She is attractive, effervescent and has an appealing voice. These qualities alone, however, would not have made Lou Jing (婁婧) the most famous TV talent show contestant in China and the subject of national debate in the world’s most populous country. The reason they are talking about Lou is because she is black.
The 20-year-old daughter of a Chinese mother and an African-American father who left the country before she was born, Lou was a highly unusual entrant to Shanghai-based Dragon TV’s Go Oriental Angel. Her appearances — she became one of five finalists — have provoked a storm of abuse on the Internet, a rare debate on racism in the media, and a bout of self-examination in a country where skin color is a notoriously sensitive subject.
Dragon TV initially had doubts about allowing Lou to perform, but then realized that her presence would do much to attract publicity for the show. Few executives, however, could have expected the fury contained in many of the blogs and online posts that accompanied her performances.
The Internet is the only place in China where the public can express views with near-freedom — although they are rapidly cut off by an army of state censors if they stray into territory that attracts official disapproval. The huge online interest in Lou clearly does not fall into this category.
“Ugh. Yellow people and black people mixed together is very gross,” was one representative post.
And Lou’s critics are incensed not only by her color, but also because she is apparently the product of an extramarital relationship.
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!”
Lou told Neteast News that the level of hostility had come as a shock.
“The whole thing was a big bomb to my family and me and it caused great harm,” she said. “I wish netizens could tolerate my particular parentage and let it go as soon as possible.”
She said that she is a true Shanghainese, an assertion underlined by her accent. There has been no official response to the racism, but public figures have been quick to join what has become an impassioned debate on the Chinese and race.
TRAITOR
Media commentator and author Hung Huang (洪晃) wrote on her blog: “In the same year that Americans welcome Obama to the White House, we can’t even accept this girl with a different skin color.”
The China Daily newspaper also published a sterling defense of the young theater student, written by one of its top columnists.
“There are two factors at work here,” wrote Raymond Zhou (周黎明), a China Daily editorialist. “Lou Jing is not a pure-blood Chinese and anyone who marries a foreigner is deemed a ‘traitor’ to his or her race. More relevant, Lou’s father is black.”
Zhou said: “It is high time we introduced some sensitivity training on races and ethnicities if we are going to latch on to the orbit of globalization.
People should realize that if you have a right to discriminate against another race, you have automatically given others the right to discriminate against you.”
Chip Tsao (陶傑), one of Hong Kong’s leading columnists and cultural commentators, believes that a child of a Chinese woman and a black person hits all the buttons that cause prejudice among Chinese.
“It’s an obnoxious novelty,” he said, adding that Chinese prejudice against black people was part of “prejudice against people less well-off than themselves.”
There was, he said, greater acceptance of Europeans because they were viewed as successful, but mixed Chinese/white European couples frequently attracted racist comment.
One leading actress, Jiang Ziyi (章子怡), who has an Israeli boyfriend, has routinely been accused of betrayal for consorting with a foreigner. A stark reminder of official racism came last year when Ding Hui (丁慧), of mixed Chinese and African parentage, was barred from representing his country in the national volleyball team.
TABOO
China officially lists 56 approved ethnic minorities within its borders, but discussion about ethnic differences is largely taboo. Racial tensions have recently broken out between the Muslim Uighur population, who look more like Europeans, and the “Chinese”-looking majority.
In the era of late Chinese leaderMao Zedong (毛澤東) there was much talk of China’s brotherhood with the developing world, which led to many African students arriving to study in Chinese universities and the export of many Chinese workers to Africa, to help with development.
Tsao said that although modern China invested in African raw material companies, it did not trust local workers and instead imported its own. Many Chinese remain unaware that certain forms of behavior and language are unacceptable in multicultural societies elsewhere.
Unsurprisingly shaken by the fallout from what was supposed to be a talent contest, Lou and her mother are contemplating legal action against a Shanghai newspaper that they claim fabricated an interview about her father. In two years she will graduate. After that she plans to study in Europe or the US.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS