On Jan 22, 2008 8:41 AM, Suresh Ramasubramanian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> The worst examples of this you will get are ... in Japan. Or China. That agrees with my limited experience. Notwithstanding the way Japanese treat all non-Japanese, it's really sad how they treat Koreans. I find it both amusing and sad that two grand champion sumo wrestlers are actually Mongolian - but they have to change their names to Japanese names. I've been told that there are Korean families that have lived in Japan for centuries but who still cannot become Japanese citizens. Don't get me wrong, I've run into plenty of racism in India, and I don't want to get into "my country is more/less xenophobic than yours" but Japan is right up there. I love Japan, and my mother is Japanese, but that doesn't blind me to its faults. As for whether I'd feel safer in the US or in India, the answer, as usual is "it depends." I consider myself "from" San Francisco, and there are parts of San Francisco that I am comfortable in that I would not recommend a casual visitor spend any time in and there are (a very few) parts of San Francisco I would not usually visit, or not visit after dark. [Though the best Pakistani-style food (Shalimar) is in a slightly sketchy neigborhood (Jones and O'Farrell) and I visit there regularly late at night with no worries. Some of my friends think that's crazy.] On the other hand, I walked home from work down the length of Infantry Road at 2am a week or two ago, and almost without exception everyone I've mentioned that to thought it was a bad idea and I shouldn't do that again. That stretch of Infantry Road seems like the "heart" of the city and should be relatively safe, yet everyone agrees that it's not really. On the other other hand, I'm sure walking around in more a more residential part of the city late at night would be no problem. So... there are no pat answers. One thing that is clear, is that while the countries may be comparable in terms of race and racism, there is absolutely no comparison in terms of gender, gender roles, or sexism; or sexual orientation and sexual minorities. India has an absolutely horrible track record in those areas. Contrariwise, I think India does much better in it's treatment of age - at least in it's treatment of older people. Imagine if instead of being a non-white male, he'd been an obviously non-straight single woman and consider the differences in experience in the US, and in India. India is completely unsafe for someone like that. -- Charles I have not seen nearly as much of Bangalore,
