From: lulu@ucrengr.ucr.edu (david lu)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
Subject: Re: Racism against WHITE in China??? (was Re: Caucasians don't understand
Date: 17 Aug 92 16:36:40 GMT
Article-I.D.: ucru2.6242
Organization: University of California, Riverside

In article <92229.214547ZQH@psuvm.psu.edu> ZQH@psuvm.psu.edu writes:
>In <1992Aug16.025209.24056@cs.UAlberta.CA>
>mark@cs.UAlberta.CA (Mark Green) writes:
>>There is a major difference between racism in North America and China.
>>In North America the racism is more subtle, while in China its blatant.
>>In some parts of China, a white person walking on the streets alone
>>can count on some type of physical attack on a regular basis.  Several
>>             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ???
>>times in a dining hall I've not been served while all the chinese sitting
>>                       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ???
>>around have been served.  As far as the waiters were concerned I didn't
>>belong in China so I wasn't going to be fed.  With this type of racism
>>
>
>Racism against WHITE people in China???  Could you please elaborate
>the situations you encountered?

Yes, there *is* racism against white people in China, though I've
never seen it to the extend that Mark described it above.  I'll
elaborate below.

>As an English-speaking WHITE person, you should have been swarmed
>by hordes of VERY friendly & eager-to-please college students who
>try to practice English with you.  Other ordinary people should
>have paid much more respect and attention to you than to other
>Chinese --- the 5th or 6th class citizens.

This is also true.  Foreigners are treated much better than native
Chinese in China.  But this is only because of one thing: foreigners
have money.  I will still consider this to be racism, even though
people can argue that it's more of a racism towards the *Chinese*,
rather than the foreigners.  But just because the foreigners are
treated better, it does not mean they are treated more fairly.

I doubt that the foreigners in China will be swamped by college
students eager to practice their English.  They'll be swamped,
all right, by pickpockets and robbers who consider whites an easy
and "high-yield" crime target.  Whites also have to pay a higher
premium than native Chinese for just about everything.  Example:
when I was traveling in China a few years ago, I met these two
European students who were traveling through China on a budget.
They were literally broke when I met them.  They were trying to
get way back to Shanghai, so they can get back to Europe (can't
remember the country they're from).  However, because they are
white, they have to buy bus tickets at a cost that is many times
more expensive than what the native Chinese would have to pay.
No, not for better seats (for there *are* no better seats in
Chinese buses), and not for better treatment.  They simply *have*
to pay the foreigner price.  It's the law.  Well, the european
students cannot afford the more expensive price, but they can
easily afford the native price.  However, the guy selling the
tickets won't budge.  Since I speak English, and the europeans
also speak a little English, I was able to get this information
from them.  I'm Chinese and speak Chinese, so I argued for them
with the ticket counter, but still can't get the native price for
them.  I ended up buying the tickets for them at the native price,
so that they can get to Shanghai and get the hell out of that
country.  I *like* China, and it pains me to see how whites are
treated like that.  I'm not sure why China insists on this policy.
It's obvious that those two foreigners will *never* come back to
China again.  And I'm sure that they will be telling their friends
back home to stay away as well.

				- David

-- 
---==lulu@ucrengr==---  just another overworked graduate student.
David T Lu, Amateur Thinker: lulu@ucrengr.ucr.edu, {ucsd, uci}!ucrengr!lulu
"I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle."
					- Arthur Dent, Hitchhiker's
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american