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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Tikki tikki Tembo. Totally racist [/quote]

I haven’t read this since I was a kid- what is wrong with it?[/quote]

Basically it's a story to "explain" why Chinese kids now have monosyllabic names like "Chang" because the kid who had the long name ("Tikki Tikki Tembo No Sa Rembo Pep Beri Puchi Peri Peri Pembo"--or something crazy long and nonsensical, but fun for kids to try to memorize b/c it repeats throughout the story,,,which is basically why kids liked it!) fell into a well and the brother who tried to go get help took too long because he kept having to get through saying his name to try to get someone to come and save him.

And at the end of the book it's like "so this is why Chinese kids have short names" as like the moral of the story. (Probably whoever wrote it wasn't trying to be racist. It just as easily could have been a stupid story that ended with "and that's why tigers have stripes"--but that wouldn't go along with the name thing and making it repetitive and all that.) In the end, [b]it just comes off sounding super racist.[/b][/quote]

I guess to some people. To me, it reads like a folk tale, which, like most folk tales, is nonsensical and very appealing to young children. (And, in fact, Tikki Tikki Tembo it is a retelling of an old story, although the origins of the story are unclear.)

Stories about why tigers have stripes are not "stupid" stories. They are the stories humans have told throughout history.

My kids LOVED the book Tikki Tikki Tembo. They are teens now, and they don't think Chinese naming customs center around the experiences of a boy who fell down a well any more than they think that tigers got their stripes because somebody spilled paint on them (though we read stories like that when they were little, too).[/quote]

This is what I thought until my Asian spouse and I had a conversation about why it’s racist and offensive. It’s a tale made up by white people to explain something about another culture. It’s insensitive and racist. It’s akin to a story about a white kid getting burned over and over and saying ‘and this is why they are black’. [/quote]

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