<---Not white, completely agree.

When my parents moved here in their late 30's, they made every effort to learn the language and customs.

I totally agree with what they are trying to do, I've lived in Richmond since gas was 38 cents, and the drastic change from English to Chinese is sorta getting out of control. I love the Asian culture but I feel the same as other non Asians when it comes to finding a place to eat or just trying to communicate with someone when wanting to buy or order something. I'm at the point where I have to bring an Asian friend with me if I wanna try/find a new place. I get the feeling that I'm not welcomed in my own city even tho i have been here longer than most.

I like the 70/30 idea, and for the people saying that it's gonna offend the owners or Asians won't wanna do business here. Tough shit, do you honestly think a person is gonna risk closing up shop and not making a living just because of a few letters? People will suck it up and deal with it just like the rest of our economic struggles; because living here has more opportunities than most places.
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In Quebec, you get fined by the language police if your emergency says "EXIT" instead of "SORTIE" (sp? my french sucks).

I agree, being in BC there should be a requirement that ALL signs have English as the predominant lettering with whatever you want as secondary. Not English as the smaller of the two.

Why? Because you live in C A N A D A, not China. Yes I know they both start with "C," quite hard to distinguish from each other.

:suspicious:

A private business should be allowed to advertise in any language they want. Plain and simple. Whats next forcing radio stations like redfm to do radio ads in English.

thats cause they had no money

this new generation has money.

Too bad money doesn't buy class....or taste.

All I know is that this kind of news story would not happen in the U.S. It's English first, then a secondary language such as Spanish on signage.

This is what comes to mind with the U.S. mentality on a U.S. resident knowing English and/or a second language: :(

http://twentytwowords.com/wp-content...ish-only-2.gif

I don't know how legitimate her complaint is. I just did google street view for no.3 in the city center and all the shops have english names on their sign along with chinese names.

what's ironic there is that there is no official language.

i'm the BIGGEST fan of the US there is, but i always find it ironic how the US is so "speak english or else" and here, where we have 2 official languages, we don't ever stand up against another language being in your face (until now?!?!!)

its when all the signage beyond a 'name' is all non-english, and all and any communication, written or otherwise, is in non-english

i think you're missing the picture here

This is kinda funny cause im CBC and cant read chinese for shit either. I can only read all the same signage as you white people out there and im not complaining.

Most of richmond has smaller english writing beside their chinese storenames and its not all that hard to figure out.

No, I do not support a "Melting Pot" culture.

Immigrants to a country should be able to participate in their respective ethnic communities; that may be by wearing a kirpan, a hijab, or listening to a cultural radio station. Immigrants engaging in voluntary segregation is the issue. In Richmond, a faction of the Chinese ethnic community simultaneously avoids excursions and incursions. I'm not aware of any other ethnic community that practices this segregation. I've not experienced anything comparable from the Middle Eastern, Eastern European, South Asian, Filipino, or South American ethnic communities. It's a serious issue, on an escalating series of levels, and signage is just the surface of it.

Some people just want to deal with chinese people because they don't know english. It's discriminating only if you think it is. It's not like they don't allow non-chinese to enter their store. You call it discrimination, I call it taking away freedom.

If you walk into a store and the items are over priced, are you going to flip out too? Same concept. Is it mandatory that every clothing store carry XXXXXL size for special customers? A store DOES NOT have to accommodate to your needs. They run their business the way they want, you don't like it, don't buy there.

So you're saying that you have to learn chinese to get around in richmond? If you don't know one bit of chinese, you'll be lost? You gotta be joking me.

If you can't read an advertisement sign, then so be it. It's obvious they're not trying to sell to you. A sign can be in english and doesn't make sense, am I going to go in the store and bitch at the owner for not having proper grammar and spelling?

I agree that english should be mandatory on signs... street signs and stuff belonging to the city. Business, not so much. It's their business, so mind your own.

Would it be discrimination if I posted a sign that said,

"MindBomber's Construction - we'll blow your mind,"

and in the subtext wrote,

"All ethnic groups welcome to inquire, but business will only be conducted with members of First Nations or British ethnic groups,"

or would you be totally cool?

I could justify it, saying, I find accents too challenging.

I think you are exagerating for saying all communication is non-english. Whenever I go to richmond, I speak english and have no problem whether it be getting food, shopping or otherwise.

And I am not missing the point because I am simply addressing her concern in the original article that she has with Chinese signs.

If her main problem is not signs, then I don't see how she can be satisfied with her petition by, "asking the city to consider adopting the same policy as Aberdeen Centre, where two-thirds of any signage has to have English and French."

I'm a honger so I have no trouble navigating in Richmond. But I do agree that there should be some kind of bylaw that requires English to be displayed on signs. Just like how when u register for a business ur business name should say what kind of business u r doing. It's not taking away freedom IMO. It's more like for clarification purposes.

But I do share the sentiment when I'm in coquitlam and the new Korean population automatically assumes I know Korean. Most of them have very limited English and I had difficulty ordering food cuz the entire menu is in Korean.
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this problem will hit that part of town soon enough

if there were a white town in china, and all the signs were in english, no one would care or complain. why are you guys bitching.

chinese are growing in numbers (lol), it doesn't matter if you're in canada or in the Arctic.

it doesnt matter what the official language is.

drop the "effort to learn" excuse. there is no effort needed. because they are becoming the majority. they have power, and they are big in number.


OHHHHH doesn't this sound like white people? except now the roles are reversed?

for all of you that feel fear, xenophobia, etc whatever you want to call it.

karma's a bitch isn't it. the roles are changing. and this is just a small thing, they aren't even imposing it on you.

get used to it, new players enter the game, if they have more influence and power than you, you have to suck their dicks. just like the world has been sucking white dick for almost all of modern history.

now all you western washed people know what it's like to be any race but white.



stop being so hypocritical. I don't even read chinese and it doesn't bother me. I was raised in the west side, and now i live in the heart of richmond.

i go to RPM, and everything is in chinese. it's not that fuckin hard to communicate with someone that doesn't speak your own language. it's not like you're trying to communicate with a fucking ape. you're both human. if any of you have ever done any travelling or left canada, you'd realise not being able to read everything around you doesn't mean jack all.

I barely ever see all chinese signs, and if i do... so what? it's not like if they were in english i'd suddenly go in and become their customer. I know what stores i want to go to and i go to them. if i'm interested i'll go in and take a peak, if not, who cares.

that big crazy example is perfect. how many of you have even gone in there or know what they sell? does the english title even give you an idea of what kinda business they are?

on no3 road there's a store called "moores"... if you didn't know what the fuck that was, would you know what they sold? does the name even matter? what the fuck are u guys smoking?



no one cares about the effort your parents put in to learn english. they had to back then, there were almost no chinese. to survive you'd have to learn english.

now, times are different. there's more of them than there are of you. you should learn chinese.

or you can go to china and open english only stores. they'd do the exact opposite. they'll welcome you with open arms.

if someone forced me to have english in my sign, it would just say "fuck you".

you guys fuckin sound like quebecois. except worse, cuz you expect quebecois to be ignorant and arrogant dip shits.

you're all going to grow up old and bitter, and become that old fart that can't stop talking about the old days when things were different/better/whiter.

xenophobes. worse than homophobes.

Thats exactly how I feel
The white folk will not suddenly become a customer of said business.

I lived in Richmond, don't read or speak canto, and I've never had an issue with feeling boxed out by the Chinese. If they started petitioning for the street signs to be in Chinese then that's an issue.

If I'm at a resto or yaohan, I just point and choose. They usually try very hard to help with limited english.

not to challenge you, but all the cultures/races whatever, that you have named have all been anally raped by westerners long ago.

they're basically all colonies of the west, of course they don't segregate. what kind of dog would segregate from it's master?


we're talking about the chinese here. the far east. ya know... the complete opposite of us, the far west.

they don't bow down, cuz they don't view the west as superior. they view the west as equals, you can't expect them to whimper at your feet like the other cultures. They do things their way, just like we westerners do things our way.

we never give way to anyone else, neither do they. they're just a reflection of us. i can't believe most people here can't see that.

Yeah, suck it white people

*comes with english subtitles for the crybaby sore losers


Seriously tho, I almost cannot recall a store in Richmond that does not have a English name to go along with the Chinese name. I am willing to bet those people complaining are just racist cunts that are pissed about the Asian majority that is becoming very apparent to them. Its not about learning the culture, if someone doesn't want to learn it, its their lost not yours so why the fuck do you care? The only reason you care is because you are just a sore loser that is scared of competition, and believe me you don't want these places actually speaking fluent English, at least right now they are scaring off white people with their big chinese words and mostly catering to the Chinese population. Once they learn your "culture" y'all gonna be complaining how these Fobs came over here and took your jobs.

The common folk shouldn't have to learn chinese. You can't be saying the asian establishments are trying to scare off the white folk either.

I didn't mean to say either of that, let me clarify. I was exaggerating to get my point across is that at least right now, with the stores/signs having chinese words on it and not with english, they are limiting their market to only people that speaks that language, thus, being less competitive. Once they start catering to a larger population, the debate won't be whether or not they have chinese on their signs, its whether or not these immigrants are coming here and taking all the jobs from the locals and we should all know how that debate ends up.

The common folks don't have to learn chinese or any other language for that matter, but it helps. No one is forcing u to shop or know what the sign says. There are always another alternatives. The chinese didn't come here, invent something and then advertise it in chinese so only the chinese people get to use it. You are not going to walk out of your house and know everything that goes on around you. What is this sense of self entitlement that everyone around you is obligated to write/do something that YOU understand. Those of you using the argument that THIS IS CANADA, WE SPEAK ENGLISH also don't understand what makes CANADA great. Its that we can speak whatever language we want and practice whatever culture we want without being told that we cannot and that includes LANGUAGES ON SIGNS