For f*ck’s sake, we’re not only insulting Asians on their receipts, but doing it in Spanish now?

by Robert Koehler on February 26, 2012

The Kyunghyang Shinmun (and others) reports that some oxygen-waster at a Burger King in LA’s KoreaTown wrote “chinitos” on the receipt of a 45-year-old Korean-American man who had ordered food at the shop.

The Ko-Am, identified as a Mr. Son, was reportedly outraged, saying he’s lived in Los Angeles for 19 years and knows quite well that “chinitos” is usually used to disparage East Asians. He said it seems the employee wasn’t properly trained.

Burger King said through the manager of the shop in question that it would apologize and investigate the incident.

Marmot’s Note: Is this all just a coincidence, has this been going on all the time and Asian-Americans are simply getting more sensitive about it, or has poking fun of Asians become the latest mouth-breather fad?

Tagged as: Burger King, stupid people

{ 25 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Year of the Dragon February 26, 2012 at 8:43 pm: A derrogatory and racist term in spanish used by mexicunts and other latin american countries. Equivalent to “chink”. mexicunts usually use this term to label all East Asian people with small eyes. So Coreans, Japanese, Vietnamese, Filipinos would also be labelled as “chinitos”. Shows the ignorance of the hispanic culture.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Chinito
2 hoju_saram February 26, 2012 at 9:04 pm: A derrogatory and racist term in spanish used by mexicunts

See what happened there?
3 Year of the Dragon February 26, 2012 at 9:10 pm: I just quoted urban dictionary.
4 Year of the Dragon February 26, 2012 at 9:11 pm: I am not racist, I treated my Mexican-American friend to lunch at Everest restaurant today, whilst he made fun of my “Aussie” accent, even though my accent sounds more European.
5 aaronm February 26, 2012 at 11:20 pm: Just to get the tu quoque in, wasn’t there another outbreak of blackface on a Korean TV program recently?
6 cm February 27, 2012 at 12:35 am: Political correctness is getting out of hand. Now everybody is getting insulted by anything and everything tiny.
7 bumfromkorea February 27, 2012 at 1:08 am: Political correctness is NOT getting out of hand. Just because Jesse Jackson et al. are being assholes about racial PCness doesn’t mean the polar opposite of their position ought to be the social norm.
8 redwhitedude February 27, 2012 at 2:03 am: The sad thing is that these mexicans insist of calling far easterners as chinitos.
9 Bipolar Mindscrew February 27, 2012 at 2:58 am: http://tr.eatyourkimchi.com/post/18240774056/korean-television-please-never-do-this-again
10 Mango February 27, 2012 at 5:00 am: You know someone is about to say something racist when they say “I”m not a racist, but…”

We don’t actually know if those workers had any malice towards the Korean-American man. However, they were ignorant. Then again, they work at a fast food restaurant, so they are not mental giants.

Do you really expect a poor, semi-literate, non-native English speaking immigrant who works at a fast food restaurant to know who is Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese, etc. , especially when they come from countries where there are no Asians?

http://www.ocweekly.com/2005-03-24/columns/ask-a-mexican/
11 cm February 27, 2012 at 5:24 am: “Marmot’s Note: Is this all just a coincidence, has this been going on all the time and Asian-Americans are simply getting more sensitive about it, or has poking fun of Asians become the latest mouth-breather fad?”

More like Korean Americans who are getting more sensitive, as all of the latest controversies involve Korean Americans.
12 jkitchstk February 27, 2012 at 8:59 am: Trending among Korean Americans, when fast food isn’t fast or the cashier doesn’t give your change with two hands just write a racial slur on the ticket and get free meal set.
13 Changmi February 27, 2012 at 9:29 am: I, personally, am going to pay extra special attention to my fast food receipts the next time I visit the US. I can’t wait to see what sort of label they attach to me – “fashion victim”? “gender-confused white chick”?

Instead of putting their employees through a painstaking process of cultural sensitivity training, mayber Burger King should just give up and make this a “feature” of their in-store experience. Come for the burgers, stay to learn the latest racial epithets and insults!
14 chanceencounter February 27, 2012 at 9:33 am: The ‘chinito’ comment on a Starbucks cup is certainly an example of poor judgment, insufficient training and ignorance.

Following up on Mango’s comment in#10 regarding the intention of malice or not, however, the footballer Luis Suarez defended his use of the word ‘negrito’ toward Patrice Evra of Manchester United by saying that in Spanish, the term is used as a term of endearment, which it can be. I also remember the parents of my Peruvian girlfriend in college referring endearingly to (and in front of) her Spanish speaking Korean roommate as ‘la chinita’ with no offense taken by the Korean woman. Ask a Korean who chowed down on 탕수육 or 짜장면 for lunch what they ate and a common response is ‘짱께’.

As I wasn’t on the pitch at the time, I don’t know the context of the Suarez comment or whether it was used maliciously. Of course, it was the wrong word to use to someone not sharing the same cultural context. In the other two examples, ignorant? Sure. Malicious? I’d say no.

Not justifying, just sayin’.
15 setnaffa February 27, 2012 at 10:14 am: Robert, why do you say “we”? Are you insulting Asians with terms like those listed?
16 setnaffa February 27, 2012 at 10:15 am: Have you decided “we” are all guilty?
17 Hamilton February 27, 2012 at 11:08 am: When did the number on the receipt become insufficient for identifing the customer?

I don’t buy the insufficient training routine, but it is Burger King not a three star restaurant. You’re going to get a cheap burger from a guy who is working for minimum wage, expectations shouldn’t be too high and you can always vote with your feet.
18 raketbaler February 27, 2012 at 11:55 am: Sasha Cohen as The Dictator dumps Kim Jong Il’s ashes on Ryan Seacrest.

This link is full of win!
http://news.moviefone.com/2012/02/26/sacha-baron-cohens-dictator-oscars_n_1302730.html?1330302221
19 cm February 28, 2012 at 2:16 am: Black face routine by couple of comedians on the MBC broadcast which got uploaded to Youtube, has become a global issue.

http://news.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2012/02/27/2012022702446.html?news_top

I actually saw this show, which was a Solnal special, and I knew that this was going to be a problem. And it wasn’t even funny, and I’m sure a lot of people thought it was just stupid, and wondering why others are pretending to be amused by it.

I really don’t know what MBC is thinking here. Korean shows are no longer watched strictly by Koreans only. They should be sensitive toward the audiences throughout the world who are watching. Stuff like this can’t be dismissed any longer.
20 cm February 28, 2012 at 2:29 am: The black face act was supposedly a characterization of the cartoon character of “Doolie”, a baby dinosaur.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmpUGyFisVk
21 Sonagi February 28, 2012 at 6:04 am: Now Asians are being falsely accused of violent crimes that used to be pinned on black men.
22 cm February 28, 2012 at 6:40 am: ^ Too funny. I like this guy’s response best:

Anytime a person purposely tries to blame another race the sentence should be doubled or tripled. That will get rid of some of this nonsense.

- Mike, Mississippi, USA, 27/2/2012 13:24
23 hoju_saram February 28, 2012 at 7:45 am: What about this?
24 Sonagi February 28, 2012 at 9:22 am: Oh, c’mon, Hoju, 외국인 is not a pejorative. My dry cleaner used to label my clothes “작은背 외국인” until I introduced myself and let him know that foreigners, too, have names.
25 bumfromkorea February 28, 2012 at 12:55 pm: Well, as long as we’re just doing the tu quoque routine…

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2012/0227/Billy-Crystal-in-blackface-Are-the-Academy-Awards-out-of-touch-on-race