grodscorp@grods.comDon’t ask, don’t tell
 | Posted by Ant Rogenous on Tuesday 22 April 2008, 1:26 pm Categories: Media, Society Tags: Asians, languages, racism, SheppartonNews |
At the risk of stating the obvious, the danger of asking members of the public for their opinion is that they might just give it to you. This was illustrated perfectly in a recent edition of the Shepparton News, a regional Victorian tabloid.
A reporter and photographer ventured out into Greater Shepparton asking the following question for the newspaper’s “On The Street” section:
If you could learn another language, what would it be and why?
From the responses published, one can only assume (in order of likelihood) that:
- The opinions editor has a wicked sense of humour
- Of all the responses received, only six were (barely) fit to publish
- There were only six respondents, and space and deadline constraints meant all of their answers had to be given a run.
A few stood out. The first was that of 38-year-old Stanhope resident Denise Bowyer who, despite possibly having told a porky-pie about her age, offered the following:
Japenese (sic) so I can understand most of them.
Either Stanhope has an enormous Japanese community whose Engrish is barely intelligible, or Denise believes all Asian-looking people (you know, the ones with the funny eyes) are Nips. I’ll let you decide which is more likely to be the case.
Clint Morris, a 14-year-old Mooroopna resident, puts an even finer point on Denise’s sentiment with his response:
Asian, because there are so many of them here.
Clint’s done away with the folly of trying to pin down these shifty immigrants to individual nationalities — and why not? Since they all look the same, it makes perfect sense that they’d all speak the same imaginary language.
Bill Huylands, 67, of Moama provided what, on the face of it, seems a reasonable enough response:
Spanish, because you can use it anywhere.
Except in Stanhope, of course, where the throngs of incorrigible little foreigners refuse to understand a word of anything but Japenese (sic). And would probably karate-chop you for your insolence anyway, amigo.
The most thoughtful response came from 12-year-old Steven Sutton of Invergordon:
Auslan, so I can understand deaf people.
A terrific answer. Which goes to show that youth need not be a barrier to commonsense and open-mindedness.
GrodsThink Ep.31 (16/9/08)
Tuesday 22 April 2008, 1:51 pm #The Editor
“Asian, because there are so many of them here.”
I suppose at least he didn’t twist the question around and demand them Asians learn English.
Tuesday 22 April 2008, 2:00 pm #Wah
Fair call having a go at Denise but I think you’re a bit hard on Clint and Bill.
Maybe Clint would genuinely like to communicate with Shep’s growing Asian community and Bill is well travelled and has learned that Spanish is indeed used everywhere - you put words into Bill’s mouth I feel.
I’m suprised no one wanted to speak Arabic because of all those goddamn Moooooslems in Shep.
Tuesday 22 April 2008, 2:18 pm #Bron
I’d like to learn Klingon so that I can understand The Editor.
Tuesday 22 April 2008, 2:22 pm #Ant Rogenous
I wasn’t having a go at Bill, Wah — including his reasonable response was a way to get in another joke at Denise’s expense.
Tuesday 22 April 2008, 2:27 pm #Damian
Clint’s a victim of the education system. Surely by now, through endless Maoist indoctrination about the Chinese Revolution and revisionist accounts of the US war in Vietnam and so on, he should have realised that there is more than one type of Asian. What the fuck are those commies in the education department doing?
Wah, is there a growing Asian community in Shepp? Also, I don’t think Ant was mocking Bill - he says it seems like a reasonable response, it’s just in contrast to the others which focus on Asian languages. My guess would be that Bill has visited the Americas or would like to.
Personally, I’d like to learn ;;;; so I can understand what some of Strayer’s finest blogs are actually saying.
KG wants to learn Somali.
Tuesday 22 April 2008, 2:35 pm #keri
Damian, for that to happen there needs to be large bits of your brain extracted as well.
Tuesday 22 April 2008, 5:57 pm #Wah
Sorry bout that Ant.
Damian I don’t know if there’s a growing Asian community in Shep, I was just taking Clint’s comment at face value.
Tuesday 22 April 2008, 6:00 pm #Damian
Fair enough, Wah. Personally, I took Clint’s reference to there being “so many of them” more generally; ie here as in Strayer. Would be interesting to know what the G-O is in Shepp.
Tuesday 22 April 2008, 6:01 pm #Damian
Ah, bugger. I’m referring to his “so many of them here“, Wah. Just not getting the whole keyboard-brain coordination thing happening.
Wednesday 23 April 2008, 7:55 am #David Wood
The G-O in Shepp? I don’t think you want to know.
I work at the Shepp News and found this discussion quite funny.
I may be able to give a bit of clarity and answer a few questions.
I did cringe at the answers myself but did think the responses were very Shepparton-like.
While we do have a sense of humour this was not really planned.
The photogrpahers come up with the questions generally - so what can you really expect.
And we only ever ask six people as we run six a day and it’s a time restraint thing.
So the dumb answers we get are the dumb answers we get.
And people aren’t that keen on being in it generally so sometimes (often) the people you get to answer are not the ones that are going to give you any deep thinking.
When I first got to Shepp I was told it was 90 per cent Sunshine, 10 per cent Hawthorn, for those of you who have knowledge of Melbourne.
There aren’t too many people from “Asian” backgrounds in Shepp, although “many” or a few or some or a “significant” amount of people from Iraq and Afghanistan.
During the fruit picking season there are a few people from Asia here but most of them would stay on the orchards.
As far as Stanhope goes - population about 400 and about 10 000 dairy cows - I think everyone who lives there was born there and I would be very suprised is anyone spoke another language.
It was once described in an Age article as “a dying backwater on the edge of the Goulburn Valley”.
But all in all another fantastic Shepp News people poll and a triumph for quality journalism.
We are a news paper of record.
Any suggestions on what we should ask today?
from
Wednesday 23 April 2008, 8:00 am #David Wood
I hope I didn’t “serious this up” too much.
I saw questions that needed answering and saw me as the question-answering-guy and it’s too early for me to be funny.
I apologise.
Wednesday 23 April 2008, 9:19 am #Bron
Hi David,
I, for one, liked your response. Good to know the MO of small regional papers, and why it’s always the, ah, the sillier people who get to answer the questions.
“Serious this up”? Nah, nothing ever could serious Grods up. Just wait till someone comes along and makes a Fleshlight reference to your “serious” comment. You wait.
Cheers,
Bron
Wednesday 23 April 2008, 10:03 am #Ant Rogenous
Thanks for the response, David. I must admit I’m a bit shocked that the snappers come up with the questions!
With respect to this particular question (a good one, I reckon), I’m not sure how much of a reflection on Shepparton the responses are. There were only two truly daft responses, and I don’t think there’s a suburb in Melbourne where the same question wouldn’t flush out a few similarly silly respondents.
Howard’s Australia is finished, but the people who kept voting his government in haven’t disappeared (unfortunately).