china racism

China’s international profile is somewhere in the upper stratosphere these days, what with the Olympics (acute) and the changing face of the global economy (chronic). The increased exposure is a double-edged sword, of course. Greater outside awareness can bring unwanted scrutiny in addition to the hoped-for enhanced respect.

And that’s all fine and good; nothing is ever a one-way street, and the Chinese government has some serious failures in its current governance policies which ought to be questioned.

But that’s no excuse for why bullshit emails containing such gems as:

Subject: FW: Learn Chinese for the Olympics

ENGLISH                                CHINESE
Your body odor is offensive            Yu Stin Ki Pu
&c.

are circulating around (and happen to land in my inbox). Maybe the alleged humour hits too close to home, but I don’t even understand how something like this is funny. I mean, making fun of the way a language sounds because of your own shortcomings (you don’t understand it, duh) is funny? Really? [Ok, I guess it's also mocking the way that Chinese ESL speakers pronounce English too, so, um, bonus points for attempts at theory of mind humour, but seriously, that ain't even close to the New Yorker.]

Which brings me to an article in Business Pundit entitled 7 Deadly Perceptions About Doing Business with China. The article itself is mildly interesting if you happen to be a business nerd, but there’s an almost throwaway line in there that explains perfectly the racism¹ I encounter more often than I would have expected in 2008, A.D.:

Being terrified of a culture, then masking those feelings in a sense of superiority—as Carmosky claims we do with China—isn’t conducive to successful business and economic relations.

My armchair hypothesis? The complete unfamiliarity of Chinese culture to most Americans is what makes it most terrifying. The racism directed at other ethnic blocs (African-Americans, Hispanics) seems to deal with “known”, familiar entities; as a country, we have a lot of collective day to day exposure, as well as much historical exposure, to both African-Americans and Hispanics, but not so much with Chinese.

Adjusting to the changing world order is going to be hard for America and Americans. Chinese-Americans can help; we ABCs A Good Nightnd Good Luck. the movie have deep, conflicting roots steeped in both cultures. Get to know us, leverage our innate existential angst, and learn about and welcome your new overlords.

If you can read this, it will happen in your lifetime.

^1: Both the backhanded unintentional flavour as well as good ol’ fashioned out and out “I hate different people” kind