From: mark@cs.UAlberta.CA (Mark Green)
Subject: Re: Discourse on Race in Modern China
Organization: University of Alberta
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 18:51:08 GMT

In article <92290.113704SXS30@psuvm.psu.edu> <SXS30@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
>In article <1992Oct15.231759.4170@cs.UAlberta.CA>, mark@cs.UAlberta.CA (Mark
>Green) says:
>>
>>Any foreigner. Here's a couple of examples for you:
>
> Doesn't seem make any sense to me.
>
>>
>>1) Black students studying at chinese universities.  There is a considerable
>>   amount of racial tension between chinese students and black students.
>>   This has even resulted in riots at several universities.  I have seen
>>   these problems several times when I have been teaching in China.
>            *******************************************************
>
>     1) How long you had been teach in China?

5 years.

>     2) Which university did you teach there?

I have lectured at universities in Beijing, Harbin, Wuhan, Nanjing, and
Shanghai.

>
>>
>>2) Foreigners that work in China.  Talk to any foreigner teacher at a
>                                           *****
>>   Chinese university.  Teaching in China is a wonderful experience, well
>>   worth doing, but you will run into many forms of racial discrimination.
>    Give me a break, I had worked in international trade company long
>   enough to tell you this is not the truth. Many foreigner I met
>   may complain that they were treated so well that they feel they would
>   like to live as an ordinary people.
>

By the way, I'm not complaining, I'm just responding to a previous poster
that stated that there was no racism in China. Since you don't seem to
want to believe me I will give you some examples that have happened to
me personally.

1) A few months ago I was visiting a university in Nanjing.  In the middle
of the day I left campus on an errand (if I remember correctly to
purchase a plane ticket).  One of the professors I was visiting sent
his daughter along with me.  When we returned to campus the guard at the
gate detained both of us.  He accussed her of being a prostitute and
was in the process of giving me a lecture about how I should behave in
China when her father came along to see what was going on.  Even though
the situation was explained to him, this same guard repeated this process
on several other occassions.  All of these incidents occured in either
the morning or the afternoon (if they occured in the evening, I could
see a reason for it happening once, but not several times).

2) A year ago I was at a conference in Hangzhou.  After the conference
I needed to go to Wuhan.  The conference organizers said they would
arrange the tickets for me.  When I asked for a plane flight to Wuhan,
I was told that there was no flight and I would have to take the train.
At the same time the conference organizers were booking plane flights
to Wuhan for chinese attendees at the conference.  When I informed
them of this, they said said the plane was full.  But, it seems that there
was still room for chinese attendees on this flight, since several attendees
got ticket several days after I inquired.  Finally, I bought the ticket
myself, the airline was quite happy to fill up one of the many empty
seats on that flight.

The type of treatment you get often depends upon where you are.  If you
are in a tourist or business area, then foreigners get treated very
well (in my opinion, too well).  But, when you leave these areas the
treatment is often quite different.  I am involved with collaborative
research projects with chinese universities, so being stuck in some
tourist hotel is counter-productive.  I need to be close to the students
and professors who are working on the project, so I sometimes end up
staying in areas where few foreigners stay.  This is where the more interesting
encounters occur.  If you were looking after business people, you may
not have seen any of this.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american