"regional discrimination" in the east and west

[zozzen]

As Taiwan expands ties with the mainland China, Taiwanese negative attitudes towards the Mainland Chinese seems to grab the attention of Chinese media now. In recent days a lot of complaints have been shown up in Chinese forums. Many Taiwan's news programmes were posted to show how they teased their mainland counterparts. Some Mainlanders were furied about the biased comments from Taiwan.

They have the reason to be upset, but these regional discrimination are common even in China herself. If you're in China, you possibly hear how Chinese talk about Hunanese. It's obviously not racist, but it also advocates hatred and biases towards "outsiders" and push their own regional pride.

What I'm wondering is that in some western countries, it seems common that people from one city to tease countrymen from another part of the country too. Did they see any serious regional discrimination due to that? I guess the law for racial discrimination don't apply to these cases, how did they deal with it?

[roddy]

It can certainly be an issue in the UK - see here and here, also here. But neither of those cases are very clear cut, and many would query the use of laws on discrimination in that way. However in the UK

The law defines racial grounds as including race, colour, nationality or ethnic or national origins.

As for Taiwan / mainland - it's hardly surprising. The Chinese Internet is hyper-sensitive to any perceived slur at best, when it comes from Taiwan . . .

[mr.stinky]

kind of related, lots of koreans moving into the north side of town, opening shops,

not liking certain other furr'ners.....

[zozzen]

Thanks for the case studies in the links above. The conflicts between Scots and English are particularly interesting because it happens to ethic groups which are very close, somewhat similar to the "discrimination" among Mainlanders and Taiwanese we mentioned in this thread.

I'm wondering how Scots and Britons live with these conflicts? Is it common for them to tease and mutter complaints about each other publicly, or even on a television and radio?