Quote:
Originally Posted by memememe76
No, it's not. If I wanted to buy something at a business with a Chinese-only sign (which, again, is rare!), I can still come in, point at whatever I want, and pay the bill. Prices will likely be in Canadian Dollars.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin
You don't need to be able to read the sign to go into the store and purchase whatever they're selling (some businesses don't even have any sign at all), but memememe76 already covered that quite well.
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Well, I would say that you kinda need to have an idea what the store is about otherwise typical shoppers are really unlikely to bother to enter it... or at least so I'd think.
And from my own experience, frankly, if there's only Chinese on the sign, you're unlikely to be able to get service in English anyway. (Or French, or any aboriginal language.) IMO you're fooling yourself if you think that it doesn't clearly mean "
I couldn't care less about non-Chinese customers and I'll be fine if none ever sets foot in my store" on the part of the owner.
It's obviously not exactly the same thing as the sign you posted, but while it's not quite a "White people only" sign, it's a "Non-Chinese unwelcome, so much so that we aren't even going to let non-Chinese know what's our line of business" one.
In practice, as I said, the result is going to be similar.
i.e. I believe that
if you went back in time to the segregated south and observed a "White People Only" store for a long time, taking statistics on the customers going in and out, you'd likely have ~100% white, ~0% black;
if you went to Richmond BC and observed a strictly-Chinese-lettering-only store for a long time, taking statistics on the customers going in and out, you'd likely have ~100% Chinese, ~0% non-Chinese.