Belittling Is Ignorance

Belittling is Ignorance or the Tip of Something More
To belittle - to speak slighting of, disparage, to cause a person or thing to seem little or less. (Merriam-Webster) Belittle is the word that came to mind when reading chapter four of Sax Rohmer The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu, “Shen-Yan’s is a dope-shop in one of the burrows off the old Ratcliff Highway,” said Inspector Weymouth. “‘Singapore Charlie’s’ they call it.” (Rohmer 27) Who are they and why do they call it ‘Singapore Charlie’s’, is this because they can’t pronounce Shen-Yan’s, is it local slang or is it one way we belittle a race because of a developed racism in the English community? The year was 1913, even though we have no personal experience, the book The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu sparks a question in today’s reader, is this racism or ignorance, is there a difference, and why
The Limehouse area known as ‘Chinatown’ in this era, was located on the east end of London among the docks, an area known as a slum, where the houses were squeezed together among the canals, railways, sawmills and shipyards. (Seed 59) This is the location of Rohmer ultra-villain Dr. Fu-Manchu, a location where the English link poverty, drugs and evil to because no good can come from the wrong side of town. The Yellow Peril is this a real threat to the English society, it is describe at “its earliest incarnations, the Yellow Peril signaled the problem of a mobile and diligent Chinese labour force, willing to travel en masse to distant countries to work seemingly cheerfully in difficult conditions for low pay.” (Gan 442) Yet with the assistance of Kaiser Wilhelm II, playwrights and authors “as small leap of the imagination, the Yellow Peril had thus turn from an issue of immigration to a planned and coordinated invasions.” (Gan 443) This Paper will give a glimpse at some of this possible attributing factors of the disposition of the English society in the early 1900s and the ease in