By continuing you agree to eChinacities's Privacy Policy .
Sign up with Google
Sign up with Facebook
Q: Any body else feels he learned to be racist in China?
yes that was in my welcome to / but this is China Class 101 . followed by the ten most common poses that Chinese use when being photographed with you
i believe it's more ethnocentrism mixed to xenophobia than racism. China as a civilization has never really theorized racism in such a systematic way the west did:Spinoza, Rosseau, Voltaire, Gobineau, just to mention a few..
I learned to be "racist' against blatant stupidty and lack of common sense.
coineineagh:
Yeah, it's more of an unconscious, thoughtless discrimination rather than maliciously singling us out. It's not like we are economically disadvantaged, it's just a lack of understanding that foreigners are private people deserving of the same respect they'd grant individuals here. Or maybe they look down on any form of outsider as a force of habit, whether they're foreign, poor, ugly, unpopular, not-well-connected or too noticeable.
Nope. As much as the locals can be annoying, I know that I should not blame them, but rather their leaders for not providing them with the means to grow into a modern society.
royceH:
No, you are wrong and your answer is too simplistic.
Unless you concede the people are stupid...in which case you are right.
Scandinavian:
what you call stupid, I would call "less well educated", which I think the people of China are (even those with an education)
Given the chance I am sure the Chinese people could make something useful of their country. Of course the poor education has to be paired with the culture of backwards thinking (which I believe would be countered by education)
I don't think it's racism per see, more like the average level of empathy for your unknown human fellow. Yes, I find people here more obnoxious than other place I lived before, but in China, people are obnoxious to one other. Also comes into play a great deal of ignorance mixed with insecurity. And this "insecure ignorance" is definitely a toy in the hand of the powers-to-be, one of the oldest tool in politics 
I believe this, because on a personal basis, people initially obnoxious became much warmer and considerate by knowing me. My in-laws for instance (and by extension, the whole family), went from really hostile, to close to adoptive parents. They saw their daughter being just fine, that I had a positive influence, that I would respect her and them, etc. This Christmas, they even called to wish me a Merry Christmas ! You should have seen the drama when I started to date my wife : "white demon in da house" ^^
So I did not learn to be racist in China. I learned, however, how primordial is education, to shape a society. To me, China is a good example of half-failure in that department (Cultural Revolution !) I became also more careful in my judgments when seeing terrible behavior ie. blaming the person and its education, rather than his skin color, his nation, his social group, his genetic pool, etc...
royceH:
So Dr, how're things going now?
Your spiel was a little challenging for me but I get the gist of it.
DrMonkey:
With the in-laws, it's very good now, they are warm, friendly, yet they are not invasive. We had to argue for them *not* to pay for the wedding ceremony. At work, never felt oppressed on a day to day basis. However, students would use the "teacher is a foreigner" argument to justify their bad grades, when a bit of observation shows it was just shoddy studying to blame. Outside, a few times, people would shout at me, migrant workers going out of constructions site and spotting me. I can not count the stupid stuffs people said because I'm white. Still not racist, I still blame ignorance, but i am now tired of living here partly because of this, a "you are a zoo animal for the rest of your life" feeling.
