Filed under: Chinese culture, racism, the expat life, TIC | Tags: Chinese culture, expat life, racism, TIC
A few weeks ago, a Facebook friend of mine–a fellow former China expat–posted a video of a comedy sketch about being black in China and the bewildering ignorance that black people experience. I thought it was hilarious–because, sadly, it’s true. Racism does exist in China. Here’s the proof:
“When you eat chocolate, how do you know when to stop?” AI YA WO DE MA YA!!!
All foreigners, regardless of race, should expect be asked some off the wall questions, ranging from the benign to the offensive. It’s understandable: a cocktail of a one-party system that limits free speech, a guarded Internet and travel restrictions has created a culture that really doesn’t understand the outside world. Even the language demonstrates China’s isolation: you may here Chinese people refer to China as guonei (within the country) and the rest of the world as guowai (outside the country), as well as to themselves as Zhongguoren (Chinese) and the rest of the world as waiguoren (foreigner). Yes, you could find a similar way to express these ideas in English (your country/abroad, your nationality/immigrants or foreigners or what have you), but these concepts are different when Chinese people speak. You will hear people say things like, “Chinese people are like this, but foreigners are like that”–as though the entire world is diametrically opposed to China in a massive monoculture. I do not say this as a criticism of China, a country that was previously very poor and more isolated than today, and does not have the same history of immigration and diversity as many other countries.
And that historical void has been filled with the next best thing: Western media. Do you see where I’m going with this? There’s a certain demonization of black people in our media, and developing countries like China pick up on that. The difference is that while they hear things about black people being dangerous, homeless, unemployed and drug addicts, most of them have never met a single black person. I think my students–most of whom are Chinese, studying in San Francisco–are afraid of black people. They will casually say things that I think are racist, like, they see a fast driver on the street and say, “Oh, he’s black.” Meaning: that’s why he’s a reckless driver. That’s just one, tiny example; nevertheless, I find it disturbing. We have to contend with racism as a force so vicious, so pervasive, that it can spill onto foreign soil and grow. Slavery has long been abolished, and yet the world is still reeling from its repercussions.
Well, regardless of how or why racism reared its ugly head in China, the fact is it’s very hurtful. I’d like to share with you all the first time I ever encountered racism in China. I’m white so I didn’t experience it first-hand; in fact, it was several months into my first year until I really noticed it.
It was Christmas Day, and I was sick as a dog with some kind of gastrointestinal infection. My friend and roommate was at work, but her boyfriend was around. One look at me and he knew I needed a doctor, and luckily, he happened to speak fluent Chinese (he was doing his M.A. in Dalian). So he took me to see a doctor.
On the walk to the hospital, I noticed that people often paused to look at us. OK, this was not unusual, we were foreigners after all, but it seemed like . . . more? And less friendly? The stares I attracted were partnered with smiles; but these stares were quite unwelcome.
And then, once we’d arrived, I finally got it. We found a nurse and approached her to ask for directions for the proper facility.
As we approached, a look of cold fear took over her face.
This guy, my savior on that day, was black, from a small African country, and quite dark-skinned. The nurse was afraid for her life.
Honestly, if everywhere I went I had to deal with fear and contempt, I probably would have quit China long ago. I really don’t know how people do it. I suppose some people just don’t have a choice. You go where the money and opportunities are; that’s what we all have to do, it’s just easier for some of us.
After that experience, I tried to do a lesson on racism in my adult language class. But surprisingly, none of my students believed racism existed in China. They maintained (like in the video) that Chinese people are all the same race, therefore, there is no racism. And if no one believes in racism, how can they talk about it? How can they work through it? How can they begin to see it?
The video above was also posted onto the Youku, the Chinese version of YouTube. Here below is a snapshot of what some Chinese people made of this video, which I’ve translated into English. Some of the opinions are harsh. But at least there’s some kind of platform for people to talk about racism. Is it too generous to believe that this is a start? Read below and decide for yourself.
不是我歧视黑人，但是黑人的确给我留下的印象不好。黑人对世界文明的进步毫无贡献，无论是四大文明古国，还是近代欧洲工业革命，都不沾黑人的事。他们完全是在享受其他人种所带来的文明成果。
It’s not that I discriminate against black people, but they do leave me with a bad impression. Black people contribute absolutely nothing to the progress of the civilized world, from ancient times to the not so distant European Industrial Revolution–nothing advantageous came from the work of black people. They completely enjoy the results of progress brought on by people of other races.
为什么黑人要来中国居住？回非洲好吗？
Why do black people continue to live in China? Wouldn’t it be better to go back to Africa?
的確，亞洲人覺得白漂亮。。。
The truth is, Asian people think white is pretty…
还有中国１９７８年才开始慢慢发展到现的程度。国家很穷，教育也不好，旅游也不可能。 //@(username deleted): 因为中国封闭了几十年 让人坐井观天
And it wasn’t until 1978 that China slowly began to open its doors. China was poor, the education was bad and people couldn’t travel. / @(username deleted): This is because for so many decades China was sealed off. It makes people narrow-minded.
我们懂，但是不代表所有中国人都懂。视频里讲的内容虽然不是全部中国人都是这样，但是大部分是这样的！
We understand, but that’s not to say that all Chinese people do. Although not all Chinese people are like the ones in this video, most are!
这部视频对中国人的误解很深！
This video says something really profound about Chinese people’s ignorance!
For further reading, please check out A Minority in the Middle Kingdom: My Experience Being Black in China via Tea Leaf Nation.
While the bombs firecrackers exploded outside our windows during Spring Festival, we had a noisy incident of own. Last week, I returned home from work one evening. At first things were quite normal–I said hello to my roommate Pam and her boyfriend (some of you may know that I recently moved in with a friend) and started to warm up something for dinner.
Then our neighbor walks in through the bathroom.
Our apartment is actually two apartments: Pam and I share a fairly sizable portion (two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen and a dining area), but there is another part that is closed off from us, which belongs to the landlord’s brother. We all use the bathroom; otherwise, it’s like a completely separate apartment.
So we weren’t completely staggered when a middle-aged Chinese man came out of our bathroom. We were, however, annoyed that he came to fiddle with our breakers in an attempt to restore electricity in his apartment–and in the process took out most of our apartment’s power.
That isn’t exactly a tragedy; we still had one good outlet, and outside it was cold enough that we could move some of the food to our patio over night. The real tragedy was the smoke detector. It beeped. And beeped. About every ten seconds. Four people got up on a chair and tried to deactivate it, but to no avail. Apparently, in many Chinese apartment complexes, the smoke detector is powered electrically rather than by battery, and it starts to beep when it doesn’t have enough power to work properly.
Our neighbor’s brilliant suggestion was to close the kitchen doors. Yeah, thanks.
We ended up having to do this:
Yes, that is a pillow taped to our ceiling.
It did muffle the sound a bit; at first, we were patient. We could bear it. But after two days of waiting for someone to fix it, we were starting to go a bit crazy. On Valentine’s Day, Pam went out with her boyfriend, and I ended up going to a bar by myself just to get away from the noise. It was just fine, though–I ran into some friends and had a good time.
Finally, a few people came to deactivate the smoke detector (we have to buy a new one), but only yesterday were we restored to full power. The guy next door says to keep a receipt for the bill and give it to the landlord. But the landlord is in Korea and has been there for a while! Somehow, I don’t think we will ever get that money from our neighbor. If only we could lock him out of the bathroom…
"Wish You Happy Every Day": An Expat's Life in China 