I mean there are immigrant areas in Japan. There's a big Chinese community in Yokohama, which is reasonably close to Tokyo.
But I guess that would involve interactions with working class Chinese immigrants, or second generation kids of immigrants. And that's not the type of people some fancy rich kid would want to be around.
What kind of racism do you need to assume Japanese people simply know how to speak Mandarin and also use it in their daily lives? And what kind of racism do you need to not even investigate this. They could have sent the kid to Singapore or Malaysia, a lot of people speak Mandarin there.
Probably would be more accurate to say "sent my kid to Madagascar to learn Norwegian Sign Language"
Hey if you can learn Polish you can learn Interslavic and if you can learn Interslavic you can learn Russian. Think about it!
True, I just know how to read Cyrillic and can fill out the rest through a bit of thinking.
Critical support to this guy's large adult son, who is either:
- Offline enough to not know about Japan through manga/anime/Vtubers/Jpop/hentai/video games and genuinely didn't know his father was making a huge mistake
or
- Knows and opted not to tell his brain dead father for a free trip to Japan
both are good bits.
Nice thesis and antithesis there, but I must propose the synthesis "offline enough to not know about Japan through pop culture soft power shit, but also totally knew his dad was being an ass but opted not to say anything in order to get a free trip to Japan"
https://www.teamblind.com/post/Accidentally-sent-my-son-to-Japan-to-study-Chinese-fxdjjwqJ
This has to be a bit. They didn't want to send their son to Taiwan because they have a "hillbilly accent", so they sent him to Japan instead?
Japan also seemed like the better choice because the northern latitude coincided with China’s capital, Beijing.
What is going on in this person's brain? Do they think the magnetic poles impact a person's accent? Being closer to the equator makes you sound more like a hick or what lmao
Ah yes studying Arabic in Mexico will help me develop an Algerian accent because of the latitude
hicquatorOh dear god I think he first learned Taiwan has a different accent, and separately learned that it's in the south, so therefore there would be a southern accent and mentally melded the two together as Taiwanese have a hillbilly accent
He then learned the University of Tokyo has a good Mandarin course, and it's on the same level latitude as Beijing, so he would get a proper northerner accent.
If this is real, this guy is incredible
of It's like a few months ago when discussing the Napoleon film with my friend, she had previously learned that Napoleon was exiled to an island (twice) and also that he was defeated at Waterloo, so she assumed The Battle of Waterloo was either entirely a naval battle or naval with some aspects on an island. She then said she hasn't watched the film but will eventually because she enjoyed the naval battles in Pirates of the Caribbean so she wants to see Ridley Scott's take on the Battle of Waterloo.
"You... You've conflated two completely unrelated facts about this one subject in your head. Waterloo was not a naval battle"
"He was on an island when he lost?"
"No he was exiled to an isla- wait, did you think Waterloo was on the water because "water" is in the name?"
"He was defeated and died on the island? Was it not a naval battle?"
"Those are two completely different events"
hes a nordicist (hence the "ethnic german") and wants to stay in the higher latitudes
i just wanted to point out that an exaggerated taiwanese accent is generally perceived to be more effeminate to your average mainlander. so their son was not in any danger of sounding like a hillbilly, at worst people might think he was gay or fem
at worst people might think he was gay
So the one part of China that is not ruled by the Communist Party is the same part of China whose locals are most likely to sound like "comrades"?
I was told that Southern Chinese accents do not sound good on men, and Taiwanese accents could come across as “feminine”-sounding. It seems like Taiwan is also the only place in Asia where gay marriage is legal, so there seems to be some logic in that. Not prejudiced or anything, but I’m not spending thousands to send my son overseas so he can sound gay.
They are so prejudiced
Northern accents are apparently more masculine, hence our choice in Japan, a northern masculine country.
TO LEARN CHINESE
I'm crying
This is actually a thing, Taiwanese Mandarin accents are difficult to the point that even Taiwanese people acknowledge it because the other way around with another accent is usually easier to understand
Imagine if the OP sent their son to some other Chinese diaspora and comes back with fluent Wenzhounese and is completely unable to communicate with 99.95% of Mandarin and Cantonese speakers
"So do you speak Mandarin or Cantonese?"
"Wenzhounese."
"When Joe needs you to do what?"
"No, I speak Wenzhounese. It's the most divergent form of Wu Chinese. 5 million native speakers. Spoken in Zhejiang province."
"...So do you speak Mandarin or Cantonese?"
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since southerners including taiwanese don't distinguish s/sh, z/zh, c/ch, and in some cases r/l and f/h, it could be a bit difficult to listen and understand for beginners.
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I was thinking about from a learner's perspective. and local people, especially middle age and older, don't talk like people on TV.
but yeah sichuanese or like hubeinese with their weird bendy tones and stuff is way more difficult for me as a non-native than southeastern mandarin, but i found most people in central/western china can code-switch to a kind of standard mandarin as well
Also, I would imagine that Japan is much closer to China in terms of culture and language, than Mexico is to the US or the UK.
"So, Kanji is derived from Chinese"
"So you're telling me all Japanese is basically Chinese? Good to know"
Lowriders are universal. Last I checked Mexican street style was the up and comic popular trend in japan.
wtf is that website and why does everyone have a company name next to their screen name?
It's a forum for tech bros and software engineers, but it's anonymous. Except you have to provide what company you work for.
Also, I would imagine that Japan is much closer to China in terms of culture and language, than Mexico is to the US or the UK.
hahahahahahahahahaha
People with Taiwanese accent are perceived to be more effeminate. And there's no singular "hillbilly accent" because China is like the UK where the further your (Mandarin) accent diverges from the standard, the more you're perceived to be from a working class/peasantry background.
"I didn't do any research and I didn't ask any questions. This sucks. Why didn't anyone tell me."
Before all you holier-than-thou people jump in and call me racist, I am AWARE. That Japan also speaks Japanese.
The author is right. How could we possibly assume from the context of this post that they are a racist who wouldn’t know that the Japanese people ALSO speak Japanese?
He could’ve gone to Singapore, or Taiwan, or just came back to Germany and lived in Chinatown or something. But instead he decided to go to Japan to learn Chinese to own da gommies
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back to germany
I'm guessing the "ethnic German" actually means they're Americans with German great-great-great-great-grandparents
That's more likely the case, but I'd like to imagine they're the children of Nazi race scientists that got Operation Paperclip'd into the US, hence their sub Hank Hill levels of understanding
they live in San Francisco. They call themselves "ethnically German" because they are too ashamed to admit they are actually from Alabama
That won’t work because they said they didn’t want to send their son to a communist state 😹😹😹
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[...] call me racist.
first of all, this is still pretty damn racist lol, also my main complaint is that it is highly stupid.
How does someone send their child to another country without knowing that Japan isn't China. Did they try to send them by air mail because it also involves a plane?
Racism. Which is ironic because they sent their kid to a country that is racist against the people who speak the language they sent the kid there to learn.
My son came back from Japan after going there to learn Chinese. When he came back, he suddenly had an interest in this thing called Hentai? I didn't know China was so cultured.
In Western minds, Taiwan is not Chinese. It’s a place the evil Chinese want to take over.
I live in Taiwan and did study Chinese here for 2 years. Lots of people come here to learn Chinese including anglos and yes I've heard the "china bad" reason for not studying chinese in china instead. or some people like traditional chinese (written script) more than simplified.
He's probably drunk the Kool aid and thinks Taiwan people don't speak Chinese but a totally different indigenous language
Mandela effect from a universe where the Taiwanese Indigenous languages did not all become extinct, moribund, or endangered
nah, most americans can't differentiate taiwan from thailand and wouldn't be able to guess what language(s) are spoken in taiwan at all. OR they might have a vague idea of taiwan when it was sort of the world's factory pre-80's.
i wish i had enough money to accidentally go to the wrong country to learn a language. send me to japan to learn chinese. then I'll cross the East China Sea to learn Japanese (I will reply to anyone who tries to speak Japanese at me in Japan with "wakarimasen" because I know that one already). once I'm done learning Japanese I'll go to India and learn Arabic.
this could be my life 
I went to school with a guy who thought he could just move to Rome to learn Latin. Even 13 year old me was like "I'm pretty sure they speak Italian in Rome".
spoilers: He grew out of his Roman Empire worship days, did not go to Rome or the Vatican to learn Latin by age 16.
I feel like Romeaboos would be less taken with the language if they realized that the Italian accent didn't just come out of nowhere. The vision they have in their heads is all movie-badass-voice Euromerican-accent Latin, but the reality is much funnier. 
See, this guy wasn't even a Romeaboo in the "return" way, he just played a lot of RTS games before learning proper history.
Not in a "Rome was cool because it was a based militant patriarchy" but rather "Wow, Ceasar built a double layered wall during a siege to trap the besieged and prevent reinforcements, that's cool"
Wandering around downtown Oslo and repeatedly imploring "omelette du fromage" at passersby
It’s a very hard level to pinpoint. On one hand it’s classic ignorance to anything outside of California. On the other hand, they are actively making racist remarks about other dialects of Chinese.
"I don't get it, they speak German in neighboring Austria and Lichtenstein, why don't they speak Mandarin in Japan???"
How do people like this exist long enough to have children but not gain awareness?Having children is extremely easy for most. Raising them is the harder part, but people like this hire an Ecuadorian nanny and call them Mexican. Then send their kids to Denmark to learn Kirundi.
We should at least get to manage his and his family’s assets as a conservatorship for a few generations
To be fair, so does America. A country can call itself whatever it wants, it doesn't make it true.
The difference being Americans don’t consider America a democracy when polled.
Chinese people DO consider their country a democracy, and overwhelmingly so.
Learn Chinese at the university and Japanese in daily life, and as you learn Japanese, learn tips and tricks for converting shinjitai into kyuujitai into simplified hanzi, as well as tips and tricks for converting kango into Middle Chinese into Putonghua. If you can't look at 流星 ryuusei and automatically know that it's something like *liuxing in Putonghua and then you just sort of happen to get the tones right, then that is a skill issue and you can ligma balls
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We wanted my son to learn the standard Chinese. Japan also seemed like the better choice because the northern latitude coincided with China’s capital, Beijing.
what
of course, the latitude determines the language. thats why everyone in dublin and moscow have the same accent