Is this Racist?

[Batou667]

Racist? More like pathetic. It's hyper-sensitive tripe like this that undermines legitimate racial issues.

The T-shirts? Fat ol' Buddha can hardly be called a stereotype, he's an icon. The "racist" puns? Have you never seen a Chinese restaurant (owned, managed and staffed by actual Asian people, generally) that uses similar wordplay? I used to live down the road from a restaurant called Wok Dis Way, which I thought was very witty.

And the "Oriental girl" necklace - oriental isn't an "outdated" term, it's eminently useful as calling Chinese, Japanese, Korean etc people "asian" is simply too vague and saying "people of south-east Asian decent" is an unweildy mouthful. The actual Geisha-type girl isn't racially stereotyped in any way - she doesn't so much as have squinty eyes.

Who goes out of their way to find offence in harmless bits of cultural homage such as these? My guess is that they were (depressingly) middle-class and white. I expect actual oriental people have much better things to do with their time - like, you know, overtaking the West as an economic power.

 

[One of Many]

The bottom ones with the stereotypical Asian occupations and headgear sure are, also Buddha wasn't fat, he starved himself while searching for enlightenment, but the image of him being fat will probably never change

The fat Buddha is Budai, who is considered a Buddha or a Bodhisattva, depending on what traditions you read and is often connected to the Maitreya.

 

[FaceFaceFace]

The necklace is fine. "Wong Brothers Laundry Service"? Yes, that is indeed stereotypical and racist. Surprising, since most things in threads with this title are nothing to be concerned with.

 

[SnootyEnglishman]

The Buddha shirt? Questionable but the image of a fat Buddha has been around for a while and most have gone with it.

To start this isn't so much directed at you specifically as much as clarifying in general because some people seem confused about this particular depiction.

As one or two others have said the laughing (fat) Buddha is not the same person who founded Buddhism. To be a Buddha just means to have achieved enlightenment, breaking the cycle of reincarnation, moving on to a higher existence and such. I suppose the term can be thought of a bit like someone being declared a saint in Christianity, but not exactly since they're seen as god like (though being a Buddha is not the same thing as being a god, there are also gods in some Buddhist traditions which I'm not even going to try to explain cause I'm hardily the person to try). There are several figures recognized as Buddhas within Buddhism, which differs from country to country.

The laughing Buddha is from China. The reason he's shown as fat is steeped in Chinese culture. Depictions of historical figures and such weren't always about being accurate for them as much as using certain cues like color of skin (some dudes are said to have had blue or red skin in myths), long ears, being heavy and so forth to tell you about the kind of person they are meant to be or ideas they represent. It's possible the monk the laughing Buddha was based on was actually fat, I dunno really off hand, but it's also short hand for prosperity in Chinese culture.

The western world thinks of the laughing Buddha as the Buddha because he pretty much took the place of the original Buddha as the foremost image of Buddhism in China and Japan, amongst other places. Whereas India, and again other areas, have for the most part retained the enlightened (skinny originator of Buddhism) Buddha as their preferred depiction. It's easy to see why people get confused about it here since it makes perfect sense to refer to either as Buddha, though the founder of Buddhism is often called the supreme Buddha I believe.

Ah quite interesting whilst i did know of the various depictions of the Buddha i wasn't aware of the reasons behind them. Now i've learned something, which always excites me when information i never knew is shown to me, so thank you, and for that you get this.