Born to a Chinese mother and a black American father, the 20-year-old Shanghai Theatre Academy student was the major draw in successive appearances on a Shanghai TV talent show Let’s Go! Oriental Angel that began airing in June. But the audience was not as interested in her performances as her unusual complexion and mysterious life story.
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Reaction to black talent star shows gulf in cultural sensitivities
Martin Zhou
12 September 2009
Aspiring singer Lou Jing longed for stardom, but she quickly discovered how cruel the spotlight can be.
Born to a Chinese mother and a black American father, the 20-year-old Shanghai Theatre Academy student was the major draw in successive appearances on a Shanghai TV talent show Let’s Go! Oriental Angel that began airing in June. But the audience was not as interested in her performances as her unusual complexion and mysterious life story.
Lou’s Shanghainese mother said in one broadcast that the father, a black American she did not identify, had returned to the United States after she gave birth, leaving her to raise her daughter alone.
It doesn’t take much to start a frenzy in the mainland’s unruly online community, and here was plenty of fodder for them.
Soon, self-styled “insiders” began claiming in chat rooms that Lou was the product of an extramarital affair. Some claimed her mother had admitted to adultery - which, for anyone who had listened to her comments on the show, was total nonsense.
More sinister was the anger some in the online community directed at Lou - or the “Chocolate Girl”, as she was unfortunately christened because of the colour of her skin.
“I can understand the mother going for a foreigner, which is considered fashionable, but she shouldn’t have picked a black man,” one commentator wrote. “Mixing yellow [skin] with black only produces gross results,” another opined.
These were not isolated comments; the same sentiments were expressed in major chat rooms and on internet bulletin boards. Lou declined to be interviewed for this column, but said she was deeply hurt by the misinformation and racism.
Historically, China’s Han majority has been inclusive when it comes to accommodating people from other racial backgrounds. During the Tang dynasty (AD618-907), for example, the country’s capital, Changan, was the world’s most cosmopolitan city. But in recent years, as the mainland has begun opening up to the world, racist remarks and practices have started to attract more attention.
Shouting curses at “black devils” - the equivalent of the “monkey” chants heard at some European soccer grounds - is not unusual at domestic sports events involving African players, but seldom is anyone punished. Even in big cities, police are inclined to associate all Africans with drug dealing - which detractors consider a case of racial profiling based on the transgressions of a few.
In March, a graphic mock-up of human evolution in different countries proved to be a hit with Chinese-language bloggers. The reason: the African line ended up as an ape in hip hop gear.
One American blogger took notice and pointed out the racist overtone, prompting “Hecaitou”, an influential Chinese blogger, to offer five reasons to disprove the existence of racism on mainland China. Among them, he argued that Chinese could “make fun of black people because it had no history of slavery”.
Part of the problem is ignorance. Many mainlanders simply don’t realise the biases that they harbour, which owes much to a lack of school education on racial issues.
Textbooks still portray racism as a foreign social malaise, and “ethnic unity” is seen as nothing more than a state of harmony between the Han and the 55 minority groups on the mainland. Teaching of foreign languages remains geared towards providing students with skills to find good jobs and earn more money, not as an instrument to better understand other cultures.
Racial discrimination remains selective - stereotypes based on nationality, wealth and social status play a significant role in biases. In Lou’s case, some chat-room contributors went to great lengths to disprove her mother’s claim that the father was a black American.
“If her father was an American, why hasn’t Lou’s mother gained her daughter American citizenship, which was her right? So I reckon her mother was lying and her biological father was probably from Africa. She lied just to try to save face,” one posting read.
It doesn’t take a degree in rocket science to conclude that an African father is considered inferior to an African-American one.
This type of racial stigma is linked to a broader social bias. It is not unusual for a guy from an inland city who dates a girl from Beijing or Shanghai to become the target of envy at home. At the same time, low-income migrants are held in low regard by residents of major cities.
Lou told the television station that she grew up surrounded by people who looked at her “in a bizarre way”. It appears little has changed now she is an adult.
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