Joined: 07 Feb 2007 {Posts: 1829 } Location: Lookin DC Metro, Feelin Geneva
Posted: Mon 16 Nov 2009 16:35 Post subject: Race in China
I should make something clear up front about this article...Americans as usual are putting their on racial spin or combining things that are not perfectly related.
China people traditionally had no word for "tan" instead they say "black" (hei), white is (bai). In China, it is not uncommon for Chinese to call themselves "black" or "white" as in "He is a black man" or "He is black" or that "farmer is so black". This means they are "tanned".
I say this because a Chinese woman says in the article that being "white" is beautiful and "black" is ugly, unclean, negative...
She is not talking about people from Europe or Africa per say. She is talking about light complected people and dark people in general.
Quote:
Racial rethinking as Obama visits
Increasing diversity, born out of boom, forces Chinese to confront old prejudices
By Keith B. Richburg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, November 15, 2009
SHANGHAI -- As a mixed-race girl growing up in this most cosmopolitan of mainland Chinese cities, 20-year-old Lou Jing said she never experienced much discrimination -- curiosity and questions, but never hostility.
So nothing prepared Lou, whose father is a black American, for the furor that erupted in late August when she beat out thousands of other young women on "Go! Oriental Angel," a televised talent show. Angry Internet posters called her a "black chimpanzee" and worse. One called for all blacks in China to be deported.
As the country gets ready to welcome the first African American U.S. president, whose first official visit here starts Sunday, the Chinese are confronting their attitudes toward race, including some deeply held prejudices about black people. Many appeared stunned that Americans had elected a black man, and President Obama's visit has underscored Chinese ambivalence about the growing numbers of blacks living here.
"It's sad," Lou said, her eyes welling up as she recalled her experience. "If I had a face that was half-Chinese and half-white, I wouldn't have gotten that criticism. . . . Before the contest, I didn't realize these kinds of attitudes existed."
As China has expanded its economic ties with Africa -- trade between them reached $107 billion last year -- the number of Africans living here has exploded. Tens of thousands have flocked to the south, where they are putting down roots, establishing communities, marrying Chinese women and having children.
In the process, they are making tiny pockets of urban China more racially diverse -- and forcing the Chinese to deal with issues of racial discrimination. In the southern city of Guangzhou, where residents refer to one downtown neighborhood as Chocolate City, local newspapers have been filled in recent months with stories detailing discrimination and alleging police harassment against the African community.
"In Guangzhou, to be frank, they don't like Africans very much," said Diallo Abdual, 26, who came to China from Guinea 1 1/2 years ago to buy cheap Chinese clothes to ship back to West Africa for sale.
With the recession, his business has dried up, his money is gone, and he has overstayed his visa. Now, like many Africans here, he spends most of his days at Guangzhou's Tangqi shopping mall avoiding the police.
"The security will beat you with irons like you are a goat," he said. "The way they treat the blacks is very, very bad." He and others pointed out the spot where in July several Africans jumped from an upper-floor window to escape an immigration raid. One migrant was reported critically injured in the fall, and a large number of Africans marched on the local police station in protest.
The Guangzhou Security Bureau said in a statement at the time that it had a duty to check that foreigners living in the city were there legally.
Long-held prejudice
In the 1960s, China began befriending African countries, supporting liberation movements in Africa and bringing African students to China in a show of Third World solidarity. Lately, China has further deepened its ties to the continent, with Premier Wen Jiabao pledging $10 billion in new low-cost loans at a China-Africa summit in Egypt last week.
But that official policy of friendship has always been balanced against another reality -- the widely held view here that black people are inferior, that white people are wealthy and successful.
"The kind of prejudice you see now really happened with the economic growth," said Hung Huang, a Beijing-based fashion magazine publisher and host of "Straight Talk," a nightly current affairs talk show. "The Chinese worshiped the West, and for Chinese people, 'the West' is white people."
Hung, 48, said her generation was "taught world history in a way that black people were oppressed, they were slaves, and we haven't seen any sign of success since. The African countries are still poor, and blacks [in America] still live in inner cities." Hung noted that Chinese racial prejudices extend to the country's own minority groups, including Tibetans and Uighurs -- or anyone who is not ethnically Han Chinese.
The view of African Americans as poor and oppressed fits into the official narrative of the United States as a place of glaring inequalities. China's most recent annual report on the United States' human rights record in 2008, released in February, made no mention of Obama's historic election. But it said, "In the United States, racial discrimination prevails in every aspect of social life."
"Black people and other minorities live at the bottom of the American society," the report said. "There is serious racial hostility in the United States."
Sherwood Hu, a Shanghai-based filmmaker, was one of the judges on "Go! Oriental Angel" who gave Lou high marks. "Before the Cultural Revolution, China considered black people our brothers and white people our enemies," Hu said. "But deep down, they're a little bit afraid of black people."
The racial animosity here reflects a prejudice dating to China's mainly agrarian past: Darker skin meant you worked the fields; lighter skin put you among the elite. The country is rapidly industrializing and urbanizing, but that historical prejudice remains. High-end skin-whitening products are a $100 million-a-year business in China, according to industry statistics.
'Are we racist?'
Chen Juan, 27, a secretary in an English-language training school in Beijing, regularly uses skin-whitening products and carries an umbrella on summer days. "For me, the whiter, the better. Being white means pretty," she said. "If someone looks too black, I feel they look countrified and like a farmer. . . . Being white is prettier than being black."
"In my impression, black people, especially Africans, are not clean enough," Chen continued. "To be frank, I just feel black people are too black. Definitely, I wouldn't consider having a black guy as my boyfriend even if he were rich."
P.C. Chike, a Nigerian businessman in Guangzhou who has been in China for five years, exports wigs and extensions made from Chinese hair to his home country. He married a Chinese woman from Beijing, and they have a son, with another on the way.
"Chinese don't like Africans. They don't like black skin," Chike said. "China trying to embrace Africa is a political statement. The question is, how do they treat black people?"
Li Wenjuan, Chike's wife, said she thinks racial attitudes are less coarse in Beijing than in Guangzhou, where the commonly used Cantonese term for blacks translates as "black ghosts."
Some here say Obama's presidency is causing a major shift in attitudes. Others, however, say many Chinese rationalize his election as a fluke of the American system or suggest that Obama, whose mother was white, isn't "really" black.
"It will be really interesting to see what happens when he comes to visit, because I really think the Chinese have a hard time with it," Hung said. "Nobody has dealt with this question of what this means to our sense of race. It's a kind of self-examination that Chinese -- including myself -- need to go through: Are we racist?"
Lou sees similarities between her life and Obama's: She also grew up without her father, whom she never knew. She read Obama's autobiography and watched his campaign speeches on television. She learned how to chant "Yes, we can!" in English and calls Obama "my idol."
Reading the withering online criticisms of her talent-show appearance, she recalled, she came across one post that asked: "Now that Obama is president, does that mean a new day for black people has arrived?"
"I think the answer is yes," she said. "Some Chinese people's perceptions of black people here have been transformed."
Researchers Wang Juan and Zhang Jie contributed to this report from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.
Joined: 07 Feb 2007 {Posts: 1829 } Location: Lookin DC Metro, Feelin Geneva
Posted: Mon 16 Nov 2009 16:50 Post subject:
Also, Africans have two types of discrimination, one based on site, for being black Africans, the other is class, being seen as from a poor nation. Chinese would almost always ask me where I was from and I noticed if I was with white peopl...e they would assume I was American...so I think I was treated better in that way than if I was from Africa, actually I was told this to my face
the number of Africans living here has exploded. Tens of thousands have flocked to the south, where they are putting down roots, establishing communities, marrying Chinese women and having children.
That's Interesting, in the Caribbean there are now lots of Chinese coming to live on the various islands, of course the Caribbean islands have always had small Chinese communities ,but this "New Wave" has been coming in thick and fast and opening restaurants and other businesses .
In my Country in the past couple of months i noticed some of the women from this "New Wave" walking around with Mixed race babies ( mostly Half black Half Chinese).
It seems that some have no problems integrating
Quote:
the widely held view here that black people are inferior, that white people are wealthy and successful.
Most Chinese have probably never met a black person yet they would judge most black people based on this widely held view.
Quote:
20-year-old Lou Jing
I find her situation to be rather interesting , keep us up to date if you find more stories with her
Joined: 07 Feb 2007 {Posts: 1829 } Location: Lookin DC Metro, Feelin Geneva
Posted: Mon 16 Nov 2009 17:38 Post subject:
Spiral wrote:
Quote:
the number of Africans living here has exploded. Tens of thousands have flocked to the south, where they are putting down roots, establishing communities, marrying Chinese women and having children.
That's Interesting, in the Caribbean there are now lots of Chinese coming to live on the various islands, of course the Caribbean islands have always had small Chinese communities ,but this "New Wave" has been coming in thick and fast and opening restaurants and other businesses .
In my Country in the past couple of months i noticed some of the women from this "New Wave" walking around with Mixed race babies ( mostly Half black Half Chinese).
It seems that some have no problems integrating
Quote:
the widely held view here that black people are inferior, that white people are wealthy and successful.
Most Chinese have probably never met a black person yet they would judge most black people based on this widely held view.
Quote:
20-year-old Lou Jing
I find her situation to be rather interesting , keep us up to date if you find more stories with her
Chinese don't see individualism the way Western people do, most of them see nothing wrong with judging an unknown individual by the average of their group, known relatives, etc.
They do this with each other as well, it is not just racial.
Mixed race baby story plays out before Obama’s visit
By Chelsea Girl in China Last updated: November 13th, 2009
2 Comments Comment on this article
The world’s most famous mixed race person is about to visit Shanghai but in the very district where he will stay a very sad story about an unwanted mixed race baby has unfolded. It has been reported in newspapers, on TV and online that a 20-year-old Shanghainese woman gave birth to a baby with a black father on November 7.
She was working as a waitress when she met a group of black men in a bar in Jingan, a popular bar district in Shanghai, possibly a few streets from where Obama will stay when he arrives between November 15 and 18. The mother, Xiao Yan, who is not in contact with the baby’s father, had to quit her job when she became pregnant. She became homeless and was shunned by her parents. She reportedly attempted suicide, so helpless was her situation.
As heart-wrenching as the story is though, in most countries this wouldn’t be a story. But in one of the least racially mixed of the world’s major nations, it is rare enough to see people who are black, let alone for mixed race babies to be born. The fact it is an unwanted child is hardly headline news either when 13 million pregnancies are terminated each year.
Ding Hui, the volleyball player and the singer Lou Jing, are the most famous mixed race personalities in China and they say they have both come in for racist remarks during their careers. Descriptions of Jing as a “black pearl” and “mixed-blood beauty” are at the kindest end of the spectrum and would still be deemed politically incorrect in the West. Patrick Abotsi is a black expatriate who started the website afroshanghai.com. He attests that black people do experience racism in Shanghai but that it’s a sensitive issue.
It was on the forum of Abotsi’s website that members discussed how they could help the high-profile baby and its mother. The semantics began to change and the “black baby” became an “African-Chinese baby girl”. It has now been reported that Xiao Yan’s father has stepped in to help his daughter and baby granddaughter. I wonder if Obama knows of her inauspicious start in the world and what his visit will do to bring changes about during her lifetime?
Asia-Pacific Features
Mixed-race stars stir debate in China (Feature)
By Bill Smith
Nov 11, 2009, 2:32 GMT
Beijing - Ding Hui was a shy schoolboy who spent as much time as possible at his home in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou to avoid unwanted attention to his dark skin and prominent features.
Ding's confidence soared as a teenager when he discovered his prowess at volleyball and progressed through local and provincial youth teams.
'When he was a little boy, he seldom went out because he looked different from the other children,' state media quoted his mother, Yu Jianxiu, as saying.
'But after he started playing volleyball, he livened up,' Yu said.
Yet as Ding, now 20, celebrated his selection for the national volleyball team in April, postings on sports websites questioned whether someone with his skin colour was suitable to represent China.
Ding said he was 'disgusted' with the reaction.
In nearby Shanghai, another 20-year-old knows just how he felt. Like Ding, Lou Jing was born to a Chinese mother and a black father.
'When I was growing up, the people around me treated me very nicely,' Lou told the German Press Agency dpa.
But this summer, some Chinese viewers were not so kind after they watched Lou sing her way toward the finals of Shanghai-based Dragon TV's talent show Go! Oriental Angels.
Postings on several websites hailed Lou, who is studying to become a television presenter, as a 'black pearl' and a 'mixed-blood beauty' who was 'more beautiful than a model.'
But other comments called her a 'gorilla' or 'negro' and urged her to 'get out of China.'
'These kind of judgements were stupid,' Lou said. 'There were just too many for me,' she said of the racist comments.
Her mother, who is a single parent, also suffered abuse as state media speculated about Lou's absent father.
'Wrong parents, wrong skin colour, wrong to be on a television show,' one popular internet posting read.
'There are two factors at work here,' said Raymond Zhou, a commentator for the official China Daily newspaper. 'Lou Jing is not a pure-blooded Chinese, and anyone who marries a foreigner is deemed a traitor to his or her race.'
'More relevant, Lou's father is black,' he said to explain the 'cruel lashing' of Lou and her mother.
More controversy was caused when Lou's management company apparently posted a comment in Lou's name saying that her father was African American rather than African.
'My idea about people around me hasn't changed, but I am disappointed with the media, who make up fake stories about me,' Lou said.
She and her mother have started legal action against several publications over reports published after her appearance in the televised singing contest.
'I don't regret participating, but if I had another chance, I would not take part again,' Lou said.
The backlash against Lou and Ding reflects the fact that China is one of the least racially mixed of the world's major nations.
'In the same year that Americans welcome [President Barack] Obama to the White House, we can't even accept this girl with a different skin colour,' writer Hung Huang said on her blog.
Even in relatively cosmopolitan Beijing, locals sometimes openly - but usually without malice - describe black people and sometimes white people as 'monkeys.'
One mixed-race British teacher was given the name Mr Chocolate by children in Beijing until his Chinese colleague asked them to call him Mr Black Teacher instead.
The political climate - in which the ruling Communist Party insists that it has ended all forms of racial discrimination and brought equal prosperity to China's 56 officially designated ethnic groups - allows no serious study of racism.
Many Chinese social scientists, their thought clouded by Communist ideology, see race and nationality as identical.
Han Chinese make up about 92 per cent of China's population of 1.3 billion people, but state propaganda does little to help them understand the country's other 55 ethnic minorities.
Tibetans, Mongolians, Koreans, Kazakhs and the dozens of ethnic minorities from mountainous areas of south-western China all suffer, largely in silence.
Posters displayed on billboards across China show groups of grinning young singers and dancers in their ethnic groups' traditional costumes. The images are meant to represent racial equality and harmony.
But those ideals are still lacking for ethnic minorities and other nationalities. Stereotypes are common. For example, many Chinese claim that all Indians can sing and dance just like Bollywood actors.
In Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang province, Ding is now known as the 'joker in the squad,' the China Daily quoted Wang Hebing, the head coach of the provincial volleyball team, as saying.
'He was a little shy at first, but he soon became a favourite with the other players,' Wang said.
'He's also a great singer and dancer, and he brings more passion to the game than the other players,' he said.
Joined: 07 Feb 2007 {Posts: 1829 } Location: Lookin DC Metro, Feelin Geneva
Posted: Tue 17 Nov 2009 16:18 Post subject:
Spiral wrote:
Quote:
Many Chinese social scientists, their thought clouded by Communist ideology, see race and nationality as identical.
If China continues to push for Super power status, the role that people of Mixed race play in a future Chinese society has to be dealt with.
Not really. Japan has the second largest economy in the world, member of the G-8, the place U.S. Presidents visit first in Asia.
THey are more liberal than China, but still quite xenophobic and have similar attitudes although they are sophisticated enough not to state them publicly (and generally they are just nicer, I've lived there too, for over a year).
Japan has had a U.S. presence for 60 years and 98% of the popution is ethnic Japanese. They have very conservative immigration laws. The 2% that is not Japanese, the vast majority are Koreans. The mixed race population is very low, one reason is that they tend to be foreign men marrying Japanese women. Since Japanese society is fairly closed to foreigners, the men can't make a good living in Japan (usually) so they go back to their nation with their Japanese wife.
There is an increase in Japanese men marrying foreign women, but the vast majority are marrying Asian women, some of the kids come out looking "not very Japanese" but they definitely look more Japanese than a Japanese person marrying a European or African.
China is 93% Han Chinese, the rest of the minorities, but for 2 or 3 can pass for Han CHinese in appearance. The 2 or 3 who can't catch hell, like the Uyghurs...
I don't see China changing soon.
YOur perspective is one that is Western. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) that for China to be a great power it will somehow become multi-racial like American or Western Europe. I doubt this.
Even in Western Europe, outside of large cities, it is still very very white. France is no more diverse than the American state of Hawaii, and it is the most diverse place in Europe to my knowledge (as far as race). Being China did not have colonies in recent times, I seriously doubt you will see non-Asian immigration in large numbers to change the national demographic in our life time.
I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) that for China to be a great power it will somehow become multi-racial like American or Western Europe. I doubt this.
Hi,
I don't believe that for China to become a great super power it needs to become Multiracial.
I was thinking, that if China has to take it's place amongst the world's leading countries it has to find a place in it's national identity for persons born in China to mix race parents.
Quote:
"The Chinese worshiped the West, and for Chinese people, 'the West' is white people."
The United States has a Mixed race President now, someday in the Future their will be an increase of mixed race persons in the U.S. , so the image of the U.S. being only a "white culture" will one day have to be re-evaluated. And they would have to have deal with other emerging Mix raced Countries like Brasil.
Joined: 07 Feb 2007 {Posts: 1829 } Location: Lookin DC Metro, Feelin Geneva
Posted: Tue 17 Nov 2009 17:59 Post subject:
Spiral wrote:
Quote:
I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) that for China to be a great power it will somehow become multi-racial like American or Western Europe. I doubt this.
Hi,
I don't believe that for China to become a great super power it needs to become Multiracial.
I was thinking, that if China has to take it's place amongst the world's leading countries it has to find a place in it's national identity for persons born in China to mix race parents.
Quote:
"The Chinese worshiped the West, and for Chinese people, 'the West' is white people."
The United States has a Mixed race President now, someday in the Future their will be an increase of mixed race persons in the U.S. , so the image of the U.S. being only a "white culture" will one day have to be re-evaluated. And they would have to have deal with other emerging Mix raced Countries like Brasil.
Japan doesn't do this, so I don't see why China will or has to. Japan is a leading nation is it not?
This is true to some extent, but interracial marriage in the U.S. is quite low. The people who are claim to be interracial is also quite low, not even 5%, I believe.
American society at the upper levels is still dominated primarily by ANglo-Saxons and one could say their is a significant Jewish presence, but that's about it. You might see a couple of black faces, a Hispanic face, a few Asians (usually a white man's wife) but I don't see this changing.
Brazil is more "mixed" but at the upper levels of Brazilian society, at least from what I witnessed, most of the folks (the majority) look like they just came from Portugal yesterday.
Also if China does not let in more immigrants from outside of Asia they don't have a "mixed race" problem to deal with to expand their identity for to begin with.
What you are talking about may occur, but we are talking about decades if not centuries and I don't think Chinese will still "worship" things American at that point. LOL Also that quote is misleading. Chinese worship American "stuff", standard of living...it does not mean they want to look like Americans or behave like Americans. The Chinese divorce rate will not go up to 52%, Chinese women will not be significantly more promiscuous, the Chinese beauty standard has been roughly the same for centuries, those things are likely not going to change due to America.
Like I said, China is not a Western nation, its history, attitudes, and culture are far different and that is not going to change just because they wear Nike sneakers, have Starbucks, and get two cars per family.
Japan doesn't do this, so I don't see why China will or has to. Japan is a leading nation is it not?
Japan probably doesn't need to, it has cultural links with over a million people of Japanese descent living in Brasil, a country with a large Mixed race population,their experience would be valuable
Joined: 07 Feb 2007 {Posts: 1829 } Location: Lookin DC Metro, Feelin Geneva
Posted: Tue 17 Nov 2009 19:07 Post subject:
Spiral wrote:
Quote:
Japan doesn't do this, so I don't see why China will or has to. Japan is a leading nation is it not?
Japan probably doesn't need to, it has cultural links with over a million people of Japanese descent living in Brasil, a country with a large Mixed race population,their experience would be valuable
Japan is not fond of Brazilian Japanese, in fact they are paying them to leave. LOL
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