Jon Huntsman Speaking Chinese Becomes Hindrance to Evangelical Republicans

By Tim | Thursday, June 9, 2011 | 82 Comments

Thanks for visiting 8Asians, a blog about Asian American issues. If you find this interesting, subscribe to the RSS feed, visit our Facebook Page or add us on Twitter!

Apparently, speaking Chinese can just about kill your chances in politics. At least for Republican presidential hopeful Jon Huntsman, a former Utah Governor, who is fluent in Mandarin. Huntsman took the time during a recent campaign stop to pitch part of his speech in Chinese. From a Mother Jones article on the event:

Huntsman had other plans apparently, launching into his speech with a demonstration of his Chinese fluency. As his first introduction to the foot soldiers of the Republican Party, it didn’t go over very well. As languages go, Chinese is not the most elegant to the English-speaking ear, and it seemed to be especially jarring to the nearly all-white crowd of evangelicals, who listened with shock. You could almost see the elderly Christians from Wisconsin thinking “Manchurian Candidate.”

In order to back their claim that speaking Chinese was a negative for Huntsman, Mother Jones pointed to a 1999 survey as described below:

Polls going back decades show that many Americans, especially Republicans, take a dim view of the Chinese, a phenomenon that some researchers attribute to 19th Century anti-Chinese immigration laws. In 1999, a survey conducted by the Anti-Defamation League found that 34 percent of those who responded admitted they wouldn’t want to see a Chinese-American person elected president, a figure the group had never encountered in similar surveys of attitudes towards blacks or Jews.

That last sentence alone was a shocker to me, especially in this day and age where we were able to witness Barack Obama elected to the Presidency of the United States. While I have no aspirations for the Presidency (not that I could be President, considering I wasn’t born in the U.S.), it was sad to see such negative feelings about a Chinese American becoming President from the country I call my own.

The Anti-Defamation League survey is a bit dated, and I certainly hope attitudes have changed in the last eleven years, and maybe President Obama’s tenure will help change those attitudes. A January 2011 Pew Research survey, while not about Chinese Americans, but rather on China, still found that 36% of Americans had a negative view of China.

Today, we are fortunate enough to have Chinese Americans as mayors of Oakland and San Francisco. With more Chinese American politicians in office now, perhaps the negative view of China will start fade, especially the one about a Chinese American as president.

Categories:

Current EventsPolitics

NOTE: 8Asians.com is a community, and we thank you for being a part of it. While we welcome and appreciate differences in opinion, if you're rude or you're promoting spam, we have a right to edit or delete your comment. Read our comment policy for more information.

If you see a comment that violates the 8Asians.com comment policy, you may flag the comment by mousing over the comment and clicking "FLAG."

Facebook Comments (Beta)

Boogerhead

I don’t think Chinese fluency makes someone the best candidate for the job. Gary Locke has a cute Sheryl Wudunn-ish looking wife. i think it’s nice that a classic ABC CAN go back to China representing America. A lot of Chinese Americans recognize Gary Locke’s type of immigrant background. We know what that world feels like. It’s modest and well behaved citizens but pretty much quiet and kept to themselves. That breed is pretty much done. No more will be created by immigration. It was a generation of Old China from the South that raised very proper but not stiff American kids. They have a particular pride in their conduct. They’re not Taiwanese exiles, they’re not Hong Kong or Malaysian or later immigrants. These are the Southern gentlemen who would never stare at women or do anything improper and have specific flinty taciturn but still gentle way of correcting children. This fine calibration became American and no more came from China in the same fashion although many other households in different parts of China are like this. This was a united group almost captured in PBS documentaries more so than inWayne Wang’s early work.
Danny_Ahmed

@mwei Yeah, I guess there could be more than what goes on.

From a cynical perspective, one doesn’t have to “fire” someone to make them leave nor does the person have to be officially let go if he or she has those ‘I want you out’ vibes.
A_Lee

@ororodc I wouldn’t read too much into it. It looks cute, why not? Gracie Mei is now 12, and she pretty much wears what the average American girl wears, at least in the press photos.
johnklin

@mwei @Danny_Ahmed I do not know why you seem to be fixated on the idea that Huntsman got fired rather than resigned. If you look at the history of ambassadors to China in recent years, the tenure length has varied – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Ambassador_to_China#List_of_Ambassadors_to_the_Republic_of_China

Even when Huntsman was being rumored to be the next ambassador, there were talks of him running for president – http://politicalwire.com/archives/2009/05/15/obama_taps_huntsman_for_ambassador_to_china.html
mwei

@johnklin @mwei @Danny_Ahmed and I don’t know why you seem to be fixated on supposedly my being fixated on the idea that Huntsman got fired.
mwei

@Boogerhead conspiracies abound!

(never understood that about Asian kids and conspiracy theories, like the white kids)
mwei

@Boogerhead @Annie11 the question I have to ask: were you there when all of them spoke their languages or are you getting this info second hand through the media via movies?

like I said, they have the power to make anything sound good or evil depending on their political machinations.
mwei

@Boogerhead @johnklin the standard mainland flat top? that’s straight up gangster yo!
Boogerhead

@mwei @Boogerhead @Annie11 what is the question? I only describe my reaction to accents I hear not stereotyping passed on from someone else. I find German chilling as spoken by Germans themselves as opposed to immigrant Turks in Germany or Englishmen in Germany.
Boogerhead

HU Jintao sounds like he would have gotten the job to read imperial edicts in olden times. Too bad he wasn’t available for Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor.
mwei

@Boogerhead they all sound like that. there was even a NPR segment on how the Chinese politiboro delivers their speeches.
mwei

@Boogerhead @Annie11 now that’s getting interesting. so you studied in Germany? what’s your history of interacting with Germans?
johnklin

Because I find your case for such a rumor to be quite irrational and by nature of the rumor, no substance behind it. Obama firing Huntsman without cause would be both bad politically for himself as well as disruptive. Huntsman leaving on his own terms to put out feelers for running for President makes much more sense and is confirmed by my friend and his father who are friends and supporters with Huntsman. Your example of Mcchrystal was a poor choice, given there was primary evidence by the Rolling Stone reporter of Mcchrystal’s insubordination.
http://tinabot.blogspot.com/ TinaTsai

I guess those Chinese language haters are definitely not fans of the tv show “Firefly” or the movie “Serenity”
mwei

@johnklin you’re aware of Huntsman’s little “snafu” right in the heart of Wang Fu Jing during supposedly the day of the “Jasmin Revolution” right? if you have kept up with the news overseas then it was a huge falling out for the Chinese people and government.

as for political beliefs: I’m entitled to my wrong opinions like anybody else.

so how “close” of an inner circle is your friend and his father to Huntsman? they’re privy to every unofficial memo, or merely “donors” or simply “acquaintances?” are they Asian? Asian Retardlicans are trippy – just saying man, not hating.
johnklin

Yes, Huntsman “snafu” occurred in late February. The press had reported Huntsman’s departure by 2/1/11 ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/31/AR2011013106325.html ). In searching my email archives, my friend mentioned Huntsman was leaving in an email on 1/20/11 (whenever I read an interesting article on Huntsman, I would email him). I think I had already had heard that when rumors were already being published he was leaving to possibly run for president.

All I can say is that my friend’s father has deep political ties in Utah and helped organize and was going to lead a trade mission to China with the previous governor, but that trip got canceled because of SARS or maybe it was avian flu (one of those things) – yes, they are Asian.
mwei

@johnklin ok. at least that’s a credible source, so I stand corrected.

as for them being Asian Retardlicans, I can’t ever understand that. I’m an independent, so I’m not a fan of either party. but for Asians who actively support the recent anti-Chinese and anti-Asian sentiment of the GOP? that’s trippy. just my 0.14rmb
lina

@ororodc My niece here in HK (half-Chinese, half-French) wear her Chinese-themed garb whether she’s in the SAR or not. She likes her pink and red cheong sam and puts up a fight when she can’t wear it. I’m sure that it’s a phase that she’s going through, just as I’m sure that there are people who wonder why my sister-in-law dresses her daughter in Chinese-themed garb.

In other words: You don’t know the whole story, so it’s best to not make assumptions.
lina

@xiaolei622 @johnklin @GoGo @raymonst She wasn’t only a female Democrat but *also* openly called herself a Cajun, something that the Northern LA Conservatives do not care for. Jindal was (is) also an evangelical Catholic, something that same demographic does not care for. (Even now, Jindal tries to curry favor from LA Protestants, often on the state’s dime..)

Blanco was not inept post-Katrina: That was *just* was much due to the Republican stonewalling of Louisiana Democrats.
dustrabbit

@mwei @johnklin Mwei, you could always remind those Asian Retardicans that they make Sarah Palin “uncomfortable” as her father admits (and nor, as I should note, has she denied what her father said.

http://www.8asians.com/2009/12/08/did-asians-scare-sarah-palin-away-from-hawaii/

and

http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-plank/palin-question-the-day
mwei

@dustrabbit @mwei @johnklin Palin and the TEA partiers are the best things to happen to the so called “left wing” in a long time. they got to be supporting how she just polarizes the right wingers.
Boogerhead

@TinaTsai Do you remember the terrible worse than Chinatown crockery in that shop where they were kidnapped by settlers who wanted a doctor and nearly got burned at the stake. I doubt that a Chinese/American hegemony would look so culturally degraded. I can’t imagine how irritating those Chinese phrases were to unininitiated ears. I enjoyed it especially from Inara.
Boogerhead

@mwei @Annie11 I’ve only heard German from Germans on tv. The Germans I have crossed paths with have spoken PERFECT English. Anyone see the Little People Big World episode when the twins (one a dwarf) were told in English by German older guy to leave their small town in casual friendly conversation ostensibly because there is nothing to see in their backwater but an American dwarf in a German backwater with the surname Roloff can’t be good for the Germany’s image, nicht wahr? I’d rather learn Yiddish than German. At least there’d be some chuckles, nu?
http://tinabot.blogspot.com/ TinaTsai

@Boogerhead lol I haven’t seen that ep, but I found it amusing in the movie that they spoke in English but cussed in Chinese ^O^
Danny_Ahmed

@TinaTsai I keep hearing that show was good, but never really checked it out. It only lasted like 1-2 seasons and one movie.

Anyways, the deep future lingua franca will most likely be a blending of the major languages, like English, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, etc. English has adjusted pretty well to accommodate a lot of different words outside its language, but it’s going to be so different by the time our great grand kids have great grand kids.
dustrabbit

@mwei @johnklin I might add Michelle Bachmann to that list. If I were really desperate for a Rethugiblican candidate, I ‘d vote only for Colin Powell.
fivespicealley

他的中文很厉害！I would totally vote for him.
lina

@TinaTsai The Chinese in Firefly was awful, and it was poorly implemented (mismatch of traditional and simplified, illogical code-switching, etc) and explained. It ruined what little enjoyment I had for the program.
http://tinabot.blogspot.com/ TinaTsai

@lina lol yeah, it wasn’t very well integrated. shame on their chinese linguistic consultant…^O^
brandontan

More than just the ability to speak Mandarin fluently, I think I respect his willingness to understand and accept the Chinese culture. I’m also surprised but also happy at the same time how their adopted daughter – Gracie accepts her own identity and culture (acknowledging that she is from Yangzhou) instead of living in self-denial like the occasional white-washed asian you meet that tells everyone that he/she’s really white inside.
tonybeckman

As an American who has studied Chinese for many years, I must say that this man has a very unusual mind to learn and speak Chinese as well as he does.

I can therefore say without hesitation that I feel that he will be an excellent presidential candidate – and an excellent president as well.

Tony Beckman

Conroe, Texas
Danny_Ahmed

If I have to guess, I think most American voters are up in the air regarding Jon Huntsman. We’ll see what happens in about 6 months.

8 Asians