In case there’s anyone here who doesn’t already read ChinaSMACK, check out this post (although be warned, this is a good mood ruiner). The short version of the story is that a half-Chinese, half-African-American girl who was the product of an extramarital affair went on TV, and Chinese netizens went crazy. Some comments, of course, are supportive, but many of them are deeply, disturbingly racist.
We’ve discussed the question of racism before here, most memorably last spring, when we accidentally touched off a bit of controversy and earned the ire of famous Chinese blogger He Caitou. He told me repeatedly that there is “no racism in China.” If you’ve lived in China, it’s probably a phrase you’ve heard before.
There’s no point in even discussing the question further; to my mind, anyone with a functioning brain can see that there is racism in China (just as there is everywhere else). What concerns me is the steadfast denial that such thoughts and feelings exist, even when presented with pretty damning evidence.
For the record, I’m aware that the USA has serious racial issues and that we once had slaves. My intention here is not to foster a shouting match about who is more racist (any comments that even look like they’re headed down that road are going to get deleted). Nor do I wish to suggest that China needs to approach this issue the same way the US has. I do believe China needs to admit that there is an issue, though (something the US has emphatically done). In fact, I think China has a unique opportunity here to head off more serious problems by addressing this issue now; on the flipside, continued denial this issue exists are going to cause bigger and bigger problems assuming that the number of foreigners traveling and moving in to China continue to increase.
Is this denial going to lead to massive social instability? Probably not (for the moment let’s set aside tensions between the various “Chinese” ethnicities). Is it going to affect a lot of Chinese people? Again, probably not. So is it worth trying to deal with this issue? Obviously, I think so, but I suppose there is a case to be made on the other side, albeit a pretty harshly realist case.
I look forward to reading all of your thoughts in the comments, but before you comment, I also want to note that I do recall the issues brought up previously regarding differing perceptions of the word “racism” in China and the West. An insensitive joke isn’t associated with racism in China, hate crimes are. Lou Jing’s case is racism any way you skin it, though. There may be no physical violence, but she is still suffering psychological abuse as a direct result of her race. If that isn’t racism, then…well, nothing. It is racism, period.
I’m glad you’re not letting this issue go, good for you!
“What concerns me is the steadfast denial that such thoughts and feelings exist, even when presented with pretty damning evidence. ”
This isn’t a surprising reaction for China…I think that most people here really believe that truth is “created” rather than observed or found, which in some respect I admire, as Westerners often ignore this in analyzing their worldview. In other respects, as in the case with Hecaitou, it’s disgusting. As long as you deny it exists, it doesn’t…not the most honorable way of looking at the world.
“I’m aware that the USA has serious racial issues and that we once had slaves.”
It sucks that you have to say something like this EVERYTIME you discuss this issue. Some Chinese commentators seem to think that Americans are blissfully unaware of our racial problems and our history. Further, China does not get a pass when it comes to slavery, since slavery was not officially abolished until 1910. Just because the Chinese enslaved their own people rather than other races, doesn’t make their slavery any “better” either. But then again, according to many, as long as we keep saying “China didn’t have slaves”, then eventually fiction will become fact and we can all live in blissful ignorance…
I visited Chinasmack once but people there were cursing and saying 1.3 billion Chinese people love killing pets and it’s a result of our inferior culture, so I never went back and I got my own dog.
The vast majority of Chinese didn’t grow up in a multi-racial environment (not between Han and Hui who basically look the same, but between Asians, Blacks and Whites). The same problem exists in many relatively ethnically homogenous countries, such as Korea, Japan and nation-states in Europe.
Americans are warned by parents and teachers not to make racially insensitive remarks ever since they’re little. There’s no such ground there. Most people live their entire lives without meeting a black person, or, more unlikely, a white person, so there’s no “wisdom” passed down from their parents or teachers on how to talk to or about black or white people. In fact, for many Chinese, the only time they talk about black people is when they talk about America, and even when they talk about America they mainly talk about the whites.
So this girl’s appearance is a good thing. Everything has a beginning and she happens to be the first visible black person in China (I’m not talking about MJ and a bunch of NBA stars who are always perceived “American,” outsiders). For many Chinese viewers, the fresh feeling that “A black person is among us!” can serve as a catalyst for change in attitudes.
Just as Custer feels the need to say America has problems too, I’m afraid that people here would say I don’t do enough to condemn those netizens are racists. They are. And I condemn them. But condemnation doesn’t solve anything. In an environment where you never meet black people there’s little motive to change. But sometimes even necessary backgrounds don’t matter. After Hurricane Katrina, when Yahoo! was still allowing comments after every news article, I was also appalled by flooding posts such as “Die! Nxxx, Die!” or “Thank God for fewer nxxxx.” That incident fundamentally changed my perceptions about America, not for the worse, but they became more balanced.
And by the way, it’s much easier for a Chinese person than a foreigner to condemn a Chinese person for saying racist things. The forums I go to also have some racist netizens, but their remarks are always followed by criticism by other users, and there are no denials.
Oh and I’m not ass-kissing here. I don’t need to. But it’s sentences like “I think China has a unique opportunity here to head off more serious problems by addressing this issue now” that are the reasons I come here. Few, very few, expat blogs do this today other than saying “Bad! Bad! Shame!” and then moving on to the next topic to repeat those words.
Dear wooddoo,
chinaSMACK could use more balanced commenters like you.
Sincerely,
Slummin’ It
Custer, if I’ve totally misread woodoo’s general character, please go ahead and delete my previous comment! LoL!
One thing that I don’t quite understand is why there’s so much outrage over this event as opposed to the comparative silence over Ding Hui. But I guess a few things do come to mind:
1) Lou Jing is the product of an affair, whose father is not present
2) Someone on DragonTV is, I suppose, more prominent than a recent addition to the Chinese Olympic volleyball team.
3) The product of this “evil” and “disgusting” union is a god damn gorgeous woman which kind of discredits the racist movement prevalent among these netizens.
Besides raising public awareness, launching sensitivity trainings for teachers, etc., the government can actually censor racist comments. They already do it with political topics and pornography, so it won’t take too much time and energy. Censorship is controversial, but on racist remarks I support it. What’s interesting is some Chinese forums delete homophobic remarks after they cause huge fights (40m gays in China; they could take on the US army), but seldom those with racist or sexist undertones.
The first thing that should be made clear is that Chinese people will NEVER accept responsibility or criticism in any way shape or form. Socially crippled!
[...] For more on this: chinaSmack Shanghaiist ChinaGeeks [...]
She is BEAUTIFUL! hey and lets not forget and be “harmonious” at the end of the day she is CHINESE!
Would the reactions be any different if they all knew the guy was say… Kobe Bryant?
I taught some courses at an institute this year in a provincial level capital. In several different classes, during several different conversations, many of the female students expressed interest in and even infatuation for Kobe Bryant and other black American sports stars and celebrities. Some even said directly that those men were their “dream lovers”. Not one other student expressed disgust or criticised those students. Is this about the standing of the black guy involved? The cuckolding of the husband? The fact that likely many “patriotic” Shanghai-ese were offended? Or that many people say one thing in public but in reality or in the anonymity of the internet the express the oppossite sentiment?
I actually think some of this reaction is very regional. Maybe places in China with more ethnic minorities, more cultural and linguistic diversity, are more accepting of foreigners than others? I’ve lived in places where foreigners, especially black ones, get stares, comments, and mocking; I’ve also lived in other places where foreigners, even black ones, get little or none.
IMHO, mainlanders are racist (ignorance not malicious) against Black people. At the same time, they also give White people a degree of “deference” that is utterly undeserved. Both kinds of racism are very embarrassing to someone who grew up and played with Black and White people all his life.
Many Mainlanders do not consider themselves racist because they are aware how much we grossly coddle and tolerate insolent feckless White people like Stuart. Yet they also do not consider themselves racist to Black people because they don’t consider what they see as self-evident “truth” as offensive. IMHO they are too “direct” “blunt” or even “innocent” on very sensitive racial politics that they have no idea of the ugly race politics involved. One Mainlander simply said (without malice) that Black people were lazy. Now, that may have well been true relative to workaholic Chinese but it was immensely embarrassing for me to stand next to my Black friend when he said it.
I don’t want to go too far into racial political correctness in the West (which I regard as deeply hypocritcial), but I think most of you realize that Chinese people are brutally honest in race issues, and not in a way that flatters ourselves either.
I don’t believe we can meaningfully discuss this issue without understand the racial political correctness that colours the lens in which we perceive “Chinese racism”.
———————————————————————
IMHO, mainlanders are racist (ignorance not malicious) against Black people. At the same time, they also give White people a degree of “deference” that is utterly undeserved. Both kinds of racism are very embarrassing to someone who grew up and played with Black and White people all his life.
Many Mainlanders do not consider themselves racist because they are aware how much we grossly coddle and tolerate insolent feckless White people like Stuart. Yet they also do not consider themselves racist to Black people because they don’t consider what they see as self-evident “truth” as offensive. IMHO they are too “direct” “blunt” or even “innocent” on very sensitive racial politics that they have no idea of the ugly race politics involved. One Mainlander simply said (without malice) that Black people were lazy. Now, that may have well been true relative to workaholic Chinese but it was immensely embarrassing for me to stand next to my Black friend when he said it.
I don’t want to go too far into racial political correctness in the West (which I regard as deeply hypocritcial), but I think most of you realize that Chinese people are brutally honest in race issues, and not in a way that flatters ourselves either.
I don’t believe we can meaningfully discuss this issue without understand the racial political correctness that colours the lens in which we perceive “Chinese racism”.
———————————————————————
Ok, I deigned to visit Fauna’s arsehole AKA “Chinasmack” again. As usual her festering anus is filled with indignant pompous self righteous cr@ckers eager to assert their moral “superiority” the only way they know how: by pointing fingers at other people. Racists fingering other racists.
Lou Jing is very pretty which I think makes her a rather lovely asset to help adjust the views of my ML cousins. Attractive sexually available mixed race girls have been the downfall of many a determined bigot.
Her mother OTOH is a shameless whore.
Adultery=Bad.
Parading the product of your indiscretion, your own daughter on TV=DoublePlusBad.
Tiger Woods actually identified himself as Cablinasian, he was 1/4 Black, 1/4 White, 1/4 Thai and 1/4 Chinese. IOW half Asian and a mere quarter Black, but thanks to the racist perversity of liberal Americans, his Asian ancestry is deemed irrelevant and he is counted as Black.
The case of Luo Jing is interesting because you don’t often see such violent responses to the presene of black people on Chinese TV. What seems to bother the mob is not so much that she’s black but that her mother allegedly cheated on her Chinese husband with a black guy – and that their off-spring, instead of wearing her shame, has the nerve to show on T.V.
So it seems to be just as much a feminist issue as a racial one: Hit some Chinese men hidden superiority complex, I suppose.
Mix-raced peole are fairly new phnomenon in China, naturally receieved with fear and loathing by some small minded people. Luo’s appearance on a major show and her admirable response to the abusers will probably do some good.
Not sure what you mean by say “China” needs to admit that there is a racial issue. The official China? It doesn’t really play a role i this case. Chinese people as a whole? I’m sure you know many of them do admit there is racism in China.
And, as always, I would be ver
Sorry, was sent to soon. should have read: As always, I would be very careful in annlysing public opinion in China based on some venomous commnets
@ mtm: I disagree. So her mother shouldn’t be proud of her daughter, or support her in her endeavor to become an entertainer, just because the daughter is the product of an earlier indiscretion? That’s nonsense. I for one applaud her being direct about it. Obviously, the girl is going to be asked serious questions about her family — she’s a black Shanghainese for god’s sake — so there’s no point in her hiding anything anyway. Would you prefer she hide her daughter away somewhere just because of her skin color?
Additionally, and I haven’t read any of the background stuff in Chinese because I don’t have time, but I wonder how fair it is to judge her for having an extramarital affair without much more information about the situation. Perhaps she caught her husband cheating and it was a “revenge” sort of situation, for example. Not that that makes it OK, but “shameless whore” is pretty judgmental, don’t you think.
Re: the “racial political correctness” coloring perceptions of Chinese racism, that seems like a flimsy excuse to me. Ignorance is not an excuse, especially not these days with the TV and internet, etc., and furthermore, whether or not it’s intended to do harm is kind of irrelevant. We all know what the proverbial road to hell is paved with (in case some of us don’t, though, it’s good intentions). It IS doing harm to this girl, and whether or not it’s “true” to Chinese people really doesn’t matter (not to mention that it’s only “true” if you buy into stereotyping people by race…saying black people are lazy compared to Chinese isn’t ‘true’ in any sense of the word, it’s racist…I know plenty of Chinese people who are lazy bastards).
I want to salute wooddoo’s comment #7 as well, that’s a great point. The Party already has censorship and propaganda organs in place; I suspect that with a concerted effort China could make a HUGE dent in this problem in say, ten years.
@ Rachel: “Official” China doesn’t play a role in this case, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t address the issue of racism generally. It wouldn’t be that difficult since they already control education, propaganda, and censorship nationwide. I don’t think racism is a systemic problem in China the way it has been in the US, but that doesn’t mean the government shouldn’t get involved.
And yes, we can’t analyze public opinion based on the posts of angry netizens and not all Chinese even would agree with He Caitou when he said “there is no racism in China”. That’s true. But you’ve lived there longer than I have, you must know that (1) there is a substantial enough percentage of the population that’s racist for it to be worth discussing and (2) there is also a pretty sizable proportion of the population who denies that the problem exists at all.
These things aren’t generally applicable to everyone, but what ever is?
>It IS doing harm to this girl
Beg to differ, her mother is doing harm to this girl. Her mother is pushing out her daughter as an insult to Chinese manhood. This is stupid and will offend people, especially the sexually insecure kind aged 14-20. Of course she has a right to offend people, she also has a right to commit adultery, and she has the right to parade her daughter on stage and tell us that she cuckolded her husband. We have the right to call her a shameless whore.
>hide her daughter away somewhere just because of her skin color
Absolutely not! Lou Jing has no reason to be ashamed of her skin colour. She has at least one good reason to be ashamed of her mother. I’m not attacking the daughter, I’m attacking the mother, and criticizing adultery isn’t racist.
>pretty judgmental
Adultery is wrong, it’s a betrayal of trust. If the mother caught her husband cheating then she should consider divorce. If she had intended as you suggest got pregnant with another man’s baby as some kind of “revenge” then I hold her in even greater contempt than before. To reduce a beautiful human being to something as tawdry as a device of revenge? So sad.
Incidentally cockolded White husbands with wayward wives seeking Black cock is quite a popular genre in porn (or so I hear) but not necessarily to everyone’s taste. AIUI Hollywood avoids portrayals of interracial relationships (with the exception of WM/AF). Apparently BM/WF relationships tends to attract all kinds of nasty comments. The first time I heard the term “Jungle Love” was when Tiger Woods got married.
>flimsy excuse to me
It’s not an excuse, there are racist bigots in China. There are also ignorant people who can be “educated” by effective propaganda as suggested. Having said that, I do not want to be judged by American standards with their particularly warped sense of “race”.
I think Americans (especially Liberals) really need to re-think “race” politically. Because they are very confused. To condemn racism yet practice racism. To demand racial equality yet practice racial discrimination. Please don’t tell me that you have never noticed.
Here is a small example, pick out the racist comments:
1a)-Asians on average have higher IQ
1b)-Blacks on average have lower IQ
2a)-Asians on average have small penises
2b)-Blacks on average have large penises
and reflect on the contradictions.
I think it’s worth adding that bigotry is not necessarily based on race. It comes in many forms. Americans seem to prefer nationalist and ideological bigotry.
Mainland Chinese can be right or wrong but as long as they are mostly open minded, they’ll get it right eventually. Something I doubt America ever will.
I’m wary about censoring anything, including racist comments. The argument used for censorship of hate speech—in China, in Singapore, in Britain, in Germany—is that the country in question has a “special history” with the problem (e.g. Germany) or that it is only through the hard work of the national government that a country’s many ethnic groups aren’t at each other’s throats (e.g. China or Singapore) or just that some words and ideas are nasty, so why not block them (e.g. Britain, as I understand it).
But then, racism doesn’t seem any more on the run in those countries than any others. Germany has a thriving Neo-Nazi movement. Britain just sent the anti-immigrant National Party to the EU parliament. And China sees riots break out in Tibet one year and Xinjiang the next. Maybe Singapore is the exception.
In general, it seems better to let nasty attitudes out into the sunlight and take them on there. Hopefully, this episode can be a step in that direction.
@mtm
>If the mother caught her husband cheating then she should consider divorce
You’ve got to consider the circumstances of when this woman was conceived. In light of the fact that she was born sometime in the 80’s and before 6.4, divorce was still an impossible thought for most women.
Also, you have to remember that information available on this topic is suspect to begin with. Let’s start with the fact that the beginning post from KDS on Fauna’s post states that this black devil ran back to Africa. It’s only later that we find out from Lou Jing that her father was actually American. Another person alleged somewhere in that (now) gigantic post that her mother wasn’t in fact married at all. My point is that the information we’re looking at is extremely unreliable being as it’s coming entirely from hearsay. The mother could have been raped for all we know. But we don’t know, and you’re judging.
And isn’t it you who’s being a bit discriminatory toward Americans when you say that America has no hope of “getting it right”? Or saying that everyone in America thinks blacks are dumb and asians are smart? Let alone the thing about penises. Maybe it’s YOU who have no hope of getting it right.
We’re digressing from the point, however, because this is racism and it’s not the mother’s fault that other people are racist. Let’s look at a few examples:
“black devil, after fucking ran back to his home in Africa.”
“At the time finding foreigners was indeed a fad, but you still can’t pick blacks!”
“Fucked by a black. How come a zebra wasn’t born…?”
“Obama’s little sister.”
“I cannot help but say, those coming out of mixing yellow and black blood are all truly ugly, a dirty feeling [appearance]…”
“I am not racist, but if her mother really was married first and got involved with a black person, then that is indeed low.”
At this point, I don’t think it has anything to do with American lens coloring, or perversity as you call it, to be able to see racism in these statements.
The CCP shouldn’t just censor racist words/phrases, I don’t think that’s going to do much in the long run. Instead they should focus on getting more positive images of black people into China – whether that be sports stars, hot celebrities, or whatever. The key is to target the younger generation who are more open to new ideas (this pretty much applies more to the more developed coastal areas). Plus they are also the future and can educate their kids about why racism is messed up.
One last thing, Chinese people might be racist but I don’t think it’s been so heavily engrained that it’d be hard to “get rid of” or at least make it an unpopular opinion.
Does anyone remember when Amerie visited South Korea? (she’s half black half-Korean, with a Korean mom). Wasn’t she very well received??
“Is this denial going to lead to massive social instability? Probably not (for the moment let’s set aside tensions between the various “Chinese” ethnicities). Is it going to affect a lot of Chinese people? Again, probably not.” I beg to differ. There is no small number of African immigrants to China. There is a growing Nigerian community in Guangzhou and in other cities. Native Chinese people will be more likely to rub shoulders with Africans in the coming years. I don’t know what the policy is on citizenship, but there may be a contingent of black Chinese on the rise, too. Racism could also negatively effect China’s extensive business dealings with various African countries. Compassion for all human beings always pays off, but in China’s case, that pay-off may be more earthly.
To OTR,
I understand censorship has its limits and negative effects. I’m just not opposed to that when it comes to racism. But perhaps the best way to deal with people like BNP is creating songs like Lily Allen’s “Fxxx You.”
And thinking about this issue again, I want to say the most effective way is indeed for the government to train teachers at primary and middle schools. The students there already have special patriotism classes, and they should at least learn some cultural sensitivities. If you tell children they shouldn’t say racist things when they’re young, they will remember it. This is especially urgent with schools in big cities like Shanghai and Beijing.
During Mao’s time, Chinese had nothing against black, no contact with black people.
In my opinion, the bad image Chinese had on black people were introduced from oversea chinese, especially those in America.
Chinese extremely dislike the people who are not responsible to their family and children.
BTW, Custer, something is going on in XinJiang.
Chinese extremely dislike the people who are not responsible to their family and children.
You can also see that in America, Chinese usually have little to none against people who speak spanish.
Racism is not an issue. In fact, they are fighting the racism that whites are forcing on the Chinese through Hollywood by rejecting it’s racial stereotypes on “Asians”.
There is no issue here. Stop whining. Go to stormfront.org and see what they have to say about it. There is no Chinese stormfront.
Chinese people might be racist but I don’t think it’s been so heavily engrained that it’d be hard to “get rid of” or at least make it an unpopular opinion.
No. Political correctness is a goddamn lie. Just tell kids to be nice and respect others. Obviously that includes not using racial or ethnic slurs.
But to deny that huge differences exist between races? That would be absurd. If anything, Chinese children should be taught the evils of white racism today (Iraq War) and yesterday (Holocaust, slave trade, Native American genocide, Australian Aborigine Genocide, Agent Orange, mass murders in Philippines, Jim Crow, lynchings, Tuskegee Experiment of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male, economic terrorism in South America).
That will be enough to turn their stomachs.
I think it might be worth noting at this point (again) that the fact that Americans are more racist is not really relevant. Perhaps you consider it hypocritical. Deal with it. It probably is, but everyone, everywhere is a hypocrite from time to time.
The bottom line is that the comments about this girl ARE racist. They may not be as bad as what’s on stormfront. They may have been posted only because of anger at the mother, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t racist. You may not believe in political correctness, but that doesn’t change the fact that the comments are racist either. Neither does the fact that in the past, white people did lots of bad racist things and continue to do so today.
If you believe there IS an issue, it seems pretty shortsighted to ignore it simply because the problem is worse somewhere else. It may well be, but if you ignore it, it’s going to get worse in China too, and like it or not, China is becoming increasingly diverse. Unless you consider Chinese people to be somehow superior to other nationalities and unsusceptible to the temptation to discriminate based on race (something that happens in China every day, coincidentally), it seems like it would be better to discuss and address the issue while it’s relatively insignificant rather than waiting 50 years for it to explode.
@ anonymous: I’m curious, what “huge differences” exist between races? Huge differences exist between people. Biologically, there are no real distinctions between races and most anthropologists prefer to consider race a cultural phenomenon rather than a biological one. (And for the record, you’re about 30 years behind if you think that “political correctness” as it’s taught in the West advocates treating everyone as though we’re all exactly the same).
The overarching point here — and this applies to a lot of the comments, even those that don’t address race — is that people should be treated like people, and judged on the basis of who they are, not what their skin color is or who their mother is.
Do these kind of comments exist everywhere on the internet? Again, yes, of course. But this is a blog about China.
@ wahaha, yes, protests about people being stabbed with needles apparently. I may do something on it later, but I’m too busy to track down original stuff to post right now and other sites (China Digital Times, etc.) are on top of it anyway.
But I will probably write something about in in the next few days if I can find more useful information or something that isn’t being offered on some other site already.
The bottom line is that the comments about this girl ARE racist.
Who cares? It’s just stupid netizens. Not politicians and celebrities like the West.
4chan, stormfront, youtube all have much, much worse. You can’t look at a single vid about non-Christian, non-whites without 20-90% of the comments section being filled with racial slurs even if the content is completely harmless.
To throw a huge fit over Chinese “netizen” comments and likening their opinions to that of all Chinese people is what’s really racist. You never see whites taking stormfront quotes and making it seem as if it represents the average person in America. Funny thing is is that all these “OH NO CHINESE NATIONALISM!!!” journalists NEVER mention any of the Chinese people who argue against those making mean-spirited comments. Oh no, that would humanize the evil Chinese!
and like it or not, China is becoming increasingly diverse
No, China is getting less and less diverse every day. Thousand year old cultures are being destroyed to make room for Western concepts of white-dominated multiculturalism, white-dominated capitalism, white-dominated international media and white-dominated beauty standards.
Unless you consider Chinese people to be somehow superior to other nationalities and unsusceptible to the temptation to discriminate based on race
Chinese people are less likely to be aggressive, period. Chinese people generally have very low crime rates. Singapore, Hong Kong and China have some of the lowest crime rates regardless of economic stats. I’m so tired of getting into arguments with ethnocentric “progressive” whites about how everyone is equally racist (except the Chinese!) so I’ll just stop there.
Biologically, there are no real distinctions between races and most anthropologists prefer to consider race a cultural phenomenon rather than a biological one
Yes, there are many genetic markers which separate humanity into several (7-8) major clusters. The biological race may confuse the layman, but it exists despite how poorly Westerners have represented it to the world in the past.
Do these kind of comments exist everywhere on the internet? Again, yes, of course. But this is a blog about China.
Fair enough. But there are also comments in that very article arguing against mean-spirited behavior that the “blogosphere” has chosen to ignore- for obvious reasons. There are also nice people all over China, which much of the “blogosphere” and “Western” media also likes to ignore.
Can’t humanize those evil, racist, imperialist Chinese!
Fun facts:
In the Eastern Han, one of the emperors had a blonde wife (gift from Northern tribes). His son became emperor. Big whoop, but they still beat the election of Barack Obama by 1,800 years.
During the Tang, the Chinese generally refused to buy African or Malay slaves despite a long history of trade contacts with the Abbasid. Slavery in China has always been virtually non-existent (peaking at 1-1.3% of the population in Han China) as opposed to Korea (30%) Yizu (30%) Athens (50%) Sparta (80-90%) Carolingian Europe (25-30%) Ancient Rome (25%).
Southeast Asians/South Asians and Northeast/North Asians are not the same race. The difference between a Han Chinese man in Shanxi and a Han Chinese man at the tip of Guangdong is, in terms of genetics, the difference between a “white” and a “black” (more specifically, West African man). There is a greater range of genetic diversity in the “Han” ethnic group than the entire “white” and “black” groups of America, combined.
Take this into account next time you have a discussion about so-called “Han racism” or a lack of Western-defined “progressiveness” in Chinese culture.
@ anonymous, for what seems like the billionth time, it doesn’t matter (for the purposes of this post) what happens in America, nor does it matter what happened in China 2,000 years ago. As fun as it is for you to quote, the Eastern Han has absolutely nothing to do with any Chinese person alive today, and one dictator having a thing for a blond girl isn’t exactly the same as democratically electing a president anyway.
As for the biological basis of race, source for your claim or GTFO.
And as for the allegations that I’m trying to dehumanize the Chinese through this post, just shut up. There are hundreds of posts on this site. All of them are about China, some are critical and some are critical of the West. If you want someone that caters to your ridiculous victim complex about how white people ruined everything and only Chinese nationalism and culture (well, the good parts of it) can save us, please go elsewhere.
This isn’t a discussion of “Han racism” or “lack of progressiveness” in Chinese culture, though you doubtless see it that way because you’re so goddamned paranoid. This is about specific comments in a specific incident, and whether or not it even has cultural implications. I certainly never said anything about Han people as a group being racist, or China not being progressive enough.
I think you think this kind of straw-man bullshit makes your comments more enticing, but really it just makes you look like someone who doesn’t read all that well. That or a troll.
As for the biological basis of race, source for your claim or GTFO.
Right because there are no genetic differences between races, even though all the population geneticists seem to disagree with that notion.
Don’t bark that 99.9% similar thing to me either.. we’re 50% similar to bananas.
I certainly never said anything about Han people as a group being racist
And who says I was talking about you, specifically, and not the “Sino” “blogosphere” in general?
SOURCE OR GTFO.
Here’s one:
http://www.andaman.org/Background/WorldGenetics.jpg
Wow. .1 %. Damn is that amazing.
Actually, anonymous, small correction, but there is a Chinese stormfront. At least one, that I know of.
http://www.asiafinest.com
Everything else I’d say has already been said by Custer, but I think it’s clear that someone here is having a bad day.
asiafinest is nothing like stormfront, don’t be ridiculous. the chinese chat there could be compared to a mainstream conservative website in America. that’s about as far as it goes.
Wow. .1 %. Damn is that amazing.
That’s still a lot of genes. 1.5 million base pairs iirc. We’re also 95% similar to chimps, but you don’t see anyone talking about chimp-homo sapiens alliances
Ah yes, a graphic with no context or citation whatsoever, hosted on a site by a group no one has ever heard of! Totally legitimate!
Of course there is going to be some genetic difference, as our skins and other aspects of appearance differ and those things are governed by genes. But can race be traced any deeper than that in genetics? Not so much, apparently. It cannot. In case you don’t feel like clicking, from the MIT article:
My 2 cents on *race is only a skin deep* claim:
“White Europeans evolved only 5,500 years ago” in TimesOnline
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article6814896.ece
“White Europeans could have evolved as recently as 5,500 years ago, according to research which suggests that the early humans who populated Britain and Scandinavia had dark skins for millenniums.”
and
“…research says: Cold climates and high latitudes would speed up the need for skin lightening. Agricultural food was an insufficient source of vitamin D, and solar radiation was too low to produce enough vitamin D in dark skin.”
The article primarily refers to research work at the University of Oslo.
Of course there is going to be some genetic difference, as our skins and other aspects of appearance differ and those things are governed by genes. But can race be traced any deeper than that in genetics? Not so much, apparently. It cannot.
Depends on what a “race” is. If you mean “population in a geographical area”, there are enough differences between groups to be able to identify a person’s rough geographical ancestory from genes alone. (Don’t blame me for citing Wikipedia. Genetic clustering is too well established.)
Of course it doesn’t work as well with people of mixed ancestry, and differences exist along complex gradients rather than simple, fixed categories like Mongoloid/Negroid/Caucasoid.
(From Nature Genetics) Genetic variation, classification and ‘race’ – Jorde and Wooding:
Same article, but with graphs of genetic distance between some ethnic groups. (These kinds of graphs are common in biology journals for other species.)
It’s encouraging but misleading to say that human DNA is 99.9% the same as other humans. We know that even a single base pair mutation can result in very different genotypes, so a small % variation can make a big difference. Human DNA is ~95% same as chimpanzees, ~85% same as mice, and 25% same as a banana.
From a more palatable read:
I think it would be a little too simplistic to discount all these genetic differences as only appearance-related. Someday we’ll probably know more, and it may not be to everyone’s liking. It’s probably better to say that even if small average differences exist, they’re not useful when dealing with people on an individual basis.
I’ll ignore all this stuff about who is more racist, whether Westerners are allowed to talk about racism given their history (can Western-born Africans or Asians talk about racism? how about Asia- or Africa-born whites?), whether the romantic interests of ancient Chinese emperors prove the progressivism of modern Shanghai-ers, etc.
Back to Woodoo’s point, I still can’t see how censorship would do more than cover up a problem. And censorship ties the law the knots. See how the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has had to confront which laws against hate speech violate charter rights and which don’t: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/hate-speech-law-violates-charter-rights-tribunal-rules/article1273956/.
I suppose the argument is that China has a weapon already in the form of vague censorship laws—which haven’t led to the kind of contradictions found in Canada—so why doesn’t it use the weapon against racism, as it does against less worth things? This seems like the sort of slippery slope that well-meaning people have slid down time and time again. By creating an exception for something they despise, they strengthen the rule. Once deployed against racism, censorship acquires a certain sheen.
Anyway… I agree that the education system is the best place to tackle a problem like this. Students should be introduced to both heroes of other races and ordinary, day-to-day settings involving other races. Maybe some songs from other countries. That stuff goes further than one would usually imagine.
Whatever else is said about general Chinese society, I didn’t find them to be unsophisticated about race matters. I am black. I lived in China several years ago, and I can remember one encounter in particular, when I and two kiwis ( it wasn’t until I got to China that I realized “kiwi” referred to something other than the overpriced fruit) were sitting on the curb outside Pegasus in Sh, waiting for a concert to start. We chatted up two Chinese girls, I forget if they were Shanghainese or not, but anyway one of them mentioned that I must be a good dancer and b-ball player. One of my friends asked her, in a subdued manner, why she thought that, and she replied it was because I was tall and athletic-looking. I’d been in China for quite awhile at that point, so I paid it no heed, but later one of the guys who was there mentioned it to me, and how she had tried to cover up her trotting out of an old stereotype by pointing to my being “tall and athletic” even though I wasn’t particularly tall or athletic looking. In fact, he was quite a bit taller and in better shape that I was, but she made no mention of b-ball or dancing with him. I told him that “Chinese weren’t familiar with such stereotypes”, and he corrected me. I still wasn’t sure, but he’d been in China for years at that point and spoke much, much better Chinese than I did.
Some months later, a Chinese girl I was dating mentioned race to me, and how a mutual friend of ours liked me but was mortally terrified of all of contact other black people; terrified to the point of running from two black men who spoke to her on the Bund one evening! She mentioned this incident in the same context as my Kiwi buddy did, not as a way of saying “all Chinese are racist”, but more that Chinese definitely distinguish between different races and not just on simple affinity for skin tone alone.
For me it was interesting, because as an African-American from a very homogenous (black) section of a large American city, I have had to personally learn about race relations later in life and in stages. I never knew any Chinese growing up, in fact the only Asians I met at all were some very, ummm…. “urban” and American S.E. Asians and a few Korean adoptees. Yet by the time I got to China, I already had a lot of ideas and stereotypes in my head, and this was suprising to me, because I hadn’t even had to confront or consider these stereotypes yet. Most of them, I guess I gathered was through the media and movies, watching things like Sixteen Candles, etc while growing up. So I imagine that even – or especially – Chinese in 3 and 4th tier cities will be the same.
That said, the images of blacks in the media most places tend to be pretty grim or hip-hoppity slam-dunking entertaining, so it’s no surprise (but a bit of a disappointment still) that lots of Chinese are familiar with stereotypes about blacks, as well as those of jews, western women, gays, etc.
One last note – I briefly considered marrying my former Shanghainese girlfriend and raising kids in China, but the thought of my kid growing up black in China was somewhat unappetizing, I am sorry to say. So I was very surprised to see this woman appear, and though she got a lot of hate directed her way, I am certain that she will get some support too. For me, of the places I have been in the world, China, though far from perfect, has been the most accepting. I’d choose China over Korea, Japan, and most (if not all) of Latin America in a heartbeat.
Well, I suppose I’ve spoken too much as usual. Hope I added some perspective to this discussion.
@ 黑人, that’s interesting, although as always I would hypothesize that Shanghai isn’t really a great representation of the general experience in other Chinese cities because Shanghai is so comparatively international.
Before I make any comments here, I’m afraid I have to say first that I am a Chinese and I am a guy at the age about 30. The reason for this is that I’ve noticed the people who comment here are mainly from out of China and my point of view may quite differ from you guys. Of course there are also a few quite patriotic my fellow people here who always defend my beloved country—which I really appreciate—to whom I’d really like to say: “Don’t always try to defend our country and our people. Tell the truth, and tell it fair and objectively.”
PartⅠ: About racism. A Chinese girl with black skin color inherited from her black father was cursed by so many Chinese netizens with very bad words—this is simply the fact. And I have read the Chinese webpage and clearly saw the fact. So obviously and self-evidently, it is racism. But still, my conclusion is NO—because of the following factors:
1>The first factor: the mother had an affair—this has been admitted by the mother, so don’t bother to assume things like she may be raped or some other ridiculous reasons. Being unfaithful to one’s husband is a serious issue in China. It will cause much more condemn in China than in the west. I’ll talk about this in the next part (partⅡ). So whether the father is black or white, whether he is an American or a Chinese, he will be cursed anyway and so will the mother.
2>The second factor: nationalism. I have to admit that if the father is a Chinese the cursing may be less severe. So there is a certain degree of nationalism in China these days. Some Chinese people may refer to this as patriotism, which I totally disagree. The cursing will be particularly strong if the father is from those countries that invaded China during the last few centuries. This is understandable. People from big and powerful countries such as the US don’t understand this very much. The World Trade Tower was destroyed by terrorists and all Americans got so shocked and so angry. What if your country was invaded and hundreds of thousands of people were killed and thousands of women were raped? I’m not going to defend this potential trend of nationalism. On the contrary, my point is: It is NOT sensible at all. The old days have passed already. The young generation of those countries has done nothing wrong to China. So Chinese people still need to learn how to treat history rationally.
3>The third factor: the cursing phenomenon in Chinese cyber community. Cursing has been very common on Chinese webpages, blogs, forums, chatting rooms etc. This has been overwhelmingly strong among Chinese Internet community and I hate it! I don’t think it’s bad. I think it’s DISGUSTING! The people having been cursed include anybody you can think of. Every single Chinese celebrity has been cursed by netizens with very strong and offensive words.
A few examples: Yi Jianlian, one of the best Chinese basketball players who has played in NBA for Milwaukee Bucks and New Jersey Nets, was cursed by hundreds of bad comments on Sina (the biggest website in China). You can check our all the news about him on Sina and take a look at the comments that followed. Many of them cursed him simply because he is a Cantonese (people from GuangDong province). Zhang Yimou, one of the most world-renowned Chinese movie director, has been cursed simply because his face looks like those Terracotta Warriors (“BingMaYong” in Chinese) in the city of Xi’an (and he is from Xi’an as well). Two post-90’s Chinese girls who were forced to sleep with businessmen to make money publicized their story on their blog (blog name: “90 Hou Jian Nv Sheng” in Chinese) were cursed by numerous comments and addressed by words such as “bitch”, “slut”, “whore”, and “lusty women”. Li Yinhe, the sexpert you have mentioned in another post of your blog, simply dares not to have comments at all – if she lets it go, cursing flood will drown her. Guo Degang, the most popular crosstalker (crosstalk: a Chinese comic dialogue, “XiangSheng” in Chinese) in China currently, used to be sarcastic about cursing: “my blog is so great that it finally offers some work to do for those unemployed hooligans”. And now he is just like Li YinHe—he doesn’t have comments anymore.
And when people get angry and curse, they curse about everything they can think of about you, whether it’s your skin color, your country, your lifestyle or your occupation. In this case, if the father was a white American, cursing might go like “bad Americans”, “damn Americans” etc.; if the father was from Hong Kong, they might curse like “loose Hong Kong people” or something else. So, even if you have copied and translated hundreds of bad comments about the black father, even if those comments obviously cursed a lot about the word “black”, it doesn’t mean those netizens were cursing just because the father was black or the girl was black. Actually the anger may be caused by only one thing, but cursing went to everything about the people involved. In my opinion, the particular thing that caused the anger is: the AFFAIR of the mother, and plus a bit of nationalism, the situation was worsened.
I’m not going to talk about the reason of this bad cursing phenomenon—it will take another two pages here. If Mr. Custer is interested in it, tell me. Fortunately, netizens are only the minority (20%? I’m not sure) of Chinese people; and more luckily, those who curse also account for a small proportion of Chinese netizens. All my friends go online and most of them rarely take part in this kind of comments—this is China, a place where the majority may keep quite silent whereas some few clowns jump around and cry loud.
4>The fourth factor: the IGNORANCE of Chinese people about racial differences and racism. About this point quite a few friends have mentioned it. But they’re too nice to use the word “ignorance”. I don’t need to be so polite to my fellow people. Ignorance is ignorance. Most netizens who cursed in this case may have never talked to or interacted in any way in person with a black person. This is also true for most Chinese people. In big cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, citizens can often see westerners on the street, but for those living in rural areas or small cities, it may still be quite an experience to witness a foreigner walking beside them. Most people have seen westerners on TV but not in real life. In these places it’s not surprising if a Chinese approaches you and try to see your face or your skin clearly, which seem to be so different and therefore so interesting to them. They may come up with questions like, “How come you’re so black?” or “It’s so funny that you’re so black!” Is that racism? I don’t think so. People of different races may have a lot of differences in terms of physical appearance, food, clothing, language, religion, custom, and value system. The vast majority of the Chinese know very little about this, they’re still in the very early stage of being curious about physical differences. For people like this, it may have gone too far to present the issue of racism.
5>The fifth factor: the Chinese traditional aesthetic criteria. If you ask a Chinese guy who wants to find a foreign girlfriend a question like this: “which one would you prefer, a white girl or a black girl?” Quite probably he may answer: “Of course white girl”. If you ask for the reason, he may say something like “I don’t like black girl!”—especially when they speak broken English or when your Chinese is not good enough to understand them fully. These words sound like absolute racism, don’t they? But still, it has nothing to do with racism. For thousands of years, Chinese men prefer girls of silky white skin color—this has been in existence throughout Chinese history. It’s a standard applied to Chinese girls, not for any other races out of China. I don’t think there were many western women coming to China and marrying Chinese men. If your Chinese is good enough to read some Chinese Classical poetry or essays, you will find a lot of words about this to describe a beauty’s skin color such as “JiFuRuXue” (skin is like snow), “FuRuNingZhi” (skin is like frozen fat). A typical traditional Chinese beauty must have big eyes, long hair, very slim figure and of course, “snow white” skin (“XueBaiDePiFu” in Chinese)! As a guy from the west, when you talk about skin color of western girls with your Chinese male friends, they may quite directly express their likes or dislikes about skin color, but usually it’s just about what’s good-looking and what’s not. There’s nothing relating to racism. In the west, a tanned skin is great, with which people think you’re healthy and beautiful. In China most guys still cling to the traditional idea, although some have just started to accept this new notion. If you ask my own view about this, I would say: “snow white” skin is great, but a tanned and healthy color is also not bad.
I wrote so much about this issue not to argue that China is so great and the people are also so great that they don’t have any problems. No. Of course not. China is having a lot of social problems now, and probably it will have even more in the future. It’s great that there’re many foreign friends paying attention to China, studying China, participating the development of China and even making their own contribution to the progress of China. For these friends, it would be a great pity if they misunderstood this country, its people and its culture.
PartⅡ: About adultery, affairs and morals.
Extramarital affairs are a big issue in China.
Before 1980, this issue was extremely serious. At that time if anybody was found having an affair, the consequence was disastrous. He or she would be cursed like criminals, the guilty feeling could be too strong to bear. And the notoriety may go with them for a lifetime since Chinese people tended to live within a small community for their whole life. For any Chinese adult, this is common sense. I’m not sure how much Mr. Custer know about this, if you want to know more, tell me.
Nowadays, people are much more open and accepting about affairs, but it’s still a big serious issue. Actually, I think I have detected an undercurrent of affairs in China over the last decade, which means, as far as I know, quite a lot of people are seeking extramarital romance or excitement. Of course for most people involved all this is carried out only secretly. So you’re not supposed to hear a man talking like: “Hey, buddy, I’m having an affair and it’s great!” A Chinese man could boast to a foreign friend that he has many mistresses—that’s because they think foreigners are more open and carefree about affairs, but they would never tell within their own social circle, that is, their family, their relatives, their friends from childhood, their friends from middle school and college, and their colleagues. A decent image is still vital for most Chinese people, and affairs are one of the most damaging thing to one’s fame, or “face” in a Chinese word. Surely there are people who are very bold and open about this, but I don’t think most people are—here, “most people” means most people who are having an affair. So if there is a case made public, whether on the internet or in real life, people condemn. If you search the Chinese word “HunWaiLian” and read some cases on the Internet, you will find thousands of cases and millions of curses. If you had been aware of this I don’t think you would associated the case we’re discussing to racism.
You also came up with the point that the mother may just take her revenge on her husband for his unfaithfulness—for this I would say, first, it’s just an assumption, it’s not the fact yet; second, even if it is true, the mother has no chance to escape from cursing. In terms of public opinion, affairs are very difficult to be forgiven in China. The former New York state governor Eliot Spinszer (I’m not sure of the spelling ) stood down for sex scandal, then his successor took office. When the successor (I forgot his name) talked about the scandal, he confessed that he and his wife both had had affairs before. His confession may be controversial in the US, in China it would definitely be fatal to an official’s political career if he gives the same kind of confession. Turning to this “racism” case, within those people who gave curses, maybe some of them are having an affair too, but they still cursed. In a word, you can’t take those curses too seriously. In China, moral issues are very complicated—publicly it’s one thing, privately it may be another. I don’t mean it’s good, but it’s simply the fact.
Generally speaking, moral rules are much more strict in China than in the west. Even if it has become greatly more open than before, Chinese people can still feel the limitation or even, say, repression. I read a report saying that in UK boys and girls tend to lose their virginity at the age of about 16, which will absolutely shock Chinese parents. In China, people born before 1970 usually lost their virginity by marriage. Later generations are luckier, but usually over the age of 20. And people tend to think only sex in a serious relationship is acceptable and then the two of you are supposed to get married. People think it’s dirty to have sex just because the two of you want it even if both of you are single. Fortunately the post-1980 and post-1990 generation are starting to have a more open attitude about this. So we can be sure that morals are becoming more and more flexible in China, and this is a rapidly growing trend.
Talking about social issues in China can be quite a risk due to three reasons: firstly, we have a large population. Even a very small proportion of people are having a problem, the real number of people can be huge. Secondly, the development of China is of great imbalanc, people in different regions may be in very different situations or have very different opinion about the same issue. Thirdly, this is a rapidly developing country. What was impossible five years ago could be very common in five years’ time; what the old generation think is right may be totally wrong for the younger generation.
I can’t write anymore. It’s too long. Hopefully my poor English writing can make sense to the blogger and the readers and improve understanding between Chinese people and our foreign friends.
@ Deep Blue,
Great points, all of them. Especially about cursing and traditional aesthetic criteria. In regards to skin color preferences, I’ve often thought that the U.S. and China, while valuing different things—a tan in the former, white skin in the latter—are basically starting from the same place. Either way, it’s an expression of respect for a life of leisure, as I understand it.
In America, a tan shows you have time to, well, sit around and get a tan—at the beach, in your backyard, in a tanning bed. In China, white skin shows you’re not out in the fields. In contrast, a working person’s tan in the U.S. is derided as a “farmer’s tan” or “red neck.”
@C. Custer,
Yes, I realize Shanghai is comparatively more sophisticated, but I base a lot of my observations on interactions in the hinterlands as well. I have spent a good deal of time in Shandong (not Qingdao), Fujian, Jiangsu. This might sound crazy, but some of the few places where I felt most “invisible” were mid-sized cities in Zhejiang or Jiangsu. Shanghai, to me, was somewhat overrated in terms of sophistication, but I haven’t been there in nearly 5 years, so that may have changed.
I think that with the very large population of Africans in China, there will be lots and lots of obviously mixed race children, or I should say lots more. For example, many of my African classmates and friends from university have settled in for the long haul, so they will be the pioneers.
Asians, Blacks and Whites)
Asian is not a race. Southeast Asians and East Asians are not the same race.
The same problem exists in many relatively ethnically homogenous countries, such as Korea, Japan and nation-states in Europe.
There is more genetic diversity in Korea and Japan than all of Europe combined, they just don’t seem to know that.
Americans are warned by parents and teachers not to make racially insensitive remarks ever since they’re little.
Then why do their kids often engage in racist activities? This isn’t limited to white Americans either. Blacks and “Latinos” have huge brawls in American public schools from time to time. No one from the NYT is wringing his hands over it.
For many Chinese viewers, the fresh feeling that “A black person is among us!” can serve as a catalyst for change in attitudes.
I know South Chinese that are “blacker” than her.
And by the way, it’s much easier for a Chinese person than a foreigner to condemn a Chinese person for saying racist things.
I used to do that all the time. Lecture Chinese people about saying “racist things”, but since I learned the truth about international race relations I decided I’m wasting my time. There will always be Chinese racism as long as other races attack Chinese people. I know a Chinese woman who was robbed in her convenience store no less than four times by black people, and no amount of multiculturalist nonsense I can say to her is going to change that.
Besides raising public awareness, launching sensitivity trainings for teachers, etc., the government can actually censor racist comments.
What a great use of resources in a country where fresh water is scarce and there are cancer villages around! The least violently and truly racist country of all should now spend billions on “sensitivity training”, which means additional cramming for overstressed students, because a couple of laowai think China’s racism is so, so bad. Sorry for the harsh tone.
And government censoring racist comments? They already censor race hate crimes that kill many Chinese people abroad. Foreigners always whine about censorship and free speech but they want to silence the Chinese people when it comes to things that don’t benefit foreigners. Talk about crazy.
What’s interesting is some Chinese forums delete homophobic remarks after they cause huge fights
That’s because gay Chinese are still part of “us”. Many of them are very loyal.
@Others
union is a god damn gorgeous woman
She is pretty cute but I wouldn’t say god damn gorgeous. But considering how plain her mother is, that’s good.
at the end of the day she is CHINESE!
Nope. She’s half Chinese and half African American.
@mtm
At the same time, they also give White people a degree of “deference”
I agree. This is the number one problem of race that China faces, not discrimination against “poor laowai” no matter what their skintone is. China needs insensitivity training more than anything.
IMHO they are too “direct” “blunt” or even “innocent” on very sensitive racial politics that they have no idea of the ugly race politics involved.
They are direct and blunt about a lot of things, like going up to overweight women and saying they are fat, or telling them their hair is too frizzy. Depends on the province ;p
but I think most of you realize that Chinese people are brutally honest in race issues, and not in a way that flatters ourselves either.
Some are brutally honest about a lot of things, and I could care less about “flattering ourselves” personally. Blacks don’t flatter themselves in front of Chinese when they chant “ching chong” and call dying Indonesians “chinks” on New York Radio, but no one seems to hold that against “them”.
Tiger Woods actually identified himself as Cablinasian, he was 1/4 Black, 1/4 White, 1/4 Thai and 1/4 Chinese. IOW half Asian and a mere quarter Black
He’s 1/4th black, 1/4th white, 1/4th East Asian and 1/4th Southeast Asian, so he has equal proportions of all of the major race groups as defined by the most esteemed population geneticists.
The genetic distance between Southeast Asians and North Chinese is greater than the difference between Northern Europeans and Mbuti/San Bushmen.
I want to salute wooddoo’s comment #7 as well, that’s a great point. The Party already has censorship and propaganda organs in place; I suspect that with a concerted effort China could make a HUGE dent in this problem in say, ten years.
It makes me sick how foreigners constantly support the CCP going against their mantra of “FREEDOMOCRACY!!!” when it benefits themselves narrowly perhaps at the expense of the Chinese people.
race is defined primarily by skin color.
Do you really believe this crap? Bone structure, facial structure, bite, hair patterns, all differ significantly between races. I won’t even get into health and psychology because it will probably offend you.
The young generation of those countries has done nothing wrong to China.
You inherit sins and debts along with land and assets. You can’t have just one or the other.
Maybe “sins and debts” is a bit too extreme. Responsibility is probably better.
Yeah, and it makes me sick that you assume all “foreigners” (because we’re all the same!) have the same goals and values regardless of what we say or do. You know what? Get the fuck over it.
I meant by external appearance. But go ahead and get into the health and psychology bit if you can find any sources to support you that are less sketchy than your last “source”.
Go to wikipedia.com
Then search for the following-
“Tay Sach’s”, “sickle cell anemia”, “color blindness”. I have a wealth of information regarding prevalence rates of disease based on race group but these three have identifiable genetic markers associated with them.
“foreigners” (because we’re all the same!)
As a group you’re more monolithic than “the Chinese”.
Thanks to ChinaGeeks for posting this, I hadn’t known about it before. Something i find interesting about this is that on Chinese language websites it is getting discussed much more than in the English language blogs administered by overseas Chinese or returnees. Not that it is of utmost importance, but I have noticed a tendency for many of the popular English language sites to point out any and every slight against Chinese, singling out individual bloggers, photo captioning and to strongly question the “western media” portrayl of China and Chinese involvement in the world. Here we have the intersection of reality tv, the internet in China, Chinese people, and a hot button blog topic, but not much mention.
I think some people would rather have racism be a one way ticket, in this instance into and towards the Chinese, and won’t discuss Chinese racism itself, except to justify or attempt to write it off. I have heard a few mainland Chinese say that overseas and returnees were like this more than mainlanders, but I hadn’t really thought about it till now.
Hunh? Do you know what the words you are using mean?
Monolithic literally means “single stone” and has come to mean “a large uniform block” and since you are using the adjective, you are saying that foreigners, as a whole, or more like a large, uniform block than the Chinese? Really? From what perspective? How? Explain.
@ anonymous: the fact that those diseases affect mostly (but not entirely) one race is because of shared genes from an original common place of origin (with sickle cell, for example, sub-saharan Africa). Since the people in that area are almost entirely black and only relatively recently have begun to spread more widely (in terms of the scope of human history), the disease still affects mostly blacks, but the fact that it DOESN’T affect ONLY black people is just further evidence that there isn’t much to “race” that’s genetic beyond aesthetics.
monolithic: Constituting or acting as a single, often rigid, uniform whole
English 101.
@ anonymous: the fact that those diseases affect mostly (but not entirely) one race is because of shared genes from an original common place of origin (with sickle cell, for example, sub-saharan Africa). Since the people in that area are almost entirely black and only relatively recently have begun to spread more widely (in terms of the scope of human history), the disease still affects mostly blacks, but the fact that it DOESN’T affect ONLY black people is just further evidence that there isn’t much to “race” that’s genetic beyond aesthetics
The reason why it affects only one race is because it confers a survival advantage in their environment. The sickle-cell helps vs. malaria, which is a big killer.
Now some Africans are developing antibodies that stop HIV from becoming AIDS.
This is the basics of genetics…
Right, but my point is, it DOESN’T only affect one race. It affects MOSTLY one race, because their origin is a single geographical location, but it’s not exclusively black people who can carry the sickle cell trait, for example.
(54) 黑人,
I don’t have a blog but I’ll try to answer your question, being an overseas Chinese who’s lived in Europe and North America most of my life.
First, I think self criticism is difficult for humans in general. How many of us can truthfully identify all our faults, or are happy to? Second, self-criticism is even more difficult in front of other people – especially when you grow up being a visible minority and faced a lot of racism growing up (which I take, a lot of overseas Chinese bloggers have). Why? Because you don’t want to fuel all the bullshit that other people are already throwing at you. Chinese bloggers don’t need to highlight the China’s problems, they’re being covered in media and other blogs around the world, 24/7.
Do I recognize that China has problems? You bet I do. But I am not jumping up and down to announce them to the world. I just don’t see the need to. Aside from discussions and blogs like these where people have obviously taken the time to actually educate themselves about history/politics, on a day to day basis I’m still dealing with a lot of ignorant comments.
It’s late. I’m tired. I hope this makes sense.
Right, but my point is, it DOESN’T only affect one race. It affects MOSTLY one race, because their origin is a single geographical location, but it’s not exclusively black people who can carry the sickle cell trait, for example.
But that’s what a race is, a group of organisms with many shared traits due to having limited contact with other parts (or breeds) of their species.
Once you get different “enough” they split even further, which is why so many organisms evolved from just a few single-celled creatures a few billions years ago.
Why? Because you don’t want to fuel all the bullshit that other people are already throwing at you. Chinese bloggers don’t need to highlight the China’s problems, they’re being covered in media and other blogs around the world, 24/7.
Yep. Why criticize yourself when lying assholes the world over are willing to exaggerate and make up rumors, not for your benefit, but to make themselves look better?
Europe and America are far, far more racist than China is or ever was or ever will be. Chinese racism is something for Chinese to discuss among ourselves, it’s really none of anyone else’s business. Foreigners suggesting that the CCP should clamp down further with censorship are pigs.
Here’s an article you will never see posted on the anti-Sinoblogosphere:
http://www.24dash.com/news/Housing/2009-05-12-Study-reveals-substantial-racism-against-UKs-Chinese-comunity
Yeah, and you’d never see an article like that on the Chinese blogosphere either because the author would be accused of being 汉奸. That 家丑不可外洋 attitude is useless, especially when the issue we’re talking about is something that pretty much ONLY affects non-Chinese.
If China wants people outside China to stop discussing “internal” issues, pretty much the only way to accomplish that is to go back to being an irrelevant shithole. Welcome to being a world power.
the only way to accomplish that is to go back to being an irrelevant shithole.
Hey, that’s not fair. Lots of people still talk about Southern Europe.
Welcome to being a world power.
Okay, then say hello to nationalist backlash from said world power and the diaspora.
Okay, then say hello to nationalist backlash from said world power and the diaspora.
Oh, just quit whining and deal with it.
REALLY now? You made a whole post to whine about a few non-factors making “racist” remarks about some girl, and acted as if though it’s indicative of some kind of real problem in China. You’re the one whining about nothing-
Meanwhile Western bloggers feed Chinese nationalism every second with their pathetic, hypocritical complaints.
Ah yes, racism — totally not a problem in China. Unless, you know, you ask someone who is a member of another race. Anyway, I’m done arguing about this with you, it is pointless and is cutting into time I should be spending researching new posts.
@anonymous
I’m still confused about how saying “English 101″ answers a challenge to your clearly ridiculous assertion that all foreigners are more monolithic than the Chinese. And please don’t start droning to me about 五十六个民族。
And the “it’s none of your business” bit? Maybe you want to start scrolling up to where you started yelling about America’s racist history, as if all of us needed a lesson. It’s a long page. Better get started.
Ah yes, racism — totally not a problem in China. Unless, you know, you ask someone who is a member of another race.
Boohoo, my feelings are hurt by being called laowai! Stop economic development immediately and tend to my needs! I deserve special treatment from everyone, not just 99% of the population!!! Wah wah wah wah wah
The only “racist” problem in China is special treatment for foreigners. That needs attention more than anything else.
challenge to your clearly ridiculous assertion that all foreigners are more monolithic than the Chinese
But you are. And I’m talking about the most common laowai, the ones that come from countries with histories of genocides against non-whites and non-Christians.
“In fact, for many Chinese, … even when they talk about America they mainly talk about the whites.”
You need to be asking yourself about the source of their perceptions of America (and the ‘west’ in general).
[...] to start. And this post on CNReviews has nothing to do with the anniversary but does tie into the race issue we sometimes discuss and thus is worth mentioning, too. VN:F [1.1.8_518]wait, math is [...]
Great post and great comments in general.
Except for the anonymous guy. All he wrote is just a bunch of crap.
Dear China Geeks,
Please stop blogging about stuff that you find personally important or interesting. You have no right to an opinion (apparently now known as “Whining”), especially if people like anonymous do not agree with you, and of course if your opinions do not contribute to social stability.
Also, I would like to second this statement by the scholarly anonymous, “Europe and America are far, far more racist than China is or ever was or ever will be” (I double checked this with my crystal ball, its 95% accurate on race issues, 85% on economic issues, but only 25% accurate with lotto numbers).
I would also like to add, China and the Chinese are better than all of you whiteys, nah nah nah (blackeys too). All of the problems China has ever had have come from foreign devils. Oh and none of what I just said can be considered “racist bigotry” in any way shape or form, and the reason for this is basically cause I said so. Also, big ups to the Chinese Diaspora for utilizing values instilled in them through foreign institutions as a basis to denounce all foreigners
@anon: “/at the end of the day she is CHINESE!/
Nope. She’s half Chinese and half African American.”
You mean half Han. Chinese (as I’ve been told by many) is a nationality, so Uighurs and Tibetans, for example, who are in China and have Chinese citizenship are Chinese.
Is this right?
I really wonder why you have left out all the sane and sympethic comments that clearly shows Chinese people are against racism? Here’re some examples I found on Baidu:
“洪晃：我们凭什么歧视混血女孩娄婧” – “Hong Guan: what right do we have to discriminate against mixed blood girl Lou Jin”
“娄婧没有错，对娄母也应多宽容” – “Lou Jing is blameless, her mother deserves understanding too”
“看中国男人怎对娄婧母女发邪火” – “observing Chinese male-chovanism againt Lou mother-daughter”
“娄婧的呼声感人肺腑” – “Lou Jing’s appeal [to find father] moved me to the core”
“娄婧天使舞台证明自己和大家一样” – “Lou Jing’s stage presence proves she is the same as everyone”
“并不是因为她有着奥斯卡影后上海“哈利贝瑞”的称号。而是娄婧切身的故事” – “not because she resembles Halle Barry, but because of her life story”
“勿以肤色论英雄” – Shouldn’t judge by skin color
” “黑珍珠”娄婧证明自我” – “black pearl” Lou Jing proves self-worth
“娄婧比模特儿更美” – Lou Jing is more beautiful than models
“大家多谅解她吧” – people should cut her some slack
“娄婧是个小天使，这与她的肤色无关” – Lou Jing is an angel, matters not what skin color
“黑色只是普通的肤色” – Black is but a normal skin color
“很佩服你的勇气” – I admire your [Lou Jing's] courage
“自认为一番高论的鸟语,首先让我感到你真丢我们炎黄子孙的脸” – your [racist] self-righteous BS made me feel you’ve lost face for all Chinese
“应该让我们所有的人值得同情” – they deserve all our sympathy
[...] here and here offer a good overview of what’s happening on the blogs with some pretty inflammatory comments [...]
[...] with some interest that we read this story in the New York Times last week. It seems South Korea, like China, have some issues with racism. And South Korea, like China, is a country where the number of [...]
I am a Chinese and I currently live in the states. The story from today’s PBS radio program lead me to chinasmack website. I was very shocked, not at the racist attitude, but at how they openly and shameless express their racism without any concern (毫无廉耻地). I taught at a Chinese university for some 10 years before I left the country. I know there is no arguing that racism is an issue in China.
[...] many Chinese think of the preferential treatment foreigners sometimes receive, rather than anything else. (including famous lawyer Liu Xiaoyuan, who told us “Chinese law gives foreigners all sorts [...]