Yesterday we wrote about LuckyFortune, the iPhone app dripping in Chinese caricature. Its inventor has written in to defend that app as inoffensive, uplifting, "light hearted and fun." Chinese Americans told him so! Jennifer 8. Lee of the New York Times gave the app a "yikes" for the "ching-chong voice" used to read the captions. We found the gong and clichéd string refrain similarly distasteful. But some commenters thought we were being too sensitive; people consulted by LuckyFortune developer "FunVid Apps" apparently felt the same: We have no intention of making fun of Chinese people. In fact, prior to its release we showed the application to a few Chinese-Americans and asked them if they found it offensive and they all thought the application was fun and were not offended at all. One person that I showed the app actually said, "You know Chinese people have a sense of humor too!" Yes, well, this app isn't going to start, like, personally disenfranchising Chinese Americans any time soon, and there is a certain hilarity in its complete and utter descent into total caricature. But this isn't Eddie Murphy in whiteface, or even Robert Downey Junior in blackface. More like Ted Danson, in that it is fairly unredeemed. LuckyFortune comes not so much to parody Chinese stereotypes as to revel in them, and in the service of the fairly lame goal of reading cheesy fortunes lifted from Phantom of the Opera lyrics. If that's uplifting to you, then you can at least take comfort that, although you may be taking enjoyment from a caricature, you're not doing business with a racist, because, judging from its statement, FunVid Apps is certainly not that. The company's full statement follows below. (It is signed in the company name. Yesterday we emailed Charles Hill, to whom the FunVid Read More
Apple has taken flack for over-policing its iPhone App store. But sometimes the company under-polices, as well. As with LuckyFortune, a fortune cookie app built around what can only be descrived as a "ching-chong Chinaman" theme. We downloaded the app after it was flagged on the personal blog of Jennifer 8. Lee, the Chinese American New York Times reporter who wrote a book on the evolution of the fortune cookie. In a post titled "Now You Can Get Fortune Cookies on Your iPhone with a Ching Chong voice," Lee writes that the voice in the app "definitely doesn't sound like a native Chinese speaker, just what someone who thinks a native Chinese speaker would sound like in English... Yikes." Yikes indeed. In addition to the ridiculous voice (see our brief video above), there's also the sound of a gong, and a brief string refrain that's become the calling card of all-too-many caricatured "Chinese" moments in film and television. We've emailed app author Charles Hill to get his thoughts, and will update this post if we do. For now this app looks pretty unredeemable. Of course judging by the popularity of stupid "ching-chong" poses among Olympic athletes and teen celebrities, the app should still enjoy some decent sales until Apple yanks it. Read More
