Category: Chinese

“Because I don’t want to be a white coolie in my own country because it’s not our country anymore” (Wright). This quote originates from the 1992 Australian film, Romper Stomper, which depicts Hando, the leader of a neo-nazi gang, and his reasons for his nazi obsession. This quote is interesting as it outlines a society of multiculturalism but also hints at ideologies of white nationalism and racism which quite thoroughly encompasses what Romper Stomper is about. Furthermore, the themes of multiculturalism and racism seen in the film Romper Stomper reflect themes that can be seen throughout the history of Australia, particularly in the history of Chinese Immigration.

The film Romper Stomper takes place in Australia shifting towards multiculturalism. It follows a neo-nazi gang led by Hando and Davey who are shown at the beginning of the film to have a very apparent hatred for Vietnamese people as there is a scene where they attack three Vietnamese teenagers and later have an outburst about Vietnamese people drinking at their local pub. The gang is later joined by Gabrielle who falls in love with Hando. The gang’s local pub is bought by a Vietnamese person and his sons. Upon finding out, Hando and his gang go to the pub and attack the sons only to have Vietnamese reinforcement arrive and outnumber them. Many of the gang members fall victim to the Vietnamese mob so Hando and the remainder of his gang are forced to flee and hide in their warehouse only to discover the Vietnamese pursuing and setting their warehouse on fire. The remainder of the gang manages to evade the Vietnamese by going through an exit on the roof and they find a new base after forcing out the previous tenants. While planning to buy guns, they run into the topic of money so Gabrielle suggests raiding her own father’s house. The raid initially starts successfully with Gabrielle’s father being tied up and the gang stuffing their spoils into a car but Gabrielle’s father manages to free himself and scares the gang off with his gun. During this time, however, Gabrielle is seen trying to convince Davey to take Hando out of the gang. After the failed raid, Gabrielle agitates Hando into making her leave but interestingly this causes Davey to voice his intentions of leaving the gang and thus giving Gabrielle the address to where he will be staying. Gabrielle, out of anger, calls the police on the gang and then proceeds to sleep with Davey at his grandma’s house. The police show up and raid the warehouse where the gang is staying and Bubs, the youngest of the gang, is killed in the process. The whole gang is arrested except Hando manages to escape. Hando goes to Davey’s place and finds Davey and Gabrielle together and then proceeds to accuse Gabrielle of snitching the location to the police. Davey defends Gabrielle saying that it was not possible because Gabrielle was with him the whole time. Hando then tells Davey and Gabrielle to run with him because the police will come to check Davey’s place so they leave. During their runaway, Gabrielle overhears Hando trying to convince Davey to leave her so she lights their car on fire and then admits to calling the police. Hando, in a fit of anger, tries to kill Gabrielle but Davey stops him by stabbing him in the back of the neck. The movie ultimately ends with Davey cradling Gabrielle and Hando bleeding out on the beach amongst the ironic speculation of a crowd of Asian tourists.

One theme that was depicted throughout Romper Stomper and is reflected throughout the history of Australia is multiculturalism. In the film, we see the presence of two distinct ethnic groups; White people and Vietnamese people. At the beginning of the film, although hated by Hando and his gang, we see that the general public does not quite share the same sentiment about the Vietnamese people. The pub that the gang hangs out at serves Vietnamese people without any regard, there were no problems selling property to the Vietnamese and Davey’s grandma disliked Davey’s anti-Vietnamese badges. This gives the impression that the Vietnamese are quite accepted in society by most. One interesting aspect of the film that I believe did not accord with the history of Australia was during Hando’s neo-nazi monologue, he said, “because rich people and powerful people brought in boatloads of human trash– cheap labor, gooks mainly and there’s going to be more” (Wright). Essentially, Hando is implying that the Vietnamese were being imported into the country and stealing jobs, but this is not the case in the history of Australia. According to Museums Victoria, Australia began accepting Vietnamese through resettlement camps due to the impacts of the North Vietnamese communist government taking over Vietnam in 1975 (Vietnam). Le-Thi-Que et al. write in their journal article Asian Survey that they discovered through systematic surveying that the pushing factors were predominantly fear of fighting, the bandwagon effect of others leaving, and fear of living under communist control (Le-Thi-Que, et al.). Later in Hando’s neo-nazi monologue, he also hints that there will be even more Vietnamese people coming into the country. This could be speculated as the result of the passing of The Orderly Departure Program which Museums Victoria explains was an agreement between the Australian and Vietnamese governments made in 1982, allowing relatives of migrants to leave Vietnam and be reunited (Vietnam). An alternative claim that could be made is that the words that Hando uses to describe Vietnamese migration reflect the history of Chinese multiculturalism in Australia. One of the biggest examples of Chinese multiculturalism is the immigration of the Chinese as a result of the 1851 gold rush. According to the National Museum Australia, Chinese immigration numbers significantly increased during the gold rush with that number peaking at 12,396 in 1856 in that year alone, and by 1861, Chinese immigrants made up 3.3 percent of the Australian population (Chinese). After the end of the gold rush in the 1870s, Chinese people in the mining colonies began to dissipate into the cities and establish themselves in other industries and occupations. People found issues with these Chinese people as they “allegedly competed for jobs, worked for substandard wages under poor conditions, and refused to embrace unionism” as documented in Race and Organized Labor in Australia, 1850–1901 by Raymond Markey (Markey 350). These same reasons were reflected by Hando and introduces the aftermath next major theme of Romper Stomper.

The theme that was most prevalent in this film was racism and the ideals of neo-nazism/white nationalism. Throughout Romper Stomper, many instances of swasticas, nazi related items, and neo-nazi music could be seen as well as the gang’s racism towards the Vietnamese. As discussed earlier, Hando hated the Vietnamese because they were cheap labor and because of his neo-nazi ideologies. These circumstances are mirrored with the Chinese immigrant integration into society after the gold rush in the 1870s as they also faced forms of racism and neo-nazism. These forms of racism and neo-nazism were not exactly in the form of individual attitudes and behaviors but rather through the form of legislation and institutionalized structures. For example, the 1881 Influx of Chinese Restriction Act passed in 1881 and 1887 which restricted the influx of Chinese Immigrants making their way into New South Wales from gold-digging colonies prompted by the anti-Chinese sentiment that arose due to job competition (Laws). Another example is the 1896 Factories and Shops Act in Victoria. According to Right Now, an independent, non-profit media organization, the act essentially subjected Chinese workshops and factories to inspections and regulations while the furniture makers of European descent were exempt from the act (Incognita). The most famous white nationalistic and anti-Chinese legislation was the 1901 Immigration Restriction Act better known as the White Australia Policy. This act, according to the National Museum Australia, allowed immigration officers to make any non-European migrant take a 50-word dictation test that could be tested in any language making it essentially impossible to pass (White). This act was quite successful in attaining its neo-nazi ideologies as National Museum Australia also acknowledged that there was an immediate demographic impact where Asians born outside of Australia were recorded as “only 1.25% of the Australian population in 1901” and that percentage “had shrunk to around 0.21% by the late 1940s” (White).

The film Romper Stomper encompasses the themes of multiculturalism as well as racism and white nationalism/neo-nazism that can be seen throughout the history of Australia. There are many more examples and different ethnic groups where these themes can be seen but these themes as presented in the film are quite prominent and closely parallel to those seen in the history of Chinese immigration and multiculturalism. The themes in the history of Chinese immigration are present in the form of past legislation and policy and though those are no longer present, racist and white nationalistic individual attitudes and behaviors towards immigrants and non-whites continue to remain as it does in Romper Stomper.

Works Cited

1. “Chinese Gold Miners.” National Museum of Australia, National Museum of Australia; c=AU; o=Commonwealth of Australia; Ou=National Museum of Australia, 17 Oct. 2019, www.nma.gov.au/explore/features/harvest-of-endurance/scroll/chinese-gold-miners.
2. “Laws in the Colony of New South Wales.” Laws in the Colony of New South Wales – Chinese Immigrants and Chinese–Australians in NSW, guides.naa.gov.au/chinese/chapter1/1.1.aspx.
3. Le-Thi-Que, et al. “Why They Fled: Refugee Movement during the Spring 1975 Communist Offensive in South Vietnam.” Asian Survey, vol. 16, no. 9, 1976, pp. 855–863. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2643246.
4. Markey, Raymond. “Race and Organized Labor in Australia, 1850–1901.” The Historian, vol. 58, no. 2, 1996, pp. 343–360. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24452280.
5. “Vietnam.” Origins.museumsvictoria.com.au, origins.museumsvictoria.com.au/countries/vietnam/.
6. “White Australia Policy.” National Museum of Australia, National Museum of Australia; c=AU; o=Commonwealth of Australia; Ou=National Museum of Australia, 29 Aug. 2019, www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/white-australia-policy.
7. Wright, Geoffrey, director. Romper Stomper. Village Roadshow, 1992.

Did you know that the Chinese language is several thousand years old and is part of the ‘Sino-Tibetan’ language family? Chinese is a collection of Sinitic dialects (local languages) in the Sino-Tibetan region, spoken by the majority of the Han tribes and many minority ethnic groups in China. About 1.3 billion people (about 16% of the total population) speak Chinese as their first language. Copied Chinese sets are generally regarded by local speakers as a variant of a single language. However, due to their general ignorance, they were commissioned by an expert family etymologist. They found that these vernaculars were as diverse as the Romance languages. Currently, most orders comprise 7-13 basic areas based on the development of Mandarin Chinese phonetics, which is the most widely spoken Mandarin language (with about 800 million speakers, or 66%), followed by a small (75 million). , e.g. Southern Min), Wu (74 million, e.g. Shanghainese) and Yue (68 million, e.g. Cantonese). These categories are not equally understandable, and many of their subdivisions are not identical to the different species within the same category (e.g. Southern Min). In any case, there are temporary areas where various branches share important features of others, and limited consistency, including New Xiang and Southwest Mandarin, Quanzhou Wu, and Lower Yangtze Mandarin, Jin and Central Plains Mandarin, and Hakka jargon different from Gan. All The Chinese categories to some extent do not change especially scientifically. For those who are familiar with only the most common European languages, the Chinese language is remarkably different. Despite this, Chinese is now spoken by more people than any other language, and the oldest Chinese literature in the world, which dates back to the 35th century when we examined the structure of the Chinese language, found it to be remarkably complex; in many ways, it is easier than Western languages. However, because Chinese is so different from European languages, a certain understanding of its structure and historical development is needed to better understand the vernacular.

Each syllable has a nucleus with a vowel followed by an onset (a single consonant), and followed (optionally) by a coda consonant; each syllable also has a tone. There are times when a vowel is not used as a nucleus.

Pinyin: The standard Romanized spelling system for transliterating Chinese. Pinyin is the Mandarin word for ‘spelling,’ which involves writing letters that represent the sound of a word instead of a Chinese character. Today, it almost always has the feel of Hanyu Pinyin, the People’s Republic of China’s method of writing Mandarin sounds since the 1950s.

Tones: Tones are used to distinguish words in all dialects of spoken Chinese. Some dialects in north China may have as few as three tones, while dialects in south China may have as many as six or twelve tones, depending on how one counts.

History of Chinese Language:

Chinese is often referred to as the ancient language of history. In a way, such a claim is misleading. All human languages can be traced back to the briefest prehistoric ambitions, and we have no way of knowing whether they all have the same origin or not. Just as the ancestors of English-speaking countries spoke the original English 4000 years ago, the ancestors of Chinese society spoke the original Chinese. Since almost nothing is known about the origin of language in the human race, we are not in a position to say which national language originated earlier and emerged later. It is better that in the course of history, some languages are renamed more often than others. There is, however, one concept in which Chinese is the oldest language. Sumerian is the only language known for its pre-Chinese written texts. Sumerian cuneiform writing dates back some 5,000 years, while the earliest Chinese manuscripts in existence today date back some 3,500 years. However, the Sumerians and their writings died long before the Christian era. Chinese writing has survived to our day, despite significant style changes. Ancient Chinese inscriptions are on the cutting edge of bone and tortoise. Most inscriptions are verbal, referring to political or religious events, weather, or wars. The story of these inscriptions, found in the late nineteenth century in Chinese drug stores and marketed as ‘dragon bones’ for their medicinal value, is a colorful chapter in the history of Chinese archeology and philosophy. More than 100,000 recorded fragments have now been found. Even though the total number of characters written in the configuration exceeds one million, the number of separate characters is small. Text-to-speech transcripts speak of very limited topics, and similar characters appear repeatedly. About half of the 2,000 to 3,000 letters on shells and bones can be read today. The pictorial characters were used in some of the original Chinese characters. The word ‘rain’ is made up of several columns of broken lines, while the word ‘horse’ resembles a horse, full of mane and four legs. Pictographs, on the other hand, are only a few in the field of Chinese vocabulary. A simple image cannot convey the meaning of most words in a language. Calligraphy, a fine translation of the alphabet, is a well-established art form that has long been regarded in Chinese culture, just as painting is revered in Western lands. Drawing and calligraphy have a strong Chinese connection. The silk scroll is usually covered with a picture and a few lines of text, both of which are carefully balanced. Chinese characters have a much longer history than Western characters due to their autistic values.

Chinese Writing Program:

The Chinese writing system underwent a dramatic change in 1956 when the government of the People’s Republic of China decided to simplify the alphabet and adopt the spelling system. Latin Chinese word. Both of these measures are aimed at making Chinese literacy easier to learn, an important step in promoting language unity and improving literacy in China. To understand the Chinese alphabet and its simplicity, we have to first examine its interior

Structure.

Standard Chinese:

To understand the Pinyin spelling system, we must first examine the audio system known as the traditional Chinese, based on the Peking dialectic now taught throughout China. It is a simple, simple system in many ways than simple Spanish syllables. There is only one feature those who speak European languages are unfamiliar with: tones. Because almost every letter must have one of the four basic tones, the spoken Chinese language has a musical quality. The punctuation marks on the vowel show these tones. Tone status seems to be limited to Chinese and other Southeast Asian languages heavily influenced by Chinese.

Chinese Language Groups:

• Mandarin, which includes Traditional Chinese, Pekingese, Sichuanese, and other Dungan languages spoken in Central Asia.
• Wu, which includes Shanghainese, Suzhounese, and Wenzhounese
• Gan
• Xiang
• Min, which includes Fuzhounese, Hainanese, Hokkien and Teochew
• Hakka
• Yue, which combines Cantonese and Taishanese
• Li Rong’s program, used in the Language Atlas of China (1987), divides the other three groups:
• Jin, recently remembered in Mandarin.
• Huizhou, recently commemorated by Wu.

Pinghua, recently remembered by Yue. Ordinary Chinese, commonly called Mandarin, is the official Chinese language, the official language of Taiwan, and one of the four official languages of Singapore. In line with these lines, it is used in government offices, in the media, and as a language of instruction in schools.

Chinese Culture:

Chinese culture has been one of the world’s oldest communities for millenniums. Chinese culture has a long narrative in a large topographical area in East Asia, polyethnic origins make it very diverse and strong, with traditions and customs, beliefs, and dialects uniquely different between places, urban communities, and even villages. The name ‘China’ and the geological scope of the ‘China’ world have been around for centuries, with the surname Great Qing before the word ‘China’ became commonplace in new inventions.

The development of the Chinese people is generally regarded as the dominant culture of East Asia. As China is one of the oldest civilizations, Chinese culture plays a major role in the way of thinking, self-control, customs, and traditions in Asia. Chinese characters, pottery, design, music, dance, handwriting, handicrafts, food, materials, theory, business ethics, religion, legal issues, and history have a worldwide impact, while your practices and celebrations are also celebrated, rooted, and considered by people around the world. all

Chinese religion was initially centered on the love of the supreme deity Shang Di during the reigns of Xia and Shang when emperors and diviners traveled as priests and used the bones of a prophet. Zhou officials have made it possible to restore a broader sense of paradise. A large part of Chinese culture is based on the idea that there is a foreign country. Many divination techniques help to answer questions, in any case, to complete a choice in medicine. Old stories have helped to fill in the gaps between the two. In many cases, there is a vague line between myth, religion, and the unexplained specialty. Large numbers of accounts have evolved into Chinese cultural events. Different perspectives have reached history beyond deep images such as the Door god and the Imperial Guardian lions. Along with heavenly beliefs, there is cruelty. Practices, for example, the expulsion of Taoist anti-mogwai and jiangshi with peachwood swords are part of the ideas that have been passed down from time immemorial. A few Chinese divination techniques are still used today following thousands of years of refinement.

China is facing an unprecedented challenge as its people struggle with a myriad of social problems arising from the incredible economic growth in the past decade. I aspire to meet the challenge and effect positive social changes by leveraging my bicultural background, business experience and passion for philanthropy. Unlike more developed countries where the combination of social enterprises, non-profit organizations and corporate and individual donations help to drive meaningful social projects, similar entities in China are undeveloped and lack financial and governmental support. My vision is to build or fund sustainable for-profit enterprises with social missions. For-profit social enterprise have a much better chance to drive meaningful changes because of its ability to not rely on donations, be locally sensitive, active and innovative as well as to attract an up-and-coming generation of socially conscious workers who strive for more meaning in their jobs. I will be a maverick as sustainable and innovative social ventures are much rarer in China than in other places, but I am convinced that it is the more effective model to combat serious challenges in China.

Despite my conviction in the growing importance of social enterprise in China and my strong desire to be a leader in this field, I currently lack the knowledge, experience and network to execute effectively. Stanford MBA program, with its unparalleled reputation in preparing students with similar aspirations, will help me bridge the gap. At Stanford, I will pursue the certificate in public management with a focus in managing social enterprises and advancing social innovation. Classroom studies and experimental learning will enhance my understanding of various social problems and equip me with the tested approaches to solve them.

In addition to my academic pursuits, I am also eager to deepen my cultural understanding and language skills. Therefore, I plan to enroll in a Chinese course offered at Stanford, which will not only expand my linguistic abilities but also provide me with valuable insights into the rich literary traditions and contemporary discourse of China. This interdisciplinary approach will further enhance my ability to navigate the complexities of social enterprise and make a lasting impact in the Chinese context.

I am eager to dedicate my time to participate in the recently founded SEED (Stanford’s Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies) program, because I vehemently agree with the program’s mission and approach. While volunteering in the program and pursuing my MBA degree, I will undoubtedly come across innovative ideas, passionate individuals and impactful organizations that I otherwise do not have access to. At Stanford, students do not merely get involved and follow others, they are expected to lead and innovate. To fulfill my goals, I must lead as there is no one to follow; I must be ingrained in the Stanford way.

During my class visit, I hoped to attend the popular class “Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability”; instead I was randomly assigned to the famous class taught by Condoleezza Rice. That experience epitomized the opportunities truly distinctive to GSB students.

As the CEO of Yeecare E-commerce Ltd, the leading online retailer of nutritional supplements in China, my father exemplifies the leadership that I wish to emulate. When he asked me to help his company research creative marketing strategies during my visit in 2010, I happily obliged. I recommended using social media, specifically “Weibo”, the Twitter equivalent in China, because of the success American companies have had with marketing on Facebook and Twitter. By providing a platform to interact with consumers, the Weibo experiment successfully attracted many followers. As I delved deeper into Yeecare’s business model and products, I saw an opportunity to achieve much more than what was originally intended. I shared my ideas with the management team and was approved to stay on the project remotely.

The first initiative was to leverage the knowledgebase of doctors and nutrition experts who work at Yeecare by posting weekly educational materials on healthrelated issues. Furthermore, I encouraged the team to interact with social media followers by answering their questions. Through this project, Yeecare raised health awareness in the general public and enhanced sales through targeted marketing.

Prior to tapping the network of Weibo, Yeecare had not been able to draw public participation to many of its charitable initiatives. I helped to run a series of posts on Weibo, informing its followers on the offer to match one donation per purchase to senior centers in ten different cities. The response was overwhelmingly positive. The posts were “re-tweeted” by many followers, which in turn reached a far greater audience, including many who were previously unaware of Yeecare’s brand and socially responsible missions. Not only did sales increase, many people chose to buy multiple products and donated ones they bought, in addition to ones we matched. As a result, Yeecare’s donation in 2011 far exceeded that of previous years, totaling over three million dollars.

By going beyond the initial objective, I was able to lead successful initiatives that achieved both for-profit and socially responsible goals. This served as an eye-opening experience as I learned how much good a for-profit company, with the right leadership, strategy and mission, can do for society.

For my research project, I decided to study Chinese cuisine. I chose this because I love Chinese food, but know nothing about it. Chinese cuisine plays a tremendous role in Chinese culture. It is one of the richest and most diverse heritages on the planet. The cuisine started in various regions of China and soon migrated to other parts of the world, such as Southeast Asia, North America, and Western Europe.

China is made up of both lowlands and mountain ranges. The Yangtze River is the largest in all of China, running almost 4,000 miles long. Most of the people in China have access to safe drinking water, however, water pollution is a major problem. There are 1.4 billion people in China, and most of them live outside of city regions.

Throughout history, China has had problems with feeding its people due to its vastly growing population. The Chinese were constantly adapting new eating habits because of the scarcity of food. The meat was extremely scarce for a long period, so the Chinese had to figure out a way to bring more substance to their meals. They did this by creating stir-fry. Stir-fry was a quick and efficient way of cooking. It is made with meat, vegetables, and either rice or noodles. “Regional differences in cuisine became noticeable in the 1200s when invaders from neighboring Mongolia swept into China. Cooking styles and customs began to be exchanged between the two countries. As people traveled further from their homes, cooking methods and foods were shared among the different regions within China”(Food in Every Country).

We do not typically see foods like shark fins, seaweed, frogs, snakes, dog meat, and cat meat in North America. The Chinese use yin and yang as a way to keep their lives and their food balanced. China’s staple food is Rice. ‘Fan’ is the Chinese word for rice, which also means ‘meal’. “Rice may be served with any meal and is eaten several times a day. Scallions, bean sprouts, cabbage, and ginger root are other traditional foods. Soybean curd, called tofu, is an important source of protein for the Chinese. Although the Chinese generally do not eat a lot of meat, pork and chicken are the most commonly eaten meat. Vegetables play a central role in Chinese cooking, too” (Food in Every Country). There are four main types of Chinese cooking: Cantonese, Mandarin, Szechuan, and Hunan. Cantonese dishes typically have rice, stir-fry, wonton soup, egg rolls, and pork. Mandarin dishes usually consist of noodles, dumplings, pancakes, and ducks. In a Szechuan dish, you might find lots of seafood. Lastly, you might find chicken, pork, and green beans in a Hunan dish.

I have discovered a lot about Chinese cuisine through my research. I didn’t realize that Chinese food came mainly from four different regions, each having different dishes to offer. By researching, I also found some new dishes I would love to try that I have never heard of before.

In this essay, I want to inform people about U.S. law policy issues that are applied to migrants, undocumented people, and U.S. citizens. U.S. law policies became an issue for migrants when the United States immigration law enforcement which started with the Chinese Exclusion Act was based on race and was unjust to Chinese Laborers. Over time more policies were set in place to target people because of their race and ethnicity. Moreover, people today are targeted because of their documentation and are treated horribly by law enforcement.

Looking at the past, America’s deportation system was seen as rooted in racism and injustice. When the United States wanted to limit immigration, the first national law passed by Congress was the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. The first law prohibited a national, racial, and ethnic group. It was a time when the Chinese population increased in the U.S. In 1882, the Chinese were barred from immigration for ten years. When the Chinese Exclusion Act was about to expire, they passed another law the Geary Act in 1892. Geary Act extended it for another ten years. By chapter three City of Inmates, “in 1892, Geary Act required all Chinese laborers living in the United States to register with the federal government or be subject to arrest up to one-year imprisonment at hard labor and then deportation”(pg.64). The main reason for this act was to prohibit and limit the number of Chinese people entering the U.S.

It’s important to know that the Chinese Exclusion Act was a racist law to hide its economic agenda by abusing a specific ethnic group of people. When we look back from now on these laws it makes us feel disappointed and shocked because judging people by their race is treating them unequally. This immigration issue doesn’t just apply to the past but the present as well, U.S. policies are controlling people by their race and religion. The exclusion of Hispanics and Muslim immigrants becomes one bigger topic of the political conversation. When these laws/policies that the U.S. enforces target a specific race it becomes a “racist” policy. Excluding people from a specific country is telling us how the U.S. is trying to control immigration.

Law enforcement officers use excessive force against people, especially migrants and people of color. Thousands of cases across the U.S. have been reported where people have been abused by an officer illegally without any reason, as police brutality remains one of the most serious human rights violations. The evidence of unjustified police shootings, severe beatings, rough treatment, and mass incarceration rates among a certain race is outstanding.

Despite the tremendous amount of evidence, police misconduct towards migrants and people of color remains invisible. Not only is society ignoring the violence blacks experience at the hands of police officers, but we are also ignoring the racial profiling that happens within the courtroom. The role that race plays in the criminal justice system is crucial to understanding the disproportionate number of black people in prison compared to white people.

In today’s world where law enforcement agencies have a lot of impact on our society. Law enforcement agencies keep our society safe by providing patrolling, catching criminals, and cyber-watching through the internet. Criminals have a state of mind that they won’t commit any crime if a police officer is patrolling or is at the corner. Crime against people based on race, color, ethnicity, and religion has increased in the United States. Law enforcement agencies should eliminate crime against people based on race, color, ethnicity, and religion because people are being targeted based on race, color, ethnicity, and religion.

In recent times one of the most horrific incidents that occurred in the United States was the shooting of a black male Philando Castle who mentioned that he had a licensed weapon. This is one reason that law enforcement should be used to eliminate violence against people based on race, color, ethnicity, and religion. Philando Castilo got pulled over by a cop then he mentioned that he was carrying a licensed arm but the police officer shot him in front of his girlfriend. The police officer denied the fact that he had been told about the gun he claimed that he thought that the black male was carrying a gun in his hands so in fear he opened fire, however, the girl denied the fact saying “ She said Castile had been shot while reaching for his ID after letting the officer know he had a firearm” (What the police officer who shot Philando Castile said about the shooting) this shows how the officer saw him as a threat because he is black and shot him. In the aftermath of this shooting, there have been a lot of debates going on in the United States about what would have been the result if the guy had been white; some people undoubtedly said that it would have been a lot different because the law agencies don’t see white people as a threat as they see other migrants.

Racism has been rooted in the people of the United States. People are getting targeted based on race, color, ethnicity, and religion. In recent times people have considered migrants as a threat and others such as white people as heroes. This shows how people are treated based on race, color, ethnicity, and religion. As law enforcement agencies their job is to keep all people safe regardless of their race, color, ethnicity, and religion and to see them all as equal but; that’s not happening as officers are being told to go hard on migrants evidence of this is “Multiple police officers in Brooklyn say they were told by a commander that white and Asian people should be left alone. At a police station tucked into an end-of-the-line subway terminal in South Brooklyn, the new commander instructed officers to think of white and Asian people as “soft targets” and urged them to instead go after blacks and Latinos for minor offenses like jumping the turnstile, a half-dozen officers said in sworn statements.” (‘I Got Tired of Hunting Black and Hispanic People’) This shows how unfair United States law agencies are getting as they are judging people based on race, color, ethnicity, and religion. This is not permissible in a country in which the Declaration of Independence states that “All men are created equal” For this reason, law enforcement agencies should eliminate crime against people based on race, color, ethnicity, and religion.

Even the president of the United States is freely racist and discriminates against Latinos and Muslims. He put a “Muslim ban” on at least 7 countries, stating that no more people should come from those 7 countries for “national security.” There were riots and protests for days because this act was so horrendous and uncalled for. He targeted people of a specific religion and ethnicity and passed a law that targeted them. He shook the whole world with this act and caused chaos. Even today brown people are searched “extra” at the airports by law enforcement just because they might be “terrorists.” Racism is at an all-time high and hate crimes against Muslims, Latinos, and blacks are also on the rise. Law enforcement also contributes to this because of the lack of care.

Law enforcement such as ICE is terrorizing Latino families by “hunting down” illegals and putting them in what most people call modern-day “concentration camps.” This is not what America stands for, our forefathers came to America to escape a corrupt government, and now decades later the government is terrorizing people who are trying to better their lives by coming to the United States. Because the president is so against Latinos hate crimes have also increased against them. In the article “The ‘Forgotten’ History Of Anti-Latino Violence In The U.S.” it states “ The rate of hate crimes against Latinos in the U.S. is at its highest in nearly a decade, according to an annual report by the FBI. The report revealed 485 hate crimes against Latinos in 2018. That’s 58 more than reported the year before and surpassing those against Muslims and Arab Americans.” Hate crimes are at an all-time high and no one is talking about this and it is going on nationwide.

Many don’t see a problem in these acts that the president is passing because they believe it is justified. The president states that “we are protecting the freedoms of law-abiding Americans, and we are going after the criminal gangs and cartels that prey on our innocent citizens.” To the president and his followers, they are making America “great again” by kicking out illegal immigrants and banning Muslims until “they know what’s going on.” A study it shows that “in the first 100 days after President Trump signed executive orders on immigration enforcement, immigration and customs Enforcement and Removal Operations compared to the same time last year.” The president has arrested and thrown out illegal aliens and is still to this day planning on building a “Great Wall” that will keep the Mexicans out. Many say that migrants should come legally and that it’s their fault for being here illegally. And so no one sees or cares about how the illegals are treated in this country and even after so many protests ICE continues to destroy families. Trump’s supporters see nothing wrong with what’s going on because they believe it’s all justified by the president’s statements.

Throughout the United States’ history, there have always been controversial laws that have targeted people of specific races, religions, and ethnicities. From the Chinese Exclusion Act to the Muslim ban. The force that is used to target these people is horrendous and not much is being done to stop this. Our president is targeting people due to their ethnic backgrounds and religious beliefs. Prisons are filled with African Americans and Latinos, Muslims are being banned and discriminated against and nothing is being done. The protests are being ignored and the president has divided the country more than ever. Even Latino/black citizens are being discriminated against no one is safe. The violence against the people of the United States by their own government and law enforcement must stop.

“Because I don’t want to be a white coolie in my own country because it’s not our country anymore” (Wright). This quote originates from the 1992 Australian film, Romper Stomper, which depicts Hando, the leader of a neo-nazi gang, and his reasons for his nazi obsession. This quote is interesting as it outlines a society of multiculturalism but also hints at ideologies of white nationalism and racism which quite thoroughly encompasses what Romper Stomper is about. Furthermore, the themes of multiculturalism and racism seen in the film Romper Stomper reflect themes that can be seen throughout the history of Australia, particularly in the history of Chinese Immigration.

The film Romper Stomper takes place in Australia shifting towards multiculturalism. It follows a neo-nazi gang led by Hando and Davey who are shown at the beginning of the film to have a very apparent hatred for Vietnamese people as there is a scene where they attack three Vietnamese teenagers and later have an outburst about Vietnamese people drinking at their local pub. The gang is later joined by Gabrielle who falls in love with Hando. The gang’s local pub is bought by a Vietnamese person and his sons. Upon finding out, Hando and his gang go to the pub and attack the sons only to have Vietnamese reinforcement arrive and outnumber them. Many of the gang members fall victim to the Vietnamese mob so Hando and the remainder of his gang are forced to flee and hide in their warehouse only to discover the Vietnamese pursuing and setting their warehouse on fire. The remainder of the gang manages to evade the Vietnamese by going through an exit on the roof and they find a new base after forcing out the previous tenants. While planning to buy guns, they run into the topic of money so Gabrielle suggests raiding her own father’s house. The raid initially starts successfully with Gabrielle’s father being tied up and the gang stuffing their spoils into a car but Gabrielle’s father manages to free himself and scares the gang off with his gun. During this time, however, Gabrielle is seen trying to convince Davey to take Hando out of the gang. After the failed raid, Gabrielle agitates Hando into making her leave but interestingly this causes Davey to voice his intentions of leaving the gang and thus giving Gabrielle the address to where he will be staying. Gabrielle, out of anger, calls the police on the gang and then proceeds to sleep with Davey at his grandma’s house. The police show up and raid the warehouse where the gang is staying and Bubs, the youngest of the gang, is killed in the process. The whole gang is arrested except Hando manages to escape. Hando goes to Davey’s place and finds Davey and Gabrielle together and then proceeds to accuse Gabrielle of snitching the location to the police. Davey defends Gabrielle saying that it was not possible because Gabrielle was with him the whole time. Hando then tells Davey and Gabrielle to run with him because the police will come to check Davey’s place so they leave. During their runaway, Gabrielle overhears Hando trying to convince Davey to leave her so she lights their car on fire and then admits to calling the police. Hando, in a fit of anger, tries to kill Gabrielle but Davey stops him by stabbing him in the back of the neck. The movie ultimately ends with Davey cradling Gabrielle and Hando bleeding out on the beach amongst the ironic speculation of a crowd of Asian tourists.

One theme that was depicted throughout Romper Stomper and is reflected throughout the history of Australia is multiculturalism. In the film, we see the presence of two distinct ethnic groups; White people and Vietnamese people. At the beginning of the film, although hated by Hando and his gang, we see that the general public does not quite share the same sentiment about the Vietnamese people. The pub that the gang hangs out at serves Vietnamese people without any regard, there were no problems selling property to the Vietnamese and Davey’s grandma disliked Davey’s anti-Vietnamese badges. This gives the impression that the Vietnamese are quite accepted in society by most. One interesting aspect of the film that I believe did not accord with the history of Australia was during Hando’s neo-nazi monologue, he said, “because rich people and powerful people brought in boatloads of human trash– cheap labor, gooks mainly and there’s going to be more” (Wright). Essentially, Hando is implying that the Vietnamese were being imported into the country and stealing jobs, but this is not the case in the history of Australia. According to Museums Victoria, Australia began accepting Vietnamese through resettlement camps due to the impacts of the North Vietnamese communist government taking over Vietnam in 1975 (Vietnam). Le-Thi-Que et al. write in their journal article Asian Survey that they discovered through systematic surveying that the pushing factors were predominantly fear of fighting, the bandwagon effect of others leaving, and fear of living under communist control (Le-Thi-Que, et al.). Later in Hando’s neo-nazi monologue, he also hints that there will be even more Vietnamese people coming into the country. This could be speculated as the result of the passing of The Orderly Departure Program which Museums Victoria explains was an agreement between the Australian and Vietnamese governments made in 1982, allowing relatives of migrants to leave Vietnam and be reunited (Vietnam). An alternative claim that could be made is that the words that Hando uses to describe Vietnamese migration reflect the history of Chinese multiculturalism in Australia. One of the biggest examples of Chinese multiculturalism is the immigration of the Chinese as a result of the 1851 gold rush. According to the National Museum Australia, Chinese immigration numbers significantly increased during the gold rush with that number peaking at 12,396 in 1856 in that year alone, and by 1861, Chinese immigrants made up 3.3 percent of the Australian population (Chinese). After the end of the gold rush in the 1870s, Chinese people in the mining colonies began to dissipate into the cities and establish themselves in other industries and occupations. People found issues with these Chinese people as they “allegedly competed for jobs, worked for substandard wages under poor conditions, and refused to embrace unionism” as documented in Race and Organized Labor in Australia, 1850–1901 by Raymond Markey (Markey 350). These same reasons were reflected by Hando and introduces the aftermath next major theme of Romper Stomper.

The theme that was most prevalent in this film was racism and the ideals of neo-nazism/white nationalism. Throughout Romper Stomper, many instances of swasticas, nazi related items, and neo-nazi music could be seen as well as the gang’s racism towards the Vietnamese. As discussed earlier, Hando hated the Vietnamese because they were cheap labor and because of his neo-nazi ideologies. These circumstances are mirrored with the Chinese immigrant integration into society after the gold rush in the 1870s as they also faced forms of racism and neo-nazism. These forms of racism and neo-nazism were not exactly in the form of individual attitudes and behaviors but rather through the form of legislation and institutionalized structures. For example, the 1881 Influx of Chinese Restriction Act passed in 1881 and 1887 which restricted the influx of Chinese Immigrants making their way into New South Wales from gold-digging colonies prompted by the anti-Chinese sentiment that arose due to job competition (Laws). Another example is the 1896 Factories and Shops Act in Victoria. According to Right Now, an independent, non-profit media organization, the act essentially subjected Chinese workshops and factories to inspections and regulations while the furniture makers of European descent were exempt from the act (Incognita). The most famous white nationalistic and anti-Chinese legislation was the 1901 Immigration Restriction Act better known as the White Australia Policy. This act, according to the National Museum Australia, allowed immigration officers to make any non-European migrant take a 50-word dictation test that could be tested in any language making it essentially impossible to pass (White). This act was quite successful in attaining its neo-nazi ideologies as National Museum Australia also acknowledged that there was an immediate demographic impact where Asians born outside of Australia were recorded as “only 1.25% of the Australian population in 1901” and that percentage “had shrunk to around 0.21% by the late 1940s” (White).

The film Romper Stomper encompasses the themes of multiculturalism as well as racism and white nationalism/neo-nazism that can be seen throughout the history of Australia. There are many more examples and different ethnic groups where these themes can be seen but these themes as presented in the film are quite prominent and closely parallel to those seen in the history of Chinese immigration and multiculturalism. The themes in the history of Chinese immigration are present in the form of past legislation and policy and though those are no longer present, racist and white nationalistic individual attitudes and behaviors towards immigrants and non-whites continue to remain as it does in Romper Stomper.

Works Cited

1. “Chinese Gold Miners.” National Museum of Australia, National Museum of Australia; c=AU; o=Commonwealth of Australia; Ou=National Museum of Australia, 17 Oct. 2019, www.nma.gov.au/explore/features/harvest-of-endurance/scroll/chinese-gold-miners.
2. “Laws in the Colony of New South Wales.” Laws in the Colony of New South Wales – Chinese Immigrants and Chinese–Australians in NSW, guides.naa.gov.au/chinese/chapter1/1.1.aspx.
3. Le-Thi-Que, et al. “Why They Fled: Refugee Movement during the Spring 1975 Communist Offensive in South Vietnam.” Asian Survey, vol. 16, no. 9, 1976, pp. 855–863. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2643246.
4. Markey, Raymond. “Race and Organized Labor in Australia, 1850–1901.” The Historian, vol. 58, no. 2, 1996, pp. 343–360. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24452280.
5. “Vietnam.” Origins.museumsvictoria.com.au, origins.museumsvictoria.com.au/countries/vietnam/.
6. “White Australia Policy.” National Museum of Australia, National Museum of Australia; c=AU; o=Commonwealth of Australia; Ou=National Museum of Australia, 29 Aug. 2019, www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/white-australia-policy.
7. Wright, Geoffrey, director. Romper Stomper. Village Roadshow, 1992.

Did you know that the Chinese language is several thousand years old and is part of the ‘Sino-Tibetan’ language family? Chinese is a collection of Sinitic dialects (local languages) in the Sino-Tibetan region, spoken by the majority of the Han tribes and many minority ethnic groups in China. About 1.3 billion people (about 16% of the total population) speak Chinese as their first language. Copied Chinese sets are generally regarded by local speakers as a variant of a single language. However, due to their general ignorance, they were commissioned by an expert family etymologist. They found that these vernaculars were as diverse as the Romance languages. Currently, most orders comprise 7-13 basic areas based on the development of Mandarin Chinese phonetics, which is the most widely spoken Mandarin language (with about 800 million speakers, or 66%), followed by a small (75 million). , e.g. Southern Min), Wu (74 million, e.g. Shanghainese) and Yue (68 million, e.g. Cantonese). These categories are not equally understandable, and many of their subdivisions are not identical to the different species within the same category (e.g. Southern Min). In any case, there are temporary areas where various branches share important features of others, and limited consistency, including New Xiang and Southwest Mandarin, Quanzhou Wu, and Lower Yangtze Mandarin, Jin and Central Plains Mandarin, and Hakka jargon different from Gan. All The Chinese categories to some extent do not change especially scientifically. For those who are familiar with only the most common European languages, the Chinese language is remarkably different. Despite this, Chinese is now spoken by more people than any other language, and the oldest Chinese literature in the world, which dates back to the 35th century when we examined the structure of the Chinese language, found it to be remarkably complex; in many ways, it is easier than Western languages. However, because Chinese is so different from European languages, a certain understanding of its structure and historical development is needed to better understand the vernacular.

Each syllable has a nucleus with a vowel followed by an onset (a single consonant), and followed (optionally) by a coda consonant; each syllable also has a tone. There are times when a vowel is not used as a nucleus.

Pinyin: The standard Romanized spelling system for transliterating Chinese. Pinyin is the Mandarin word for ‘spelling,’ which involves writing letters that represent the sound of a word instead of a Chinese character. Today, it almost always has the feel of Hanyu Pinyin, the People’s Republic of China’s method of writing Mandarin sounds since the 1950s.

Tones: Tones are used to distinguish words in all dialects of spoken Chinese. Some dialects in north China may have as few as three tones, while dialects in south China may have as many as six or twelve tones, depending on how one counts.

History of Chinese Language:

Chinese is often referred to as the ancient language of history. In a way, such a claim is misleading. All human languages can be traced back to the briefest prehistoric ambitions, and we have no way of knowing whether they all have the same origin or not. Just as the ancestors of English-speaking countries spoke the original English 4000 years ago, the ancestors of Chinese society spoke the original Chinese. Since almost nothing is known about the origin of language in the human race, we are not in a position to say which national language originated earlier and emerged later. It is better that in the course of history, some languages are renamed more often than others. There is, however, one concept in which Chinese is the oldest language. Sumerian is the only language known for its pre-Chinese written texts. Sumerian cuneiform writing dates back some 5,000 years, while the earliest Chinese manuscripts in existence today date back some 3,500 years. However, the Sumerians and their writings died long before the Christian era. Chinese writing has survived to our day, despite significant style changes. Ancient Chinese inscriptions are on the cutting edge of bone and tortoise. Most inscriptions are verbal, referring to political or religious events, weather, or wars. The story of these inscriptions, found in the late nineteenth century in Chinese drug stores and marketed as ‘dragon bones’ for their medicinal value, is a colorful chapter in the history of Chinese archeology and philosophy. More than 100,000 recorded fragments have now been found. Even though the total number of characters written in the configuration exceeds one million, the number of separate characters is small. Text-to-speech transcripts speak of very limited topics, and similar characters appear repeatedly. About half of the 2,000 to 3,000 letters on shells and bones can be read today. The pictorial characters were used in some of the original Chinese characters. The word ‘rain’ is made up of several columns of broken lines, while the word ‘horse’ resembles a horse, full of mane and four legs. Pictographs, on the other hand, are only a few in the field of Chinese vocabulary. A simple image cannot convey the meaning of most words in a language. Calligraphy, a fine translation of the alphabet, is a well-established art form that has long been regarded in Chinese culture, just as painting is revered in Western lands. Drawing and calligraphy have a strong Chinese connection. The silk scroll is usually covered with a picture and a few lines of text, both of which are carefully balanced. Chinese characters have a much longer history than Western characters due to their autistic values.

Chinese Writing Program:

The Chinese writing system underwent a dramatic change in 1956 when the government of the People’s Republic of China decided to simplify the alphabet and adopt the spelling system. Latin Chinese word. Both of these measures are aimed at making Chinese literacy easier to learn, an important step in promoting language unity and improving literacy in China. To understand the Chinese alphabet and its simplicity, we have to first examine its interior

Structure.

Standard Chinese:

To understand the Pinyin spelling system, we must first examine the audio system known as the traditional Chinese, based on the Peking dialectic now taught throughout China. It is a simple, simple system in many ways than simple Spanish syllables. There is only one feature those who speak European languages are unfamiliar with: tones. Because almost every letter must have one of the four basic tones, the spoken Chinese language has a musical quality. The punctuation marks on the vowel show these tones. Tone status seems to be limited to Chinese and other Southeast Asian languages heavily influenced by Chinese.

Chinese Language Groups:

• Mandarin, which includes Traditional Chinese, Pekingese, Sichuanese, and other Dungan languages spoken in Central Asia.
• Wu, which includes Shanghainese, Suzhounese, and Wenzhounese
• Gan
• Xiang
• Min, which includes Fuzhounese, Hainanese, Hokkien and Teochew
• Hakka
• Yue, which combines Cantonese and Taishanese
• Li Rong’s program, used in the Language Atlas of China (1987), divides the other three groups:
• Jin, recently remembered in Mandarin.
• Huizhou, recently commemorated by Wu.

Pinghua, recently remembered by Yue. Ordinary Chinese, commonly called Mandarin, is the official Chinese language, the official language of Taiwan, and one of the four official languages of Singapore. In line with these lines, it is used in government offices, in the media, and as a language of instruction in schools.

Chinese Culture:

Chinese culture has been one of the world’s oldest communities for millenniums. Chinese culture has a long narrative in a large topographical area in East Asia, polyethnic origins make it very diverse and strong, with traditions and customs, beliefs, and dialects uniquely different between places, urban communities, and even villages. The name ‘China’ and the geological scope of the ‘China’ world have been around for centuries, with the surname Great Qing before the word ‘China’ became commonplace in new inventions.

The development of the Chinese people is generally regarded as the dominant culture of East Asia. As China is one of the oldest civilizations, Chinese culture plays a major role in the way of thinking, self-control, customs, and traditions in Asia. Chinese characters, pottery, design, music, dance, handwriting, handicrafts, food, materials, theory, business ethics, religion, legal issues, and history have a worldwide impact, while your practices and celebrations are also celebrated, rooted, and considered by people around the world. all

Chinese religion was initially centered on the love of the supreme deity Shang Di during the reigns of Xia and Shang when emperors and diviners traveled as priests and used the bones of a prophet. Zhou officials have made it possible to restore a broader sense of paradise. A large part of Chinese culture is based on the idea that there is a foreign country. Many divination techniques help to answer questions, in any case, to complete a choice in medicine. Old stories have helped to fill in the gaps between the two. In many cases, there is a vague line between myth, religion, and the unexplained specialty. Large numbers of accounts have evolved into Chinese cultural events. Different perspectives have reached history beyond deep images such as the Door god and the Imperial Guardian lions. Along with heavenly beliefs, there is cruelty. Practices, for example, the expulsion of Taoist anti-mogwai and jiangshi with peachwood swords are part of the ideas that have been passed down from time immemorial. A few Chinese divination techniques are still used today following thousands of years of refinement.

The gilded age is a period from around 1875 to 1900 that was characterized as a time of wealth but also of greed and corruption. The word gilded means something that is covered in gold on the outside and the inside is cheap and inferior. This age is also known as the second industrial revolution where manufacturing and transporting goods became rather easy with the help of new machines. It was an age of scientific breakthrough and also technological innovation. Life may sound much better than it would have been during this era of reconstruction, but these new advantages mainly benefitted upper middle class white men. Big companies and manufacturers no longer needed skilled laborers they just needed abled enough bodies to operate machines.

The US economy became more industrial. Big companies like Standard Oil and Carnegie Steel Company held many monopolies over the labor industry. Because of this it became increasingly hard for new companies to provide competition. This meant that laborers for these companies had little to no work rights. Workers were even denied the right to strike because striking violated the companies rights.

Rockefeller and Carnegie where among the wealthiest few people in america. They funded art programs, schools, and social institutions. Andrew Carnegie gave the people of America hope that they could achieve what he was able to achieve. He was seen ultimately as a good guy who held an obligation to give back to the society, that treated him well. Rockefeller among others gained the name “robber baron” to the fact that they steal from the people with one hand and give back to them with the other.

Although most of the business billionaires in the gilded age donated their time and money to social institutions of some kind, it was the imbalance of wealth and deplorable working conditions that gave money to the pockets of these men that created the need to have social assistance in the first place. The aftermath of the Louisiana purchase and westward expansion created many opportunities for Americans This also symbolized freedom and prosperity. Chinese immigrants attracted to the new opportunities that the west held, faced a lot of discrimination and unfair treatment.

Chinese immigrants usually came through Angel Island. Most were single men who wanted to find work. Chinese immigrants did not assimilate as successfully as the Jewish and Irish immigrants did in New York. Chinese immigrants tended to be isolated from the white majority and were often discriminated against. This stemmed from the fear of white Americans that America was becoming less white and that immigrants would take the jobs of the white people.

There was increased anxiety surrounding the availability of jobs at this time, as there were so many people out of work companies treated laborers as dispensable entities. This is demonstrated by the panic of 1893. Although successful westward expansion created more job opportunities and prospects for innovation it also lead to the discrimination of the Chinese and their eventual exclusion.

Culture is communicated to members of the society through a common language and through commonly shared symbols because the human mind has the ability to absorb and process symbolic communication. Marketers can therefore successfully promote both tangible and intangible products and product concepts to consumers through mass media.

Understanding how culture influences consumer behaviors is crucial to success in international marketing. Given the broad nature of culture, its study generally requires a detailed examination of the character of society, including such factors as language, knowledge, laws, religions, food customs, music, art, technology, work patterns, products, and other variables that give a society its distinctive personality. Culture is the sum total of learned beliefs, values, ideologies and customs that serve to direct the consumer behavior of members of a particular society. The sociological perspective indicates various value consensuses among individuals and groups within countries due to each experience of unique social conditions and interests (Hofstede, 1980) claims that culture is ‘the collective programming of the mind’, which has been disapproved by (Fischer and Schwartz, 2011). They discovered that social institutions and other macro-level variables also influence individuals’ values within society, and individuals internalize such values to different extents. These various values lead to formation of population segments that emphasize different values based on their various experiences and interests.

This paper identifies culture to be a multidimensional construct and acknowledges the influence of motivational factors on consumers’ exhibition of individualistic, collectivistic or overlapping cultural dispositions, in different situations. The adaptability of marketing communication to prevailing cultural variations determines the effectiveness of marketing communication (Solomon, 2013). Basically, the individualism and collectivism cultural dimensions and context-specific cultural frameworks are recognized as underlying models of cultural variations. More so, one of the prominent cross-cultural experts, Geert Hofstede, established the connectedness between context-specific cultures and the individualism-collectivism constructs (de Mooij, 2011).

While cross-cultural research is understudied in Africa, scholars such as Oyedele and Minor (2012) have identified a collectivistic nature amongst Africans, which is evidenced by the strong integration among community members in African societies. Although the media portray individualistic cues to a considerable extent (Van Eeden and Du Preez, 2005), African culture does trend toward collectivism. However, it is also fair to say that the influence of the global culture may have interfered with the collectivistic tendency of the African culture.

The underlying cultural nature of South Africans in general is centred on the beliefs of Ubuntu. Ubuntu is derived from the following phrase: “umuntu ngu muntu nga bantu” which means: “A person is a person through other people”. The values of Ubuntu are centred on striving toward living in harmony with community members. The South African people generally view themselves as belonging together and inseparable from the community. A person is perceived by community members as ideal, is if they possess Ubuntu values (Broodryk, 2006). The African culture in general is characterized by diverse qualities. These qualities are made up of ethnocentrism, traditionalism and communalism. Community members learn to be compliant with the modus operandi as adherence to communal laws attracts rewards (Mufane, 2003). Cultural cues such as collectivism, respect for elders, loyalty and obligation to families’ social and economic needs are to be found in Africa (Beugre and Offodile, 2001). However, modern values, which are characterized by the spirit of competition and individualism, sometimes make Ubuntu values ineffective (Oyedele and Minor, 2012).

While Africans are said to be collectivists by nature, their collectivistic tendencies does not influence their consumer behavior. However, the interview study revealed that one dominant collectivistic measure stood out, as more of the respondents showed preference for advertisements that portray ‘how family members can collectively benefit from advertised products’. Also, a little below half of the respondents, showed preference for advertisements that stress personal needs over family needs. Then more were persuaded by advertisements that show personal achievement, while others responded that their buying decisions are based on the style of advertisements rather than the opinions of their peers. The results further show that only a few concluded that ‘everyone in their family likes the same advertisements’. The collectivistic disposition of Africans toward marketing communication is evidenced by these views, although, individualistic rather than collectivistic tendencies are clearly displayed. While collectivistic cue among Africans is obligation to families’ social and economic needs, one has to consider the arguments of (Bakir, 2012), which maintained that cultural values are converging due to increasing global trends.

Cross-cultural research in advertising tries to connect observed differences with cultural dimensions, mostly based on frameworks such as the cultural dimensions of Hofstede (2001) or Hall (1976). A growing trend in advertising has been to combine a global advertising strategy with local adaptations referring to cultural differences of the target markets.

The dominance of globalization and exposure to Western values have made it important for marketing practitioners to integrate culturally sensitive variations in marketing communication strategies. The individualism-collectivism cultural dimension has proven exceptional in explaining underlying country and individual levels of culture (Oyserman, 2011). In the area of product design, mixing elements of different cultures is a frequently used strategy to create innovative products. However, when the consumers’ attention is drawn to the implications of a marketing practice for the purity and integrity of a sacred cultural tradition, consumers may react negatively to culture mixing. For example, one study (Peng, 2012) shows that although Chinese consumers react favorably to a book on how Western cuisines inspire improvements in Chinese cuisines, they respond negatively to one on how Western philosophies inspire revision of Confucianism. This is the case particularly among Chinese consumers who strongly support preservation of cultural traditions. These Chinese consumers react negatively to the mixing of Western philosophies with Confucianism because these consumers believe that Confucianism is an identity-defining philosophical tradition in Chinese culture and that its purity should be protected.

The Chinese cultural values are largely formed and created from interpersonal relationships and social orientations. The Confucius philosophy emphasizes the principles for self-guidance. The key to producing a harmonious life, he wrote, is in how we treat others-our ancestors, leaders, parents, spouses, neighbors, and friends. To Confucius, a person becomes noble not by birth but by developing the five virtues of humanity or benevolence (ren), righteousness (yi), proper conduct (li), wisdom (zhi), and trustworthiness (xin). The most important Confucian virtue is filial piety (xiao), the respect and obedience of children toward their parents – for when all relationships between family members are in order, then society will also be orderly (Wong, 1998). Confucianism focuses on family and this value is instilled in most Chinese and being educated in this way; they value family to a high standard. Therefore, most Chinese are inclined towards Collectivism, as the people prefer group needs over their own personal needs (Hofstede, 1980). However, due to rapid economic development, trends show that individualism now tends to dominate the Chinese consumer market, particularly in the younger generations.

In concluding this report, considering the influence of global product flows, researchers have observed that, in today’s world, cultural products and the way of life in the developed world are affecting developing and developed countries. This is due to the contact of people through traditional media (e.g., television and film), and new media (e.g., the Internet, electronic social networking, and blogs). Similarly, the rituals of one culture are being adopted by those of other cultures (travel and shared experiences). Major forces of globalization are changing consumer culture and heavily influencing consumer behaviors towards the individualism trend.