Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2017 August 3

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August 3

Yellow things and sexual attitudes in Chinese culture

I am aware that it is insulting to a woman to be compared to a prostitute. How is this similar or different from the Western view of prostitution? In the West, it seems that there is the slut, which is also a demeaning title. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.4.236.254 (talk) 00:03, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Your question is not entirely clear, and I especially don't understand the connection with yellow -- the color yellow was often considered an Imperial color by Chinese (see Yellow#In_China). AnonMoos (talk) 01:25, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

The question is very broad, but "yellow" (wikt:黃 is used in Mandarin with the same meaning as "blue" in English. This was actually in the article on Yellow, but not in the Chinese section. I have now fixed that and linked to the 'very yellow, very violent' controversy. The fact that the OP asked the question suggests that they are a Mandarin speaker. Matt's talk 17:37, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

OK -- still not sure whether I fully understand the original question, but you certainly clarified the yellow part, thanks... AnonMoos (talk) 02:52, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

I'm late to the party, but before this falls off the page, a note that "yellow" has - or has had - connotations of decadence and lasciviousness in English and French literature too, see The Yellow Book of the mid 1890s. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 21:36, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

How can Pip NOT know his own sister's name?

Yeah, I understand it's perfectly normal to go by Mrs. Gargery or Mrs. Joe Gargery, especially if you just know her relationship to her husband, not her name. But this is Pip, or Phillip Pirrup. He should know his own sister's name. But then, despite being siblings, Pip seems to be closer to Joe than to his own sister. Sure, the sister may be tough on him, but Pip doesn't know his sister's name? In general, what kind of genre is Charles Dickens writing in? The number of crazy females in Great Expectations is just creepy. 50.4.236.254 (talk) 00:41, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Does his sister seem like the sort that would want to be addressed by her first name or by her married name? Especially by some filthy orphan. Ian.thomson (talk) 00:47, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

50.4.236.254 -- Pip's sister is more than 20 years older than himself (first sentence of chapter 2), and has much more of a parent role than a sibling role to Pip. AnonMoos (talk) 01:36, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Furthermore, it is a work of fiction which means we are provided no means by which to interview the characters or obtain more information from them or about them by any means at all. We are left solely with the words on the page left to us by the author, and the only additional answers that can be provided are the ones you yourself arrive at by your own interpretation of the work. That's how fiction works. It doesn't have any built-in "whys" or "hows". You create your own whys and hows. --Jayron32 01:39, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Jayron32 -- that would apply to fairy tales or similar works of free-floating imagination, but Dickens was writing about a time in English history which was within the living memory of his first readers (about 40 years before the book's first publication), so what he wrote had to have a fairly firm resemblance to English society of that period (even if a little stylized at times), or some of his readership would have strongly objected, and the sales of his book might have been affected... AnonMoos (talk) 10:11, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

So, then maybe you can produce additional writings that answer the OP's question? I'd be shocked, but by all means, go ask Pip why he didn't know his sister's name. Or produce an interview with Pip. I'd like to see that! --Jayron32 11:07, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

We can ask "Under what circumstances in English society of the late 1810s would it be likely that a boy wouldn't know (or would never use) his sister's given name(s)?" and the main answer relevant to Pip in the novel (as far as I can see) is that she's more than 20 years older than him and has much more of a parent role than a sibling role to him... AnonMoos (talk) 13:06, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

The OP didn't ask that question. --Jayron32 13:17, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Where does it say Pip did not know his own sister's name? I know he refers to her as "Mrs. Joe" or "my sister", but that doesn't prove he didn't know her name. In Chapter 58, Pumblechook says "her name was Georgiana M'ria from her own mother", with no indication that this is news to Pip. jnestorius^(talk) 12:41, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

• Regarding genre, Dickens is generally included in Victorian literature, specifically the genre known as the Social novel, which examined society and class issues through the vehicle of the novel. Great Expectations is also a bildungsroman, ,or "coming-of-age" story. --Jayron32 13:17, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

By way of a reference, Values Across Cultures and Times: "By giving his female character the name Mrs Joe, Dickens deconstructs the woman's tradition of taking her husband's name in marriage whose purpose is to show symbolically that she belongs to him. In the case of Mrs Joe's marriage with Joe, it is him who belongs to her rather than vice versa". (p. 135)

Cheese, tofu, and geography

In Northern Europe, there was cheese production. In Eastern Asia, there was tofu production. East Asian countries seem to be lower in latitude than the Northern European countries, closer to the equator. Up north, it may be difficult to grow food, so is this why Northern Europeans have a history of dairy consumption while East Asians have a history of soy consumption? (I pick tofu and cheese, because the processes of making them seem very similar.) 50.4.236.254 (talk) 02:07, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

China specifically doesn't have a history of dairy, but many nearby countries do. Your thesis that lower latitudes don't produce cheeses is easily disproven as India has a dairy and cheesemaking tradition, and it's closer to the equator than China. See paneer, kalari, khoa, chhurpi, etc. As well, there are many varieties of Tibetan cheese. --Jayron32 02:14, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Oh, okay. Then, soybeans were probably a localized food then, as with other things. Societies were much more isolated in the past than today. Nowadays, countries literally border each other. 50.4.236.254 (talk) 02:22, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

If you do want to know more about the history of Chinese cuisine, you could start your research at the Wikipedia article titled History of Chinese cuisine. --Jayron32 02:24, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Kalari cheese. (The above didn't have a link in the hatnote until now.) Nil Einne (talk) 08:55, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

50.4.236.254 -- also keep in mind that major human populations without significant animal-herder (pastoralist) ancestry are prone to lactose intolerance... AnonMoos (talk) 02:46, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

OP, once again you are starting from a false premise. Cheese and tofu are both made in China. There is a long tradition of dairy products especially in northern China, including some that are cheese-like. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:43, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Northern China is the area which has most heavily interacted with animal-herders/pastoralists throughout history. Is there a long tradition of dairy products among typical Han Chinese, or just "in China"? AnonMoos (talk) 09:56, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Well, ethnic and cultural lines are pretty fluid in many parts of China, and if you try to divide the lines too finely at some point it stops making sense. For example, Beijing (which has a rich tradition of dairy products in its cuisine) was certainly subject to Mongol and Manchu rule for centuries, but the majority of its population is, and certainly has been for the last 600 years or so, predominantly Han Chinese. At some point it stops making sense to ask whether its tradition of dairy products is "really" Chinese or just Mongol- or Manchu-influenced. And if it is, given that the Manchus live almost exclusively in China, does it make it less Chinese if it was? Just as it does not really make sense to ask whether the use of Worcestershire sauce in fried rice cakes in Shanghainese cuisine is "really" Chinese or just English-influenced.

Subject to that caveat, certainly there is a long established tradition amongst people who are certainly regarded as "Han Chinese" today. Various dairy products are found in Beijing's traditional cuisine, including a dry one which is cheese-like. There is also a cheese-like product from Shunde in Guangdong province, which can also be found in Chinese communities in Southeast Asia. The Bai people and Yi people of Yunnan also make cheese - they are not Han Chinese, so I don't know whether you think of them as "typical" Chinese people or not. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 10:35, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

About the product from Shunde, this may be of interest [1]. Our article linked above claims, without sources, the use of dairy products in Shunde cuisine is an influence of European merchants and missionaries since the 16th century but I'm not sure that the above source really agrees. (In any case when you're going that far back the question becomes whatever the influence, whether it makes sense to say it isn't part of the cuisine. I mean who is going to seriously argue that chillies are not a part of many forms on Indian cuisine, Thai cuisine or Malaysian cuisine? Or tomatoes aren't part of many forms of Italian cuisine?)

Anyway back to the published source, in reference to cheese it mentions "Rufu (also known as ruping and rutuan) "said to be listed in "Chinese food literature from the Tang (618–906 CE) and Yuan Dynasties (1271–1368 CE)". Note that although the earlier copied terminology calls them the same thing, it later suggests rufu is curdled with vinegar while rutuan is curdled with naturally forming lactic acid. (It also mentions that water buffalo cheese was said to be cooling while yak cheese was warming.) It also mentions Niuru said to "probably the most ancient water buffalo milk product in Shunde and is believed to have been consumed since the Ming Dynasty" which I assume means rufu is not believed to have been traditional produced in Shunde. Or maybe the practice died our and was revied later.

Nil Einne (talk) 11:27, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Well, this only brings up the point to be made about the illusion of "pure culture". Very few cultures existed in isolation for eternity and developed without influence from any other culture, and this is as true of China as anywhere. When we speak of some cultural element as being "native" or "imported" it really shows a very limited thinking about culture; that it is somehow an immutable thing which becomes "contaminated" when elements from other cultures enter in. What is "traditional". How far back do we have to go? Is Sichuan cuisine a native Chinese cuisine? Chilis are not native to anywhere near China; they were imported to the region by the Spanish from Central America. It's a wrong-headed way of thinking about culture, and a classic example of the No True Scotsman fallacy: If we start with the notion that Chinese cuisine doesn't traditionally include cultured dairy products, then when we find Chinese examples of cultured dairy products, we have to bend over backwards to assert "Those aren't really Chinese people" or "That cuisine may be around now, but it was introduced by someone who wasn't Chinese, so it's not really Chinese". Go back far enough, and no one was Chinese. Culture is fluid and continuously changing, tied to a specific time and place, and none of those is rightly more "pure" or "correct" than any other time and place. --Jayron32 12:19, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

I said absolutely nothing whatsoever about "cultural purity" -- I merely observed that PalaceGuard008 seemed to be shifting the discussion from Chinese cuisine to food "in China", which is not necessarily exactly the same thing (especially if by "North China" he meant Inner Mongolia and Manchuria, which historically were only marginally part of East Asia). I didn't know, so I asked. AnonMoos (talk) 13:20, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

But it is the same thing. Where do Chinese people live other than "In china". Any other definition is a No True Scotsman fallacy. It doesn't matter if people's ancestors lived elsewhere, or if China's borders have changed, or any of that. Culture is not static, and while understanding past cultural connections is valid for understanding modern culture, definitions of what it means to be "Chinese" outside of "Is in China" open up a slew of problems with moving goalposts and the like. China's culture has contributions from Inner Mongolia and Manchuria. That those areas used to be "not China" in the past doesn't mean they are somehow "less China" today. --Jayron32 14:47, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Jayron32, your original point about cultural fluidity was put very well, but saying that "within China's borders = Chinese" opens up an enormous can of worms. Are you saying that Lee Kuan Yew wasn't Chinese? Part of the problem is that the English word "Chinese" is the equivalent of several Chinese words; Lee was Chinese (华人) but not Chinese (中国人) . Our articles on Chinese people, Han Chinese, and Zhonghua minzu describe the difficulties. Do you think of Jonathan Edwards as a British theologian? He never lived within the borders of the US. Would you view Tagore as a British poet and Karl Marx as a British writer? EDIT:Sorry, these cases are consistent with your argument. Your points about cultural fluidity help to show that present political borders are often a poor guide to past cultural phenomena. Matt's talk 17:53, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

We are getting a bit off topic here, but just to throw in my two cents. On matters of culture and ethnicity I believe in a weakly essentialist worldview, i.e. matters of culture and ethnicity cannot be precisely defined, but just because a concept is imprecise and fluid it does not mean that it does not exist (which is why I think I have disagreed with Jayron32 before on such matters). That said, the reason I prefaced my response to AnonMoos with a big header is because I wanted to head off the hint I detected in the question that there is some sort of "essential" Chineseness. It is a common misconception that there are precise lines that can be drawn about what is "Chinese" in any of the three senses Matt quotes - e.g. tofu is Chinese, cheese is non-Chinese. Sharp national borders or ethnic or cultural identities are a very recent thing when you are talking about communities that have existed for thousands of years. Genetic studies show that northern (Han) Chinese populations share more genetic affinity with northern/central Asian peoples than they do with southern (Han) Chinese populations, and conversely southern (Han) Chinese populations share more genetic affinity with Indochinese/southeast Asian peoples than they do with northerners. Likewise, culturally whether in terms of cuisine or other lifestyle you are likely to find that Han Chinese people from one region are more likely to share similarities with other ethnic groups living nearby than with other Han Chinese people from a faraway province. To echo Jayron32's point, there isn't really one "typical" cultural China, or if there is, it is a fluid spectrum. If you try to stick to any rigid concept of "typical" Chineseness you will fall into the No True Scotsman trap.

That said, to clarify the precise point AnonMoos had in mind, when I originally said "northern China" I meant it roughly in the orthodox geographical sense, which is the part of China stretching north from the Yellow River basin and excluding Manchuria. I was not thinking of Mongols and Manchus per se. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 19:18, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

PalaceGuard008 -- I'm sure that there's quite a bit of local variation and cultural borrowing -- but nevertheless, if something was mainly eaten by the groups traditionally inhabiting Inner Mongolia and Manchuria, and was only weakly and sporadically taken up by Han Chinese, then it would not be considered "Chinese cuisine" in the usual sense, even though it would be indubitably food eaten in China, so your choice of terminology unfortunately somewhat obscured your intended meaning. Also, Jayron32 may have very good intentions, but he seems to be quite a bit more preoccupied with notions of "cultural purity" than I am, since I never mentioned or alluded to that particular idea... AnonMoos (talk) 21:29, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

The issue is nuance, not purity. I have no belief in such a concept, so I don't know why you keep saying I do. Also, I've never used your name nor addressed you. I don't know why you believe I was talking to you at all. You were the first one to address me. I have no idea what notions you hold, nor do I care. I hadn't thought about you at all until you addressed me. --Jayron32 00:55, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Truly off topic after about this point
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
You're the one who chose to intrude the concept of "cultural purity" into this thread. I don't find it very helpful that you seem to be well-versed in esoteric far-leftist epithets which are guaranteed to bring most conversations to an acrimonious screeching halt, but are very vague as to the basic ordinary meaning of "Chinese cuisine". AnonMoos (talk) 02:08, 4 August 2017 (UTC) I have said nothing negative or personal to you or about you. What is your problem? --Jayron32 04:05, 4 August 2017 (UTC) The problem is that you clumsily insinuated that I was a supporter of "cultural purity" ideology (and you haven't added anything of value to any other aspect of the discussion in this thread in the meantime). I don't like it, and I don't have to like it. AnonMoos (talk) 09:59, 4 August 2017 (UTC) I made no comment anywhere near you, until well after you started addressing me. I also insinuated nothing, but that's neither here nor there, because my contribution had nothing to do with anything you said, which should be obvious since I didn't comment anywhere near you.--Jayron32 10:03, 4 August 2017 (UTC) That whole aspect of the thread developed from my use of the word "typical", which was admittedly vague terminology in that context (I originally intended it to mean "who are not heavily influenced by Mongolian or Manchu culture to an atypical degree" or something like that), but which did not really support the interpretations that other people started loading onto it (especially when you finished freely riffing off of it). AnonMoos (talk) 10:34, 4 August 2017 (UTC) Being tangentially involved in an aspect of a thread that you had previously also commented on is a long way from assuming that I directing comments at you, or even realizing you existed. Look, I've told you my comments had nothing at all to do with you, were not made with anything you stated in mind, and that should be enough. This whole misunderstanding started because you thought I was attacking something you said. I've informed you that was not the case, and that I had no thought of anything you said when I made my comments. Let's just drop it, it's gone well past the phase of usefulness. I apologize without qualification for what I have done in derailing this thread. I was in the wrong, and I fully accept ownership of and responsibility for that. I am quite sorry. --Jayron32 12:01, 4 August 2017 (UTC) Inevitably... Gregory's wife: What's so special about the cheesemakers? Gregory: Well, obviously it's not meant to be taken literally. It refers to any manufacturer of dairy products. --Shirt58 (talk) 09:32, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Unusual given names

I don't think this is confined to African-American families, but it seems to be something that's particularly associated with them, at least in my mind. I refer to the tendency to give children given names that either have unusual spellings of existing names, or are totally unique.

Where could I find a list of these very uncommon names and spellings? Is there any evidence that the trend is abating? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 06:06, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Have you read African-American names? I don't think you'll get a list, as many of these are unique, and invented by the parents. Rojomoke (talk) 06:14, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

I agree it is not confined to African-Americans. Here in South Africa, particularly among Afrikaans speaking people, the trend is to chop the parents' names in half (or so) and make a new name. Andrew and Michelle = Andelle. Sometimes I think they mashed up Pokemon names.41.13.216.144 (talk) 07:05, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Also Brazilians. And Hobbits. jnestorius^(talk) 12:42, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Unusual first names are also a cultural feature in the Dominican Republic and Cuba these days. These trends tend to be cyclical. In North America, the late 19th century was notorious for its love of unusual first names (usually plucked from the more obscure chapters of the Bible or from lists of forgotten Catholic saints), leading to a reaction a few decades later. --Xuxl (talk) 12:51, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Obligatory reference to Unless-Jesus-Christ-Had-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned as an unusual names. Neither African-American nor modern. --Jayron32 14:43, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Uh, what? What definition are you using for "modern"? Nyttend (talk) 23:28, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

1a here.--Jayron32 09:59, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

I've also noticed many commonly-pronounced names that are spelled "creatively" or with unnecessary apostrophes or other diacritical marks. Is there a greater point to doing this, other than attracting attention or looking "fancy"? -Thomprod (talk) 14:56, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Guayaquil Conference

Where exactly did the Guayaquil Conference took place? As a recent visitor to Guayaquil I was not aware that such a pivotal event in South American history took place in the city, now I am curious to know where it actually took place. --Sodacan (talk) 06:37, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

This article goes into more detail than the Wikipedia article does, but does not give the location of the office where they met. It does say that there were no records of the conference, which was in private between the two men, excepting partial recollections from letters written well after the event. However, This article says clearly that they met in the City Hall. I have no idea what that building was in 1822, as the current Palacio Municipal was built a century later. But if you can find out what the City Hall was in 1822, they would have met there. --Jayron32 11:04, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

The Spanish wiki article you link suggests the city hall was a building called "Casa Consistorial", inaugurated as the city government building in 1817 and eventually deliberately demolished by burning in 1908. The location given for this city hall is on the old site of the Mercado de Abastos, between Calle Real (now Calle Pichincha) and the river. 70.67.222.124 (talk) 16:36, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Thank you! Sodacan (talk) 14:41, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

Has anyone with a diplomatic visa ever tried to use it to become an illegal immigrant?

Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 14:57, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

According to this, 629,000 people overstayed the terms of their visa in the year 2016. The largest number of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. are thus those who came to the country on a legal visa, but stayed longer than the terms allowed. The number of people who enter the country under no visa and stay permanently is much smaller than those who entered under a valid visa and simply stayed after it expired. So, if you count 629,000 in one year as "anyone" then the answer is "yes". --Jayron32 15:20, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Uhm, the OP specifically asked about diplomatic visa, right? Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:33, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

In that case, it is still a number greater than zero (which is what "anyone" means), per this. --Jayron32 15:37, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

It happens sometimes, diplomats are usually privileged enough to be able to emigrate pretty smoothly through normal means, but not always.

Thae Yong-ho was in the news last year. He was a North Korean diplomat in London, but defected to the South Korea. ApLundell (talk) 15:43, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

That isn't always so. Many people who are on a "diplomatic visa" may not be high-level diplomats, for example an office intern who is on a six-month diplomatic visa to work doing light filing and clerical work for the embassy. When his term of employment expires, and his visa is no longer valid, if he stays behind, he's now not in that country legally. The link I provided above shows clear evidence that people have had that happen to them. --Jayron32 16:37, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Also, the families of diplomats, including minor children, who live with the diplomat during their posting generally enter on diplomatic passports as well. --47.138.161.183 (talk) 21:32, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Someone defecting and seeking asylum is not an 'illegal immigrant', but an asylum seeker. There are plenty of examples of individuals holding diplomatic passports seeking asylum in countries of diplomatic postings or third countries. An 'illegal immigrant' would presumably be someone that crosses a border in clandestine way, for which a diplomatic passport would not be useful anyway. --Soman (talk) 13:03, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

Or someone who disappears the first time the first time the country they're sent to happens to be rich. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 13:50, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

I can't parse that sentence, SMW. Can you say it another way? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:01, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

Someone from a poor country getting assigned to an embassy or consulate in a rich one then eloping to work as an undocumented immigrant. Perhaps they don't send people to rich countries until they trust them for just this reason so anyone who wants to try this would have to climb the career ladder first. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 03:10, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. I've heard of being married to one's job, but eloping to work seems a bit rash. :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 03:57, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

I can't say for sure that such a move has never happened, but I feel that the scenario is quite far fetched. Diplomatic families from 'poor countries' tend to belong to national elites, and would generally never consider switching their privileged position for manual labour in precarious conditions. It did however happen in Coming to America. --Soman (talk) 16:06, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

Just because you work in the foreign service, that does not mean you are an elite. I don't know whether you are thinking of the old image of Eton-educated British diplomats, but even in the UK that is mostly just a stereotype. To give a concrete example, Chen Yonglin's motivations in defecting are debated, but he is certainly not from a rich or politically highly placed family and despite being in a relatively enviable job (with foreign postings), it would not have been particularly well-paying, and there was every economic motivation for him to defect to a country which (at the time) had many times the per capita GDP of his home country. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 10:36, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

I'm not thinking of British diplomats, but rather African diplomats and their families. It would be very rare to find a child of an African diplomat wanting to trade their privileged situation for washing dishes in the West. --Soman (talk) 19:40, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

Is the U.S. allowing Syrian Muslims but not Syrian Christians to immigrate? Why?

From [2]:

Donald Trump: Do you know four years ago Malcom, I was with a man who does this for a living. He was telling me, before the migration, that if you were a Christian from Syria, you had no chance of coming to the United States. Zero. They were the ones being persecuted. When I say persecuted, I mean their heads were being chopped off. If you were a Muslim we have nothing against Muslims, but if you were a Muslim you were not persecuted at least to the extent – but if you were a Muslim from Syria that was the number one place to get into the United States from. That was the easiest thing. But if you were a Christian from Syria you have no chance of getting into the United States. I just thought it was an incredible statistic. Totally true – and you have seen the same thing. It is incredible.

Washington Post: While a relatively small percentage of Syrian Christian refugees have been admitted to the United States, The Post's Fact Checker found that Trump's suggestion that they face discrimination is false ...

Washington Post: While it's accurate to say that a small percentage of Syrian Christian refugees have been admitted to the United States, The Post's Fact Checker found that the reason for this disparity is unclear.

(Turnbull talked about a program to take mostly Syrian Christian refugees) To me the "Fact Checker" seems rather inconsistent, and not very convincing. Is there a way to shed light on this statistic? Wnt (talk) 17:03, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

[3] [4] [5] [6] has some more discussion. I think the simple answer is that no one is sure why the disparity exists although there are several issues which are likely contributing factors, and there's no evidence it arises due to religious discrimination against Christians on the part of the US refugee process, and no one has presented any evidence for such discrimination. [7] while explicitly an opinion piece and from the Heritage Foundation so not exactly a neutral source may also be of interest. P.S. To be clear, the disparity here is between estimates of the Syrian christian population and their percentage of US Syrian refugees. The fact that they are a small percent is not in itself surprising without considering such factors any more than the fact there are probably zero "white" Somali refugees but plenty of "black" ones is evidence of discrimination by the US refugee programme against "white" Somalis. Nil Einne (talk) 17:53, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Also, it's difficult to tell what Trump is talking about at the best of times, but here if he means "if you were a Muslim you were not persecuted at least to the extent" in Syria, that is obviously untrue as well. Adam Bishop (talk) 18:19, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

One final comment have you actual read the WP's fact checker? I originally assumed you did but I'm now starting to wonder if you only read the summary you mentioned above since it's not directly linked in the transcript page and you also didn't link to it. If you didn't it's here [8]. I didn't link to it earlier because of the aforementioned assumption. Nil Einne (talk) 07:07, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

D'oh! No, I had not realized there was a separate column. (Though your references above were even more enlightening) Wnt (talk) 11:26, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

The majority of Syrian refugees outside of Syria are Sunnis. Christians in Syria, even if they have reason to hate the Assad government, are extremely wary of Islamic religious extremism, and of lending support to anything which might lead to Islamic extremist rule. Sunnis often perceive Christians to be pro-Assad (and many Christians do see Assad as being at least the lesser of two evils). As was said above, the exact reasons for the disparity in admitted refugees are unknown, but it's been speculated that Christians sometimes do not feel safe going to Sunni-dominated camps where they could be registered with the UNHCR, which is a preliminary step towards being considered for asylum. Some seem to go to Christian areas of Lebanon instead... AnonMoos (talk) 02:48, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

P.S. The Trump administration seems to have targeted one group of Middle Eastern Christian refugees already admitted to the US for deportation: [9]... -- AnonMoos (talk) 03:06, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Note that 4 years ago was prior to the rise of ISIL. Before that, Christians weren't particularly persecuted in Syria, it was enemies of Assad, who were mainly Sunni Muslims, who were the main group persecuted. So, at that time, it would make sense that most of the people being granted asylum from Syria would be Muslim. StuRat (talk) 02:53, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Custody battles lost by both parents

In the US, how common are custody battles where both parents want custody of the child, but custody is ultimately awarded to neither of them (e.g. with the judge granting custody to an aunt or uncle, or decreeing that the child be put up for adoption)? NeonMerlin 22:03, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

You don't mention the time frame, so I will suggest this: http://www3.uakron.edu/witt/father/parke7.htm

In 90% of divorce cases, the custody of the children goes to the mother, while in only 10% the custody goes to the father. This implies that in 0% of cases, the custody goes to a different person. 50.4.236.254 (talk) 23:40, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Custody does sometimes go to other parties, so that stat must be strictly of the cases where the only contestants are the father and mother. StuRat (talk) 03:21, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Or maybe it's because custody to other parties in divorce cases is so rare it's within the margin of error.... Nil Einne (talk) 07:17, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

In the UK, removing a child from the care of their parent(s) is an entirely distinct procedure from a divorce settlement, and I suspect that would be the same in the US. Alansplodge (talk) 07:45, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

See American Common Law. 50.4.236.254 (talk) 11:06, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

That neither mentions divorce, nor emancipation of minors, nor disownment, nor Child Protective Services, nor any other means by which a child may be legally separated from the responsibility of their parents. --Jayron32 11:55, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

The link to "American Common Law" is supposed to supplement Alansplodge's contribution. 50.4.236.254 (talk) 23:39, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

When custody is awarded to someone other than the parents it's for good reason: [10] 86.136.177.211 (talk) 10:25, 5 August 2017 (UTC)