It Doesn't Matter If You're Black Or White

A recent TV show has caused uproar here, a singing talent contest from Shanghai called Oriental Angel. The reason, one of the contestants isn't really Chinese. Sure she was born here, has lived here all her life, speaks Chinese as her first language (with a Shanghainese accent no less), but that isn't enough. She is half-black. Hiss boo. Her appearance on the show has caused an online backlash with comments such as, "Ugh. Yellow people and black people mixed together is very gross,". In conservative China, being the product of an extramarital relationship also doesn't help. Another blogger wrote: "Numb! This bitch still has the audacity to appear on television! I don't know what to say! One cannot be shameless to this kind of level!"

So the big newsflash is basically that China is really quite racist. No it isn't acceptable, but yes it is understandable. China is a monoculture, there are very few foreigners, let alone naturalised citizens of non-Chinese descent. China was closed to the world for a long time, and here it shows. The idea that a foreigner could ever be naturalised doesn't exist. If you ask how long it would take for someone living here to be seen as Chinese, the answer is never, they aren't Chinese (by blood). Then you are looked at questioningly, to determine why you asked something so stupid. There is a Canadian man called Dashan who has almost reached the Chinese version of "naturalisation". When I first started learning Chinese, Dashan seemed amazing, his Mandarin is perfect, many people say he can speak better than most Chinese people. Now I get here, I find him deeply irritating. I've begun to realise that having him on TV being bonked on the head with a giant hammer for Chinese New Year, doesn't help me to taken seriously. Normally the actions of one foreigner wouldn't be seen as so representative, but with so few of us around, he is taken as a serious example, as is the comic way he is treated. I sometimes feel that in class I am expected to entertain rather than teach, something I now purposefully avoid. To tar all of my students with the same brush that they see me as only an amusing puppet would be unfair, but it is a more prevalent viewpoint than it should be.

It seems to me that generally white foreigners are seen as wealthy and a source of interest, whereas non-white foreigners are viewed with suspicion. Even as the most common type of suspicious foreigner, I have been poked on the metro (to check I was real?), laughed at for not understanding things (the idea of not being a native speaker was quite hilarious) and told by my doctor that I was too young to be abroad. Normally I find these attitudes quite amusing as well, less hostile than the attitude towards some immigrants in the UK. At least as an English teacher, I'm not stealing anyone's job.


Luckily the Western teachers are on hand to deliver some moral teachings along with their English lessons. One of my colleagues did a lesson on racism in China and showed pictures of mixed race couples. Satisfied that she had now she shown all the students a better way to treat people, she asked, "So who would be prepared to have a non-Chinese partner?" The response was quick, "If I could tell her apart from a piece of coal," said one student with a grin. When the teacher looked back at the student rather falteringly, he realised that he had made a mistake. "You know, coal, mei2煤)," he clarified. Satisfied that all was clear, he sat back down. Well at least my students can tell me apart from the snow outside, so they're progressing well...