. If "Ching Chong" is not a lot more offensive than Kraut, then no, it doesn't strike me as justifying a strong reaction.
You heard it hear first folks, play this fine platformer before the minority of Saint Waldo dictates what you can see.