A (Somewhat) Indecent Proposal?

Those of you up to no good, I've got some deleterious reading for you today (Thank you, commenter #4!). So if you have about half an hour to burn (it need not be a full block, you can read bits and pieces from a window you minimize at work), I invite you to digest:

A Modest Proposal, by Jonathan Swift

Of course, you might find that you'll need a few more minutes to fully appreciate the intricate flavor and texture of that nice piece. If you don't have the luxury of that time you can still savor:

The Wikipedia entry for A Modest Proposal, by Jonathan Swift

And if you have even less time than that you can suck on my twice-masticated commentary.

If you read the article, then congratulations! You're reading Chip Tsao's quite famous predecessor. If you look even further back, you'll see that satire is something humans have been enjoying for a long time. If you appreciate art at all, you know that there's really more to everything than the paint on the surface (depending on your school of thought, of course). Aristophanes did write that nice bit that got Socrates killed, but that's besides the point.

Point is, and I can't believe I'm saying this, Jonathan Swift wasn't really telling everyone to go sell their babies as steaks. Just like Chip Tsao wasn't really describing that he was actually a dick to Louisa, who, by the way, doesn't exist! Unless of course you want to castigate me now, making the argument that "Louisa represents every Filipina domestic worker who is bastinadoed by these cruel and barbaric Chinese! Somebody sell me some Alaxan, 'cause sitting on a high horse all day gets my ass really sore!"

You want to talk rhetoric? I'll give you some rhetoric. Chip Tsao is doing the same thing Jonathan Swift did in his essay- he assumes the mantle of the cruel, sadistic, racist, altogether chauvinistic Chip Tsao to tell us about what exactly he has planned for the assumed-real Louisa. Oh yeah, it's hateful. Loathsome. Contemptuous. We're supposed to really be mad at him now. In all seriousness, we really are. THAT'S WHAT FIGURES OF SPEECH ARE FOR. He lambasts this despicable idea while presenting the less than palatable reality that there are Chinese people who do think this way, by using his name as a (apparently too believable) figurehead for bigoted Chinese. I shudder when I'm told that it would be acceptable if Chip Tsao used a character with a different name to portray this attitude, because it bothers me that Filipinos are so blindly patriotic that they conflate Chip Tsao the supervillain with Chip Tsao the smartass. Because really, people, that's all that he claims to be.

Smartass? How about some wordplay? The dictionary definition of "jingoism" is:

Extreme chauvinism or nationalism marked especially by a belligerent foreign policy.

For his writing, Chip Tsao has been branded a persona non grata by our country's offices. The man is quite literally not wanted, no-thank-you, in any of our seven thousand some islands. Hmm... that's some policy, by the Department of Foreign Affairs... that's treading dangerously close to belligerent, no? It makes sense, but in reverse!

How's that for Filipino Hospitality? What about freedom of speech? I find it interesting that Filipino society is so permitting of satire when they're not used as an instrument in its delivery. Ang lakas natin mangasar pero ang bagsik din natin pag pikon, no?

Some people tell me that not only are they mad that Chip Tsao wrote the article in the first place, but they tell me that they're even more mad at his "apology". I'm not linking to one of the many, many people who are pissed about the fact that Chip Tsao deigned to tell everyone it was just a joke, as if Filipinos were so dumb that they could not comprehend simple satire.

Frankly, if that pisses you off, then you deserve it.

Note: Comments have been addressed - it is my intention with this blog to address every comment left in the interest of intelligent and informed discussion. The only comments I will delete are those that either use the other names of the author or that may otherwise pose threat of offline harm to any individuals.