Angela Qin's Blog

I first read this article a few weeks ago and I thought I was just being overly sensitive about this topic.

The original article has actually been taken off macleans, but I found a copy of the article here

But recently there’s been alot of controversy revolving this article and I realized I’m not alone in feeling hurt and unjust with the obvious racism underlying this article.

There were ways that the article twisted the words to extract emotions from the reader.

In the first paragraph when talking about these girl, one was described as “a second-year student who looks like a girl from an Aritzia billboard”. This immediately makes the readers think of an influential, gorgeous, charming girl. At least when I read it, her words became more credible and seemed like what the leader of the pack would do. Which is to “go to Queen’s, Western and McGill.” This is a halo effect where their one quality overshadows everything else.

This comment is mostly subjective and has no scientific research to back it up. “but is also looking for a good time—which rules out U of T, a school with an academic reputation that can be a bit of a killjoy.” However, many readers would now remember that fact when in fact it’s just based on opinion.

There’s other comments in the article that doesn’t make sense. “Many white students simply believe that competing with Asians requires a sacrifice of time and freedom they’re not willing to make.” So when they say that Asians are smarter, that’s not true. It’s just that a majority of Asians place education at a high priority so they are willing to take the time to do well in school.  It’s not necessarily a race thing but more of a culture upbringing.

Their statistics about local residents are also skewed. Living in Richmond, I am in contact with alot of Asians. Some highschools in Richmond have even 90% population of Chinese. So coming to UBC, the students are already really diverse from some of the high schools in local areas.

UBC Professor speaks out:

http://www.straight.com/article-361680/vancouver/henry-yu-macleans-offers-nonapology-writing-nonstory-called-too-asian