kidneyfailure, as Isamu mentioned, your anecdote (which doesn’t exhibit racism at all- just friendly curiosity) is not what we’re talking about and I don’t think sven would have a problem with that type of behavior at all.
Forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown.
Homey, I agree it can be irritating as fuck. Sometimes you’re just not in the mood for another hello. From a little kid it might be cute or just annoying, from a teenage guy or even worse an adult sometimes you want to take a dull butter knive and do a little carving.
Keep in mind that shouting Hello at a foreigner is enshrined in the media. Even worse, 99 times out of a 100 it takes you by surprise and you react. So, most Chinese have been socialized from birth that shouting hello is alright, maybe even polite. At least it’s the done thing. Plenty of people that do it are just *trying *to be friendly. Most Chinese have never interacted with a foreigner before.
IMHO, it is not some giant conspiracy to annoy the fucking hell out of you until you leave the country (although on some days it sure seems like it is a giant conspiracy :o). The vast majority of people who do it are clueless rather than malicious. Most don’t realize it’s a kind of invasion of personal space or privacy. And keep in mind that mainland Chinese views on personal space and privacy are understandably different than that of America.
Rather than jumping to conclusions, I would also really ask those local Chinese walking with you without a pre-concieved notion or leading questions, whether they “get” that the shouted “hello” is not a nice gesture? Did they used to do it themselves? How many of your companions are embarressed because you are embarrassed or upset versus they really understand that it can be irritating as fuck? Maybe they do “get it” and maybe they are just embarrassed on your behalf.
Personally, IMHO, I chalk it up to ignorance and not racism. I’m a lot older than most of you, my kids have trained me in patience, and I’ve been in China for a long time with the perspective of 25 years of development. YMMV
Ya, well, one person’s friendly curiousity is another’s racist behavior, no? It’s a very fine line, especially on a message board. And if I had a nickel for every time someone has pulled the hair on my arm I’d be sitting on a beach somewhere instead of being a corporate serf.
And yet I still doubt it’s the kind of thing that sven would have a problem with.
Is this kind of thing what you guys seriously think is being called racism? I’m really confused by the last couple of examples of ‘see, I can live with racism’, i.e, hair-pulling and hat-removing, because they have absolutely nothing to do with racism.
I’d be relieved if people on the train pulled hairs from my arms. Damn, they want to see how my hair is different. And they don’t think my hair will infect them with HIV. Pluck away!
Man, I am in such a bad mood right now.
I went to our town’s single classy bar- a nice place where businessmen take their wives to let loose on the weekends. A friend was playing drums with his band there. Nothing sleazy about it, it’s actually a really cool place. I had a single beer with a male friend and two female friends. Coming straight from a meeting, I was in a demure pastel qipao.
The owner of the bar previously dated a foreigner here. Their relationship ended when his Chinese fiancée climbed through the window while they were sleeping together. He’s come on to me before, and I’ve always soundly rejected him. No flirting. I’m not interested.
Today he walked up to me in the bar and started grabbing me as he walked by. I figured he was drunk and continued talking with my friends. Then he lunges at me across the table and tries to get me to kiss him. I pull away, and he grabs me hard and forces my face into his, digs his fingernails into my skin. Grabbed me hard enough that it still hurts in a few places.
Thank god it’s almost over. Since my last relationship rather publicly ended every predatory fuck in town has tried to pull shit on me. Since I’ve been single they all feel like they’ve got a shot, and they don’t much care what I feel about it. I’ve got friends who have endured worse than some grabbing, and been advised that there is no way a foreign woman can seek justice for sexual assault.
My body hurts where he grabbed me, my night is ruined, I’m supposed to teach a seminar on female empowerment tomorrow, and I feel like a piece of trapped prey. Fuck the fuckers who take advantage of other people.
The discussion of ignorance and racism put me in mind of the story of Lanier Phillips.
Sorry to double post.
Jesus Sven, that sucks.
Can you explain this? Do you mean that in Chinese TV shows, when they show foreign people (do they?) they show them greeting each other with "hello!"s? Is that different from how Chinese people greet each other?
The way simple homer described it, it does seem to be jerk behaviour, but not especially racist (well, other than the fact they do it to foreigners) and not singularly Chinese either. We’ve had threads before about the things people get yelled at when they’re going around town. People in cars yelling stuff at cyclists to startle them and try to make them fall off their bike, for example. I chalk it up to people everywhere being assholes, regardless of nationality.
But of course, if you stand out in any way, you attract these people.
About the shouting “helloooo” thing – Imagine a Chinese person walking down the street in the US past a group of white guys, and the clown of the group pulls up the corners of his eyes, sticks out his buck teeth and says loudly, “Chingy chongy ching ching chong!” Ha ha ha ha, the whole group cracks up. That’s pretty much what it sounds like to me.
Yes, that is a very good analogy. I do not believe that the “hellos” are done to be friendly. It is the only word in English that most of them know, so that is what they shout to try to impress or amuse each other. The laughing and giggling is what also confirms to me that they do not think they are being polite or friendly.
My Chinese friends never shout hello at me, they approach me and talk to me just like any other normal person. I have asked my Chinese friends about the “hello” shouters, and they tell me that they are being “foolish”.
You need to pull the corners of each eye upwards with your index fingers and shout back “Arrooow yourself. How you likey now?”
I hope she’s taking kung-fu classes as well.
The only problem is that it would just confirm the stereotype that we are here just to entertain them by being the “dancing monkey”.
I seriously doubt they would understand any of the sarcasm anyway.
Several times I have entered new classrooms just to have the first 10 or so questions from the students being some version of “will you sing and dance for us ?”
I always tell them I will never do that. These are high school and university students, not little kids.
Sometimes I do feel as though we are viewed as less than human.
About once a week someone will walk up to me and put their face in my face and stare at me without looking away. It is as though they are viewing a monkey in the zoo. I know that sounds extreme, but it does happen.
I don’t know anything at all about China, or racism in China. But, my daughter’s violin teacher adopted a little girl from China. From her first day at class, she was fascinated with my daughter, who was the only black kid in the class. She would walk right up to my daughter (they were about 7 or 8) and grab her hair and squeeze it. My daughter used to look at me uncomfortably like, “WTF”.
The teacher came up to me and apologized. Then she actually laughed and said, “You really can’t blame her, though.” Haa! Yeah. I guess not.
I had heard before that blacks are looked down on really badly by the Chinese, but every Chinese person I ever met had always been very kind to me. That was the only strange experience I had ever had, and even then, I thought it was more cute than racist.
Boy, some of these posts make me think I would be shocked, shocked at the treatment I would get in China! I would still love to go though.
Chinese guy here. I think I have the credibility if not the ethinicity to speak on this but yes, a lot of people from China are fucking racists. And no, it’s not simply ignorance, but a rabid refusal to acknowledge that we’re all humans
It’s like the Chinese biological community decided to stop anthropology somewhere in the Western era circa 1800’s. Foreigners not only look different, they ARE different. It’s like a god damn bunch of racists decided one day to fucking stop learning biology when it became uncomfortable.
Part of this is the lack of contact. But then Japan is very homogenous too and they don’t have nearly the same problem. Yes, China is more socially backwards than Japan, who only 60 years ago still had an emperor and thought suicide was preferable to defeat in battle. The sameness in Chinese society pushed by the Communist Party does nothing to help combat this extreme xenophobia. It IS stupid, it IS racist, and it is purposeful, that’s the greatest shame. I’d rather Chinese people be accidently retarded than purposefully retarded. They need to get over the fucking Opium Wars already and get over the fact that they are not the center of the universe. Their kingdom had their time, now it’s the US’s turn
Just when you think the thread is running out of steam.
Yeah, fuck you and your pointy hats, China!
I did not call that racism. I mentioned that as an example of something I would not expect someone in, say, America to do because they should know better than to not do that. In China (where that happened) people don’t know any better, so they do it and I don’t get angry.
Did you guys read what I wrote? I said that was NOT something that would offend me in China because it was done out of ignorance, not spite or malice. I guess I didn’t make myself clear.
Fucking disgusting. Sorry to hear that kind of shit happened.