A Plethora of Passwords

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The Daily Post

There are a number of irritating things experts insist you must do for your own good: eat nine servings of veggies a day; maintain a diverse retirement portfolio; check your transmission fluid every month. Most of us ignore a lot of this advice, because there’s no end to it, and our lives are complicated enough.

Photo by Kit Photo by Kit

As a habitual good advice ignorer myself, I realize that when I tell you I’m here today to talk about passwords, you’ll want to tune me out. But wait! Good password hygiene is more important than flipping your mattress.

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The Fitting Room by Cheryl Sim

Chinese Fever

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Looking for some free things to do around Montreal? Head towards Chinatown and take a look at a couple of exhibits by local artists.

Cheryl Sim

Cheryl Sim

La Cabine d’Essayage (The Fitting Room) by Cheryl Sim is aptly located in a small corner of a shopping mall in Chinatown amid clothing and accessory boutiques.

Sim examines the cheongsam, which according to her, is a dress that has become an internationally recognized symbol of Chinese cultural identity. She asks Canadian-born Chinese women how they feel about the dress and if they have a desire to wear it. You get to listen to their answers through headphones and feel as if you’re a part of their conversation. Also part of the exhibit is a video-sculptural work that evokes the classic Chinese screen on which photos and videos showing the evolution of the cheongsam are displayed, and a transparent, plexi-glass fitting room which projects clips from Hollywood films onto the visitor’s body.

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Does this St. Hubert commercial depict Chinese people in a negative way?

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St Hubert Restaurant For the past few weeks, the St. Hubert restaurant chain has been running a commercial where the owner of a Chinese restaurant discovers St. Hubert has a $7.95 meal deal. Both of the actors are Chinese and speak in Cantonese with either English or French subtitles. The complaint is that the commercial is demeaning and offensive. It has drawn criticism and comments on its Facebook and Twitter accounts, and sparked a national dialogue on the stereotyping of Chinese-Canadians.

You can watch it here in English followed by the French version.

Do I think the St. Hubert commercial is stereotyping Chinese people? Yes, but not in a negative way.  Is it demeaning? I don’t think so.

Television has not done a good job of depicting Chinese people. I watched the TV series Bonanza when I was growing up and found the character of the Chinese cook, Hopsing, kind of…confusing. My father and none of the Chinese men I knew had a long braid or behaved in a subservient way. Then there was the practice of casting Caucasian actors in Chinese roles, such as Charlie Chan who was played by three Caucasian actors and the TV series Kung Fu where David Carradine was chosen over Bruce Lee to play the lead role.  There are a handful of Asians on prime time shows now, but basically unless there is a scene that takes place in Chinatown, it’s rare to see a Chinese person on TV.

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